EASTERN PLAINS, Colombia — Urging on their horses, a half-dozen Colombian ranch hands are driving cattle through the pancake-flat prairies of eastern Colombia. They have a long way to go because this 4,000-acre ranch stretches to the horizon and beyond.
Unlike the United States, where nearly all beef cattle are fattened up on feedlots and where cowboys are mostly a thing of the past, livestock in Colombia are raised on vast, open ranges. As a result, overseeing the herds requires the special skills of Colombian cowboys who are known as llaneros — Spanish for "plainsmen."
