Ecuador: Paula, A Girl’s Favorite Cow

Twelve-year-old Birgit asked me to photograph her with Paula, her favorite cow. She works as a cowgirl on her family’s vast hacienda, or cattle ranch, in the coastal lowlands of Ecuador’s Guayas Province. She’s the same I showed on my yesterday’s post, riding a horse with a sheep across her lap.

I spent several days photographing her and her 14-year-old sister Belén at work. First, during the dry season, when they spend much of their time on horseback. Later, during the rainy season, when their family’s land sinks under  Andean torrents, and moving is now done mostly by canoe.

By then the family’s men and their cowboys had moved most of the hacienda’s 400 zebus,  nearly100 sheep, and many horses to higher ground for several months. They had left behind only two or three cows to keep the women with milk.

I’m planning a children’s ebook of the girls’ lives. I’ll title it

Young Cowgirls in Ecuador: A Time for Horses, A Time for Canoes.

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Ecuador: Bringing Home A Stray Sheep

Twelve-year-old girl bringing stray sheep back to her family’s hacienda, or ranch, near Salitre, in Ecuador's Guayas Province.

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Ecuador: Otavalo Boy Harvesting Barley

Otavalo boy helping his family to harvest barley near the Andean town of Otavalo, Ecuador.

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Why, In So Many Parts Of The World, Are Women Stronger Than Men? Because They Do The Heavy Lifting

Pounding millet near Boundiali, Ivory Coast.

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Ivory Coast: Abidjan Market Scene

African women never leave their small children out of sight. They carry them on their backs wherever they go and to whatever task that awaits them. A thoughtful fruit vendor at the market of Abidjan, Ivory Coast, installed her baby girl inside a water-filled basin. It’s hot in Abidjan, and the baby happily throws water at herself.

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Ivory Coast: Climbing Saves You Money In Abidjan

Watching a soccer (football) game in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, from complimentary  perches.

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Argentina: Life And Death Of Patagonian Sheep

Patagonian sheep enjoy great social life, much space to roam over, and plenty to eat. But, as in some human societies, at some time in their lives they must go under the knife. And sooner or later they end up as roast meat. 

This post includes 12 photographs

A gaucho herds sheep back to an estancia’s white buildings, visible as white dots above the horse’s head along the San José Gulf, at the tip of the Valdés Peninsula. They are needed there to be sheared.

Under a heavy sky, along fields of wild yellow flowers, a gaucho is herding sheep back to a corral in Patagonia’s Chubut Province.

Gauchos marking lambs's ears. To rapidly distinguish between capons, ordinary females, and females reserved for breeding, the men cut capons’tails midway and those of ordinary females entirely. They let the breeders keep their tails.

In Patagonia’s Valdés Peninsula sheep await their turn to be shorn of their wool.

 In Patagonia’s Valdés Peninsula gauchos are chasing sheep towards the shearing shed.

Inside the shed of a Valdés Peninsula’s estancia, a dozen men are shearing sheep. Their shears come attached to the tentacles of a motorized machine built like a carousel. Legs tied, other sheep lie around awaiting their turn.

Shorn sheep returning to pasture.

Preparing wool to be packed.

Waiting for more wool before closing the bundle.

Stacking bundles of wool for pick up.

Marking bundles for pick up.

A Puerto Madryn-based veterinarian, owner of the large Valdés Peninsula hacienda shown in some of the above photographs, is sharing a barbecued rack of sheep with his two gauchos and me. He helped me find the two horses I used in a 1984 Patagonia crossing whose story Smithsonian magazine published.

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Argentina: Scenes Of Old Patagonia

The blue light of dusk colors a familiar scene in the small Patagonian town of Gualjaina, in the Chubut Province. A gaucho is saddling his horse to ride back home. His pack horse is loaded with a small bag of small purchases he made. Though he had a few drinks in the bar, behind the left door, he won’t put anyone’s life in danger on the way back. With ill luck he will only fall off his horse.

The small Chubut town of Gan-Gan was even quieter than usual the 1984 day I shot this picture. It was Election Day and the bar was closed. However, I made my way inside and found a noisy smoked-filled back room crowded with very happy drinking gauchos who invited me to share the fun. The men sitting outside may only have been a false boredom front.

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Argentina: Rugged Men Of Patagonia

Cattle ranch foreman

Sheep herding gauchos at the end of a long hard day

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Argentina: Typical Patagonia Scene

At dusk, having tied their horses to a tree, two Mapuche Indians converse with relatives they came to visit near Paso del Sapo, a hamlet lost in the middle of the Chubut Province of Argentina’s Patagonia. Completing the composition, the dog that followed them there is waiting for them with the same patience as their horses.

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