When reading about Argentina in tourist guides or travel magazines, invariably three characteristic attributes are mentioned: tango, fútbol (or at least Maradona) and gauchos.
Possibly I went to the wrong places, but the impressions I got from my trip were completely different. I didn't see any tango and didn't meet Maradona. If I had to choose three characteristics - with the intimate knowledge resulting from a few weeks' travel in the country - I'd go for mate, dulce de leche and "don't throw toilet paper into the toilet".
Mate is the bitter infusion made from yerba mate and though I knew it was from that region, I hadn't quite realised how omnipresent it would be. In Argentina, it seemed that EVERYBODY was drinking mate, EVERYWHERE. On the bus, in town, during trekking, in ticket offices, in parks, people would carry a thermos and the corresponding cup full of yerba mate with its bombilla straw. It was quite normal to ask for hot water for the thermos just about anywhere - I even saw machines to supply hot water at a petrol station. Kettles in the hostels had temperature regulators with "minimum-mate-maximum" settings. Sharing a cup of mate seemed a small ritual universally done, and I loved that.
With dulce de leche - a sort of milky caramel - I got acquainted hours after my arrival to Argentina, during the first breakfast in Buenos Aires. Since then it kept reappearing in and on everything (*everything*) sweet that was served to us throughout the trip. Inside cakes, biscuits or chocolate, on pancakes, as ice-cream flavour, instead of marmalade, for breakfast or as a snack, in huge jars, dulce de leche everywhere. Though it was no love at first sight, towards the end it eventually broke me and I ended up putting it on the breakfast toast a few times.
The third aspect - related to the somewhat delicate plumbing system in the country - is certainly not characteristic to Argentina only, but it was such an integral part of the daily life that it seems impossible not to mention it.
Possibly I went to the wrong places, but the impressions I got from my trip were completely different. I didn't see any tango and didn't meet Maradona. If I had to choose three characteristics - with the intimate knowledge resulting from a few weeks' travel in the country - I'd go for mate, dulce de leche and "don't throw toilet paper into the toilet".
Mate is the bitter infusion made from yerba mate and though I knew it was from that region, I hadn't quite realised how omnipresent it would be. In Argentina, it seemed that EVERYBODY was drinking mate, EVERYWHERE. On the bus, in town, during trekking, in ticket offices, in parks, people would carry a thermos and the corresponding cup full of yerba mate with its bombilla straw. It was quite normal to ask for hot water for the thermos just about anywhere - I even saw machines to supply hot water at a petrol station. Kettles in the hostels had temperature regulators with "minimum-mate-maximum" settings. Sharing a cup of mate seemed a small ritual universally done, and I loved that.
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| You can fuel your car AND get your hot water for mate at the same place |
With dulce de leche - a sort of milky caramel - I got acquainted hours after my arrival to Argentina, during the first breakfast in Buenos Aires. Since then it kept reappearing in and on everything (*everything*) sweet that was served to us throughout the trip. Inside cakes, biscuits or chocolate, on pancakes, as ice-cream flavour, instead of marmalade, for breakfast or as a snack, in huge jars, dulce de leche everywhere. Though it was no love at first sight, towards the end it eventually broke me and I ended up putting it on the breakfast toast a few times.
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| No, I'm not in a prison. It's my first (rather doubtful) encounter with dulce de leche. |
The third aspect - related to the somewhat delicate plumbing system in the country - is certainly not characteristic to Argentina only, but it was such an integral part of the daily life that it seems impossible not to mention it.
The list could go on, of course, with dozens of unrelated things ranging from huge food portions (I don't think I finished a single meal while eating out; on one occasion, we had troubles finishing between two a grill dish meant for one person), through proliferation of ice-cream shops and regional/local beer brands and microbreweries, up to greater propensity for males to walk around shirt-less, even in towns (which is not as great as it might sound).
After a 40-day travel, with 136 hours and some 8000 km on the bus (kind of twice Madrid-Moscow), 13 days of hiking (and one destroyed pair of hiking boots), snow and glacier, scorching sun and jungle, from almost zero to over 4000m of altitude, the impressions are so many that I'll need quite a while to digest them. I'll be ruminating them in the coming posts.
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Ah, gauchos. I guess I DID see one. From the bus. It counts, right?
Ushuaia.jpg)
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