"On the flight to Cordoba my coffee leaps out of my cup. As soon as we touch down I can see why. The rain is hitting the tarmac so hard it seems to be bouncing straight back up to the sky.On the long, slow trek up the earth track to Estancia Los Potreros, a working farm that takes guests, our tiny battered Renault skids about in the red mud, falls into flooded potholes. My host is ecstatic. There has been a drought here for two years.

The 6,000 acres of the estancia are owned by two Anglo-Argentinian brothers. There are no phones. When electricity was introduced two years ago, some old faithfuls said the place was ruined. Even though you are high up in the Sierra Chicas - layer upon layer of empty hills - miles from anyone or anything, there are Constable placemats, a chiming grandfather clock, G&Tīs before lunch. Sometimes the brothers wear tweed for dinner, sometimes blazers. This afternoon we ride out in the rain to bring in the brood mares and their new foals. Pumas like to hunt in wet and foggy weather and they prize foals above all other prey. We ride with a gaucho, Jose, who sits low and flung back in his saddle, his uncovered hair teeming with rain. The mist against the hills is beautiful and the dark, wet, velvet-backed horses snake through the lime green gorse. Everywhere we go we set off bombs of crushed sage and rosemary and mint. When we get home I bath in four inches of delicious red water and sleep with a tiny hot-water bottle clutched to my chest.

The next morning the mist has cleared and the sun is shining. The noise at the estancia is overwhelming, ridiculous. There are bitching parakeets, full-throated tree frogs, moaning Aberdeen Angus, barking dogs, warbling partridges. Eagles swoon about overhead, above such things. We ride all day, cantering like lunatics down from the spot where you see the low, flat pampas stretching out on one side and the mountains picking up their majesty towards the Andes on the other.

Melinda Stevens. Tatler travel editor