If there is such a thing as a classic gaucho, it is Don Jose Ansola. He believes solitude helps preserve the purest form of gaucho life.

 

If I couldn't live in the campo, the countryside—an unthinkable thought—I don't know what I do. I'd rather live in a shack out here than in a palace in the city. There's too much I'd miss: the sound of hoofbeats, the birds of dawn, sipping maté in the clean air, no city has that.

 

Argentina, virtually the last refuge of this life style, is home to nearly 150,000 gauchos. Their herds thrive in the sea of grass, which means that a gaucho's work is never done.

 

The struggle against nature is very beautiful though difficult. In winter, it's cold and wet from morning to night; in summer, brutally hot. But somehow it all gives me strength. It nourishes my soul.

 

The life of a gaucho is one of adaptation, to a climate, to a landscape, and to an ageless way of life that even now sustains them.