“Polo-Day” – Buenos Aires 11th March – Day 8

With an overnight stop in Buenos Aires, we were finally able to book our day trip to the Polo Ranch (something we had tried to do while in Buenos Aires previously).  Polo is a popular sport in Argentina and they are number one in the world. Many polo ponies are trained and exported from Argentina.  4 players on each side, playing 6 “chuckers” (rounds) per game, changing horse every chucker – as you can imagine, its an expensive hobby! (Especially flying a string of polo ponies around the world!)

We were driven to the polo club / ranch about 50 km north of the city, and greeted with empanadas and red wine, while they gave us a display of a polo game.




A typical Argentine “Asada” followed (with plenty of meat..) and then a chance for us to get on the horses and learn a bit of “Stick and Ball” (Polo).

We had great fun – it’s a lot harder than it looks – we had enough problems trying to hit the ball when stationary (I was also so worried about smashing the horse in the face!) – trying to hit it when moving seemed impossible!

Charlotte found a half dead abandoned kitten, and, despite her love of riding, preferred to spend the whole time looking after the kitten! (after her care, we are hopping it might survive..)

After a while, there were just 2 of us still persevering, and so the owner, Marco, challenged us to a “chucker” of polo – him against the 2 of us.  Needless to say, he wiped the floor with us, even when he hit it in our direction a few times! And he didn’t come up to tackle when I stopped in front of the ball, before trying to hit it.

From 2011-03-11 Polo Day

At the end of a great day, they drove us back to Buenos Aires.  We stopped off at the hotel where we had stored 2 suitcases for 2 weeks, and then back to the boat, just in time for dinner!