LESSON ON MATE

A travelogue from my trip through the North of Argentina



MATE. Debute. I think I have never drunk so many cups of anything...at least not without a break.

My first MATE of the trip was offered to me by Walter - an Argentinian truck driver. He had seen me a day before in Guemes, 330 km "ago" and decided to help me a little along the way. This is what I learned about this traditional drink of Argentina from our over four hour journey from Taco Pozo to Avia Terai.

VOCABULARY:
The word MATE is used both for the gourd that it is made in as well as the herb and the drink that is made of the herb. Confusing.
There exist four kinds of MATE: bitter or sweet, hot or cold. The cold MATE is also known as TERERE and can be mixed with juice.

HOW WALTER MADE MATE IN FOURTEEN STEPS:
Step one: Walter pulled over the truck to the side of the road
Step two: He pulled out a box from undereath his beed and brought out the neccessary equipment: a gas stove, a thermos, a wooden gourd covered with aluminium, a tea-pot (which he filled with water from the tank) and yerba mate herbs.
Step three: Walter filled the gourd with yerba mate herbs almost to the top.
Step four: He covered the gourd with a full hand and turned it upside-down.
Step five: He shook it. This inverted position would cause the finest, most powdery particles of the yerba to settle toward the palm and the top of the MATE, explained Walter.
Step six: Walter wet the yerba with a little bit of warm water.
Step seven: Walter carefully placed a metal straw into the gourd.
Step eight: He used a small gas stove to heat the water, but did not let it boil.
Step nine: He poured the water in a thermos.
Step ten: Walter put sugar on top of the herbs. It was to become a sweet hot MATE.
Step eleven: He then poured the hot water, but just until it reached the top of the leaves.
Step twelve: He drank the first MATE to see if it was good.
Step thirteen: After adding sugar and hot water he passed me the gourd.
Step fourteen: Walter started driving, at the same time drinking MATE, passing it to me, and pouring more hot water into the gourd...until the thermos was empty.

I wondered how many MATES I had drunk. I really wanted to go to the bathroom...



The next day I was picked up by Juan Manuel from a town called Saenz Peña. Our journey to Resistencia lasted around three hours and was about 200 km long. When Juan Manuel offered me a bitter MATE in a gourd made of a bull´s horn, I decided to count how many MATES I would have to drink to finsh the thermos: 1-2-3-4-5....I drank 13 horns of MATE!!! It was a torture. I really really wanted to go to the bathroom.



The day after I was picked up by a truck driver Angel with whom I travelled another 300 km from Corrientes to Posadas. I told him about my first MATE experiences. He laughed and never offered to drink any with him. I saw his gourd was made from the original calabash fruit and asked if I could take a picture. So above is a picture of a MATE that was never prepared.

Angel dropped me off in one gas station outside of Posadas where I slept in my tent. Packing my stuff in the morning I greeted one truck driver who seemed to have also spent the night there. In turn he asked if I had had my MATE yet. I said that I hadn´t and so he kindly prepared it for me just like this on the side of his truck:



After five rounds (that time I was pouring) when I offered him the sixth MATE, taking it he suddenly said:
"Thank you, no more for me".
"Does that mean that you can actually stop drinking now?"
"Of course."
"By saying - thank you, you do not have to finish the thermos, and are out of the game?" I still could not believe it.
"Yes, this is like saying - I have had enough," explained my new friend.

That was it! With this truck driver Isabelino had taught me how to say NO and I never had to be afraid of drinking MATE again!



This perhaps was not the tastiest MATE offered to me by this young Brasilian truck driver Alexander, but definitely the most beautiful and the wildest presentation of it. Although Alexander did not speak almost any Spanish, with the little Portugese I remembered from my trip to Brasil, our journey was a lot of fun. I travelled with him about 300 km from Posadas to Puerto Iguazu - to the very corner where Argentina meets Brasil and Paraguay.



Alexander in his "kitchen" among other things preparing water for our MATE.