Mate in Humahuaca

I sit in the bus with Quechan women in bowler hats and colorful sweaters heading for the Andes. The town I arrive in reminds me of small Quechan towns I’ve been to before in Peru. Adobe, cobble, an unlikely internet café , but the landscape is like the high desert in Arizona, if it wasn’t for the hulking saguaros. But for that, this is Quechan territory through and through: textiles, pan pipes, sheep, chicken, goats and dogs everywhere. The restaurants serve little else but meat and potatoes, if and when they decide to serve at all.

When I enter my hostel I waken a napping porteno. He’s excited to practice his English on me. A group of twenty something, educated and well dressed, portenos invite me for mate. Its my first time trying the tea ceremony. The silver cup is filled to the brim with loose yerba tea and the head of the ceremony holds a thermos of hot water. She fills the cup and the person sips through a bombilla, a curved metal straw until the brew is consumed, then the cup is passed back to the person with the thermos.

They chit chat rapidly in Castelano and I understand nothing but a few words. The group slowly files out and its me and two others. We talk about books. She likes John Irving and I think of Garp and try to remember who played him in the movie, but can only remember Mork. Surpringly that rings a bell with her. Its Robin Williams, I recall, my memory of home is as distant as the geography.

I find a nice restaurant, Casa Vieja, to eat llama steak and listen to traditional music and vanquish half a plateful of boiled red potatoes.