I once was lost but now I'm found

I just spent the better part of 10 minutes looking for the "edit" button. Still figuring out the ins and outs of this "blogomatic machine" as Patrick calls it. The difficulty was that I've set my computer to Spanish mode - just one more small step toward immersion.


This is a mate (mah - tay). It is such a distinctly-Argentinian part of my daily routine that it requires a good explanation here. First of all, yerba mate is a drink. To prepare a mate, you put the yerba - a dusty, green, chopped-up leaves-and-stem mixture - into this little gourd. You add hot water and sip through the "bombilla", a metal straw with a filter on the end, so you get all the good taste of the leaves but none of the dusty-green stems all stuck in your teeth. According to the great arbiter of information, Wikipedia, the yerba has a strong taste like a mixture of "green tea, tobacco, and oak". I don't know about the tobacco, but as a green tea afficionado, I was immediately a fan.

But more than a drink, it is the national vice. It's a ubiquitous obsession, it is a social glue, it's appropriate for all ages, all social get-togethers, and all times of day (unless you're a gringo like me that can't handle all the caffeine after about lunch). Dudes walk around with mates and thermoses on a strap around their shoulder. Musicians play with a fresh mate next to their mic stand. There is even a law on the books - I'm totally serious here - prohibiting the drinking of mate while driving. Too many people were getting burned and crashing. In Bolivia, Patrick had the coca tea; in the Odyssey, those Lotus-people had their lotus-things; and here, in Argentina, we have mate. Anyway, its good stuff, and now you're all in on the most important Argentine tradition.

New subject: the Andes are AWESOME. The reason I vanished for four days (sorry about that, mom) was an intense trek into the Andes around Bariloche. It was all their fault.

From Bariloche it's easy to take a public bus to any number of trailheads in the national parks around here, usually less than a half-hour and 5 pesos (1.449 dollars) away.

I'm heading out to a birthday party of one of (my house mom) Anna's sons. I'll write about the trek when I get back - until then, here's a taste of the adventure.