We had great experiences in Patagonia, visiting Glacier, hiking scenic trails, strolling the lovely towns, enjoying Patagonian tea and Argentinian cuisines. The best of all belonged to our three days and two nights at Nibepo Aike Estancia. The Estancia experience is a childhood dream come true. I felt like I was living in a fairy tale, the kind of experience to freeze time just to stay there for a bit longer.
Estancia in Latin America is similar to a ranch in America. Nibepo Aike Estancia offers an all inclusive package, covering the transportation, the room, the boarding and all the Estancia activities. Nibepo Aike Estancia is about an hour drive from El Calafate. The Estancia staff picked us up from the Airbnb we stayed in El Calafate. There were only three guests in the van – the two of us, and Jackie who stayed in a hostel in El Calafate. J, short for Jackie, was a retired Math school from England. J is tall, fit and is a seasoned solo traveller. Being a British, J insisted that the way to prepare milk tea properly is after brewing the tea, we should pour the tea into milk, not the other way round. I have changed our milk tea preparation ever since. We ran into J a few more times in El Chalten. I remember her fondly and sent her New Year Greetings weeks after we all returned home.
We arrived at the Estancia and experienced a change in pace almost immediately. It accommodates only about 20 guests in a big ranch. It was quiet on the day of our arrival. Still it has taken us quite a while to check in. No one was in a hurry. We settled ourselves comfortably in the cafe. It was not meal time yet, there were hardly any other guests. While waiting for our room to be ready, we were treated with the coffee offered by the General Manager Silvano. It was not any ordinary coffee. It was his own coffee beans and his own coffee maker. Silvano went out to milk the cow to get the freshest milk possible. That cup of coffee made one of the most delicious coffee in the quiet cafe listening to relaxing music.
It may be a slow pace for travellers. Life in Estancia is very busy and is full of errands for the staff. Nibepo Aike Estancia is one of the very few that remains functional, with sheep, cattles, horses, chickens in a beautiful and peaceful landscape. The grass is greener. The lakes are clearer. The snow-capped mountains are changing daily with the snow-cap shrinking daily with Spring arriving in this part of the world. There is a short hill that the guests can walk up to appreciate the ranch. Imagine Heidi in the Swiss Alps, that is the kind of life – the freshly produced milk from the cattles, the sheep, the sheep shearing and the scenic landscape. We participated in a ranch day with a tour guide. We had a chance to milk the cow. To keep us safe, the hind legs of the cow had to be tied for our milking. The cows produce less milk in the Estancia than those milked by the machines in cities. I am convinced the milk tastes better when the cows are more relaxed in the Estancia. In the morning, hundreds of sheep were let out of the barn. The sheep were in such a hurry to feed on the pasture that we often found the nearby shrubs caught their wool. We also had a chance to feed milk from a bottle to a baby sheep. A native know-it-all demonstrated the sheep shearing. I am not much of a lamb eater, but the whole lamb asado, as part of the ranch day, made the best lamb dish with its fragrance, its tastes, and its warmth.
(to be continued)
oliviatamccue 