Gringo Meets Cowboy Chileno

Returning from the beautiful resort towns of Pucon and Villarica, am at the central bus station in Talca, Chile trying to buy a ticket for the next day’s six hour ride to Santiago continuing on to Viña del Mar, my final destination. After buying the ticket I see a Chilean cowboy and just for giggles I walk up to him a say “nice hat cowboy (huaso).”

I did not realize it when I first complimented his head gear, but as soon as he spoke to me I was knocked down by the fact that he had already been drinking hard that day and it was still early afternoon. On the other hand I was pacing myself and had had only one bottle of red wine with my lunch but in comparison to my mellow buzz the hauso was seriously intoxicated. So apparently he likes the cut of my jib and invites me to have a beer with him at his favorite watering hole, and I accept.

We walk a few blocks to a local dive and order a couple of draft beers, but the bartender refuses to serve my new found drinking buddy. The bartender obviously knew El Huaso Loco and after a bit of begging from the cowboy, eventually conceded to serve him a small (.33 liter) and me a 1/2 liter draft. So we drink our beers and I’m telling him that I’m looking to buy farmland in the area. After a minute or two we order another round, small beer for the cowboy and a man-sized one for me. When we tried to order a third round, the bartender says no mas cerveza to the cowboy.

Frankly, I was a little bit surprised that they were still serving me because I couldn’t have been too far behind El Huaso due to that bottle of red wine that had washed down my lunch and a couple or three Pisco Sours that I failed to mention earlier. Anyway, about 30 seconds later the cowboy’s beer is empty and I (somewhat) surreptitiously pour about half of my beer into his mug. El Huaso Loco (the nickname that I gave him) thought that sharing my beer with him was brilliant and, with that single gesture, we were friends for life.

Since we were not able to buy anymore beer at the local dive, he invites me out to his ranch to continue what we started. We grab a cab and negotiate a round trip with a one hour layover at the crazy cowboy’s ranch house for me, and we’re off. We stop at a liquor store en route to the ranch and grab a few bottles of wine. I’m feeling a bit like a walking ATM machine by now.

Exciting conclusion tomorrow which may include shooting bullets at a full moon.