#caroljones

Criollo horses and foals on Carol Jones’s farm. Bariloche, Argentina.

Our second day in Bariloche started at 9 when we met Carol Jones at the town Cathedral and set off for her 3000-hectare farm 30 minutes away (we had some problems with the pronunciation of cathedral to the taxi driver – apparently ‘cathedral’ sounds nothing like ‘catedral’). Carol Jones’s family farm is in the Nahuel Huapi National Park and has hardly changed since it belonged to her grandfather, the first Texan pioneer in Patagonia, who was allowed to begin farming to prevent the Chileans from spreading across the border into Argentina.

The farm is part of the national park, so there are restrictions on the number of buildings and the development of the land. It is vast and almost untouched – a mix of open plains, green bush and clumps of tall fir trees, populated only by Carol’s many Criollo (traditional Argentine) horses. She lives in a little wooden house run on solar power and surrounded by trees and her horses, who crop at the lawn outside. Her favourite, a delightful stocky cream Fjord pony is already tacked up next to a tree. Nick and I each get a strong and very comfortable brown Criollo, and set off for our two-hour ride with Carol.