Argentinian DNA: A Different Argentina. Rural Argentina, land of cowboy rodeos, tap-dancing and big barbecues

RT correspondent Francisco Guaita takes us to another Argentina, rural, remote, and less international. It’s a land of barren plateaus, where boys choose between getting a PlayStation or a horse. A land where gauchos, chivalrous cowboys who must be generous to everyone, dream of winning rodeo competitions that are bigger than the World Cup.

Gaucho riding bucking horse at a rodeo in rural Argentina. Still taken from RTD documentary Argentinian DNA: A Different Argentina.
In rural Argentina, gauchos, the local cowboys, compete at rodeos that are more popular than football matches.

Two thousand kilometres from Buenos Aires, Native American women weave leaves into handbags, hoping to sell them to tourists. The men burn logs into charcoal, to feed their countrymen’s addiction to barbecues. Argentinians are the world’s second-biggest consumers of beef.Here, whole animals are roasted for family and friends in massive fiestas.

Beef carcasses hung on stakes are being roasted over an open fire, with a man earing a beret in the background. Still taken from RTD documentary Argentinian DNA: A Different Argentina.
Barbecues are huge in rural Argentina. In every sense of the word.

Traditional troupes keep the spectacular 400-year-old malambo tap-dancing folklore alive, with the sound of drums and guitars.

Man wearing a black shirt and woman in red dress dancing surrounded by a crowd in rural Argentina. Still taken from RTD documentary Argentinian DNA: A Different Argentina.
Traditonal singing and dancing groups keep rural Argentina's folklore alive.

The grow-ups would like better jobs, better roads. The children don’t ever want to leave. They say it’s the true Argentina.

chapel with school on a grassy mountain in rural Argentina, with mist in background. Still taken from RTD documentary Argentinian DNA: A Different Argentina.
Argentinian children living in remote rural areas travel to school weekly by bus.
 


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