Pampas & Beaches Events

The Pampas calendar is agricultural and equestrian, and its central event is a genuine gathering rather than a show.

Fiesta Nacional de la Tradicion — November, San Antonio de Areco

Argentina’s principal gaucho festival, held since 1939 in the week around 10 November, the birthday of the author of Martin Fierro. Several thousand riders come in from the estancias and the provinces, dressed properly rather than for display, and the week includes jineteada — bronc riding in the Argentine style, which is judged on the rider’s seat and lasts until he is thrown or the ride is called — along with destrezas criollas horsemanship contests, payada verse duels, asado on a scale that has to be seen, and a closing parade of riders through the town. It is attended overwhelmingly by people from the countryside, and that is what makes it worth going to.

Mar del Plata summer — January and February

The city’s theatre season is a national institution: Buenos Aires productions decamp to the coast for the summer and play to holiday audiences, alongside an international film festival held in November.

Exposicion Rural — July, Buenos Aires

The agricultural show that the whole region revolves around, with livestock judging, machinery and a great deal of politics.

Semana Santa at Tandil — March or April

Tandil holds one of Argentina’s largest Holy Week observances, with a Via Crucis climbing the Cerro Calvario above the town to a monumental Calvary, drawing tens of thousands of pilgrims. The town’s hotels fill and the salami and cheese shops do their best trade of the year.

Fiesta del Queso and the town fiestas

Tandil’s cheese and salami festivals, and a calendar of small-town harvest and patron saint fiestas through the summer.