After a nice lazy Sunday rise at 12 pm Stuart and I made coffee and planned out our day. We felt a bit cooped up this week and jumped at Bruce’s invitation to take a day trip to Mataderos.
In English Mataderos translates to “slaughterhouse”. Mataderos is a section of Buenos Aires traditionally known for its live stock market and meat packing. Cattle were brought to Mataderos to be killed and shipped to other parts of the country. Some times Mataderos is refered to as the new Chicago.

Our day however had much more to do with merriment and gaiety rather than carnage and gore.
Every Friday and Sunday the neighborhood of Mataderos hosts a bustling street fair.
We descended into masses. Street vendors, artisans, and entertainers packed in around the center square as passer bys made there way through. Unlike San Telmo we saw far less tourists, mostly just Argentine families spending a day outside for great food and shopping.
We were surrounded by smoking grills, traditional song and dance, artisan wines, massive knives, leather goods, mate gords, trotting horses, leather faced toothless gauchos with riding crops the size of base ball bats. At one point we even saw a performer charging people $2 to beat a fake cat with a stick.
We stopped to watch dancers perform Zamba, a traditional folk dance. Couples line up facing each other stepping forward and back. Quick steps take them circling around eachother as the women playfully wave scarves above their heads.

Stuart and I were impressed by the quality of the crafts. Especially the hand made leather bags and engraved knives. We wandered around admiring the artisanship before looking for the group. We were told “ 3 pm pink café on the corner.” And laughed when we discovered half the buildings are one shade of pink or another.
We found Bruce waiting on the corner of the hot pink café directly across from the band stand. We all agreed to be hungry and headed for the smoke. Mataderos is a great place for parilla. You can also find traditional foods from the province like tamahles (steam corned husks stuffed with xyz) and locro ( a delicious meaty white bean stew).
We opted for churipans and an $8 peso bottle of Vino Patero, Cab Sauv. The vendor informed us they produce less than 4,000 liters per year. Fruity but better than what I could produce in my basement.
Much more talkative after having been satiated we made our way to the track. We missed the spectacle but Gauchos, which are essentially Argentine cowboys line up and bolt like bats out of hell towards the finish line. Each carries a small metal spear which at full speed they must pierce through a metal loop dangling from the finish line. They charge closely past grandmothers, bundled babies and clumsy children, very exciting.

As they wrapped up gauchos paraded around on their horse as a few children pranced around on ponies and mules. We even saw a dog riding a horse. We made our way back and finished out the afternoon with a beer at the hot pink café.





























