We strive to provide our guests with the best possible experience.  We want our guests to feel at home at the ranch and to spend their time doing what interests them.  We have several activities available for guests to choose from-- if you don't see something that you'd like to try, tell your guide!  We're happy to accommodate special requests. 

Relax on the water while your guide paddles you around El Acrecito, a small lake at the edge of the ranch.  We pass through carpets of tall grasses—these aren’t islands, but floating ecosystems that drift with the wind over the surface of the lake.  Keep an eye out for anaconda; these giant snakes hide themselves in the vegetation as they stalk birds, fish, and prey as large as capybara and caimans.  Along the edge of the lake, you can spot troops of capybara grazing in the grass or cooling themselves in the shallow water.

Pay a visit to the ranch’s old cemetery.  Generations of workers who met untimely ends were interred here, in a small patch of woods at the edge of a field.  The passing of time—and grazing cattle—has reduced the site to a handful of worn, wooden crosses.  On these, little remain of the original epitaphs; you can just make out the date of the most recent cross:  1968.  

If you’d like, you can try your luck catching dinner.  These carnivorous fish are plentiful in the lakes and lagoons around Copacabana.  We use raw beef for bait and fish with a hook and wire in the traditional style of the region.  If you catch a couple, you can bring them back for the senoras to fry up with dinner—the cowboys will tell you that the eyes are the best part!  

Copacabana’s vaqueros can rope a fleeing bull from the back of a horse at full gallop. You should probably start with a barrel from, say, ten paces.  It’s harder than it looks, but you’ll pick it up.  If you’d like, your guide can bring you to the corral where you can try to snag a cow as they mill about in the mud. Your guide can also show you how they weave their heavy leather lassos by hand.

Your guide knows plenty of scenic spots on the ranch for a leisurely lunch in the shade.  We have picnic tables at a couple of especially gorgeous spots where the cowboys sometimes eat when they don’t have time to return to the homestead.  After a morning on horseback, nothing beats a slow lunch and a short siesta in the fresh air.      

Grab a flashlight and head out after dinner to spot caimans at a lagoon not far from the homestead.  When the sun goes down, these predators slip into the water to stalk their next meal.  Oddly enough, caimans are easier to spot in the nighttime—their eyes glow red in the beam of your flashlight.  A cousin of the alligator, caimans grow more than four meters long, but are generally unaggressive toward humans.   

Depending on the time of year, the vaqueros sometimes set off to round up some of the thousands of cattle scattered across the estancia.  You head out with the cowboys on one of these missions to bring back cattle for gelding, branding, vaccinating, or to be auctioned off at the corral.  Even if there’s no reason to bring cows back to the homestead, you’ll have the opportunity to learn the art of driving cattle on horseback; you’re bound to come across groups of cattle grazing in the pampas during your rides around the ranch. Your guide will be happy to show you how the vaqueros circle the herd and drive it one way or the other with whoops and calls and maybe the odd lasso.

The sunset over the pampas is always a dramatic sight.  The sky glows with rich reds and yellows; the flatness of the pampas affords you spectacularly wide vistas. As darkness sets in and your fire picks up, you can hear the area come alive with nocturnal birds, insects, and frogs.  A campfire after dinner is a great opportunity to trade stories with your guide or learn a little bit about the hundred-year history of Copacabana ranch.  Sip wine or local tea and relax at the end of a long day.

Copacabana Ranch is huge—one of the largest in the area.  Sometimes vaqueros working far from the homestead spend the night under the stars rather than make the hours-long return ride after dark.  For visitors interested in exploring far-flung corners of the ranch, we offer camping opportunities in the pampas.  We have everything you may want—tents, sleeping bags, pads, and cookware.  Let your guide cook up a simple dinner over a campfire, and hit the hay early like a cowboy.  Early to bed, early to rise. 

Roosters announce dawn and the ranch wakes up early.  There are eggs to be collected, animals to be fed, breakfast to be cooked.  So wake up with the workers, if you’d like.  Saddle up in the early morning, and ride out to an open swath of pampas.  Sip fresh coffee and watch the sky transform into blazing reds and oranges as the sun breaks the horizon.  It’s a great time to spot rare birds shaking off sleep and heading off to their feeding grounds in the flooded lowlands.  When was the last time you were up to greet the sun?