My first official mate

After what should have been a 10 hour trip turned into more like 30, I was exhausted, smelly, and cold. It was in this condition that I showed up at the doors of the Pigüé Textile Cooperative, trying my best to be pleasant. The Pee Wee Herman-like adventure I had getting there deserves a completely separate blog entry, but I am not far enough away from the frustration to laugh about it yet. So that will have to wait... But you can imagine that I was not in top form, already deciding that Argentina sucked and that the rumors about stuck up porteños were true.

But a couple of minutes into the tour and all of that faded away. You know what they say, nothing like the smell of industrial chemicals and the whir of spinning machines to make a girl feel good. Anyway, my guide and I stopped in the machinist's shop, filled with rusty, oily tools used to fix other rusty, oily things that break in the factory. I don't know why I like these kind of places, but I always have. And I usually dig whoever works in there too. So we stop to chat for a bit and the guys invite me to share a mate, which I did happily.

We passed around a well-worn mate cup and talked about New York, the Ramones, socialism, capitalism, Peronism, marijuana, cooperativism, Bob Dylan, and Argentinean food - pretty much in that order. It was an unforgettable moment, and worth all of the hassle (Well, maybe not all of it - I was really smelly). But definitely a highlight.