Wikipedia
thumb|250px|right|An arriero loading a pack horse in southern Chile
An arriero is a person who transports goods using pack animals. In South America, arrieros transport coffee, maize, cork, wheat, and myriad other items. They remain common in the paisa region ( Antioquia and the Colombian Coffee-Growers Axis) of Colombia. In English, an arriero is one form of muleteer, a wrangler of pack animals. In the Catalan language, an arriero is a traginer.
In California, arrieros, or muleteers, work out of pack stations. A muleteer can also be known as a muleskinner, a more informal term. The term muleskinner means someone who can "skin", or outsmart, a mule.
In Europe, there are still arrieros in the south of Portugal and the southwest of Spain, in the cork producing area. The role of the arrieros is now limited to transporting the cork with their mules, out of the Mediterranean oak forest to more accessible routes, where modern means of transport are available.
Usage examples of "arriero".
The arriero, the Spanish muleteer in charge of the pack train, rode a mule at the head of a train of twenty mules.
I made my arriero turn the animals loose for the day, and then I sent him back to a village we had passed through the day before to buy more provisions and bring them to me.
One morning the four awakened to find the arrieros gone, and with them half the burros and the major portion of their supplies.
By noon, October 30th, we had seen our Andean collections in the hands of arrieros bound for Guayaquil, whence they were to be shipped by way of Panama to Washington, and our baggage train for Napo headed toward the rising sun.