Gaucho do Brasil

Gaucho do Brasil offers a wholly unique and unadulterated way of experiencing the stunning Coxilha Rica region of southern Brazil, so named for its resemblance to an undulating green ocean. Trade in the conventional tourist experiences and fancy hotel service to bask in the simplicity of the gaucho lifestyle in various authentic working fazendas (ranches), situated in untouched rural landscapes and accessible only by exhilarating improvised Criollo horseback rides through grassy hills, rivers, and Araucaria forests.

Property Details

Guests of Gaucho do Brasil stay in guest rooms at the homes of real gaucho families. While each Gaucho do Brasil fazenda is different from the next, all are authentic, colonial, and cozy, promising soft beds and reliable showers at the end of each day of riding. Most homes are more than 200 years old and are filled with priceless antique furniture. For example, Fazenda do Barriro near Lages was founded in 1782 and is in its eighth generation of family owners who are dedicated to preserving the customs, culture, and buildings left by their ancestors.

Plentiful home cooked meals produced from large country kitchens make for a true “locals” experience at each Gaucho do Brasil stop. The women of the homes are known to spoil gaucho riders with favorites such as churrasco, pickled onion, mashed manioc root, hard boiled quail eggs, and fish caught from the ponds on the grounds. Brazil’s cuisine is deeply inspired by a conglomeration of European, Indian, African, and Asian flavors, resulting in one table playing host to multiple dishes representative of various countries.

Guests of Gaucho do Brasil spend days on relaxed schedules. The region’s some 400 gauchos—South American cowboys in every respect—still echo the lifestyle of their counterparts from one hundred years ago, and itineraries are timed to allow for opportunities to help them with their tasks on the farm. Help drive the cattle herd to the corral, where they are either vaccinated or given a decontamination bath, learn how to rope implementing the gauchos’ tricks of the trade, or simply succumb to a hammock with a cup of coffee and allow the cawing of Curucaca birds to awaken the spirit. After an active cowboy-gaucho day, remove the boots, take a long shower, and join the group at the table for a refreshing meal and a cool beer. In the evenings, the gauchos serenade tenants with guitar and accordion and pass around the bottle of warm Pingao, while guests count the fireflies and sip on the sacred local Mate.

Gaucho do Brasil invites guests to soak in the warm gaucho hospitable atmosphere, forge friendships with the locals, and celebrate this time in untouched Brazil, where the horses, gauchos, landscape, and lack of modernization only add to the charming atmosphere and sense of freedom.