Much of the year, peace reigns over Colombia’s Llanos orientales, the vast grasslands spreading east of the Andes
Mountains. Cattle and horses roam freely, left alone to enjoy themselves and reproduce.
At such times, few men are needed to keep the ranch going.
But when the time comes to bring the newborn calves to the corral to
mark them, large numbers of freelance cowboys get hired—many of them young
daredevils. All cowboys will ride barefoot. They will come with their own
hammocks to be hung under a communal roof. And during the days their work will be
needed they will be up at 4 a.m. to breakfast on beef ribs and black coffee.
It’s still dark when they start selecting the four horses each of them will
exhaust in mad around-the-clock gallops. They are difficult horses that were never
mounted before or had not been mounted for many months. The cows are equally wild.
I had to photograph them from the safety of my own horse or of a tree limb.
The picture above shows two of the poncho-clad barefoot cowboys
selecting, in the sparse light of a blue rainy dawn, the four horses each will
need to alternate that day to do his job.
In the next few days I will post more of those cowboys’ pictures.
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