Work Songs of the Llanos

On the plains east of the Andes, cattle work was done to singing. The cantos de trabajo are sung alone and unaccompanied, in a high open voice that carries across flat country: cantos de ordeno to settle cows at milking, often addressing individual animals by name, and cantos de vaqueria to move a herd, improvised as the work goes along. Motorbikes, fences and trucks have replaced most of the labour that produced them, and the songs are now heard more often on a festival stage than on the plain. Alongside them sits joropo, the harp, cuatro and maracas music the region is better known for.

What you actually see

• Cantos de ordeno - slow milking songs addressed to individual cows.
• Cantos de vaqueria - the calls used to move a herd across open country.
• Joropo harp trios - harp, cuatro and maracas, the dance music of the plains.
• Working ranches - hatos where cattle are still moved on horseback in the dry season.

When to go

December to March is the dry season, when the plains are passable, cattle are worked and the festival calendar is busiest; Villavicencio and the plains towns each hold their own joropo events. From April the rains flood large areas and the dirt roads become difficult or impossible. Ranch stays are few and need arranging well in advance.

Honest expectations

The songs are a working practice in decline, and hearing them in their original setting is largely a matter of luck and local connections; what visitors usually get is a festival stage or a demonstration laid on at a ranch. Distances are enormous and roads are dirt for hours. Heat and dust in the dry season, deep mud in the wet, and accommodation outside the towns is basic.

Nearby

Cano Cristales lies south in Meta; Villavicencio is the gateway town from Bogota.