Mate in a Calabaza
Route 40 is the road that traverses Patagonia from north to south. Still being under construction, it varies between mud, gravel and brand new tarmac, so it was with some discomfort that we undertook two twelve hour long days of coach driving. The first day consisted solely of long straight roads through barren wilderness. Ruta 40 is still being built, but like roadworks all over the world there seems to be a lack of building and a lot of tea drinking, or in this case Yerba Mate drinking. Mate is the national drink of Argentina and is prepared by placing the tea leaves in a special pot called a Calabaza, adding sugary water then drinking if before the leaves have chance to impart their intensely bitter flavours to the water. I’ve tried it a couple of times – that’s not enough to get used to the unpleasant taste, but enough that you know what’s coming and wouldn’t spit it out in your hosts face…
Throughout the first day driving through the desert we saw very few curves, hills or dips, and not much vegetation or wildlife, which was limited to a roadrunner, a few llamas and a very tame skunk. En route there were no noticeable towns or even villages and we stopped only every 3-5 hours at farms that had set up a shack to sell drinks and pastries in exchange for the welcome use of their facilities. The only town we saw was Perito Moreno, where we stayed the night in the overpriced and underwhelming Hotel Belgrano, which knew full well it was one of only two hotels anywhere near the bus station, where we had to get back to at 7.30 next morning to continue our journey north.
The second day was a marked contrast, and as we left Patagonia and approached the Lake District the grass became thicker, the bushes taller and eventually trees appeared. Small villages popped up along the way and we could stop regularly at decent service stations with proper toilets and a marginally wider selection of food, some of which we even recognised.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Route_40_%28Argentina%29
