The story
Fiesta de la Patria Gaucha in Tacuarembo
Fiesta de la Patria Gaucha is a five-day gaucho culture festival held each March at the Laguna de las Lavanderas grounds in Tacuarembo, northern Uruguay, since 1986. Sociedades Criollas build temporary encampments called fogones and compete across folk music, historical reenactment, and jineteada horsemanship categories in what has become one of Uruguay's largest tributes to gaucho national identity.
In the northern Uruguayan department of Tacuarembo, cattle country close to the Brazilian border, a five-day festival has turned the gaucho, the region's mounted ranch hand and enduring national symbol, into the center of the country's largest cultural gathering outside Montevideo's Carnival.