The *baqueano (local cowboy) was born and brought up in Santa Cruz province, in Río Gallegos city. At the age of five, he is taken by his father to the coal valley area to a small town which has just been founded, called 28 de Noviembre.

His relation relationship with horses and rural life begins at six, thus acquiring a vast knowledge that a baqueano necessarily needs to have. At the age of eleven he sets off on horse to estancias (ranches) performing all rural tasks like sheep shearing, dressage of wild horses, cattle round up from the sea to the mountain ranges, becoming in this way a true expert on the Patagonian territory on which he lives. BAQUEANO: this is the name that is given to the gaucho (local expert on his region), capable of guiding great expeditions through desolate, practically impenetrable places. He knows the dangers of the place, and is able to get food and water to give the people and animals. These abilities are not only learnt and inherited since, in a certain way, an innate gift and leading qualities are needed to perform this activity correctly. This class of people was the one that made General San Martín’s freeing campaign possible almost a century ago.