12/7- Part 2-Maté Time!

After about two hours or so of beach time, we packed up and continued on our way. It was a rollercoaster ride, with 3 climbs initiating the climb profile on my Garmin. They weren’t long. 

The lupine were still lining our way. 

We met a Spanish couple, Roberto and Luz going the other direction. Luz seemed to be quite tired and hungry. We told them about the beach. While we were talking, four dogs came out to greet us. They were all quite friendly. 

Hola perro!

We were having the typical afternoon headwinds, but when we turned onto X-240, we had better winds. One of those giant expedition vehicles went by us. It said Alemania on the back. Oh, of course…Germans. Sure enough, later they were pulled off the road, and we caught up to them. Alex and Markus went to talk to them. It was a family with two young kids. They had been traveling around the world for 3 1/2 years. 

Pretty massive!

When we got to the turn to go to the campground, there was a restaurant. We stopped in for some drinks and…yes, you guessed it…kuchen! From there we headed to the campground down a gravel road. It’s along the Rio Simpson. There was this cool bridge. 

Maybe tomorrow I’ll ride across it just for fun. 

Nacho (short for Ignacio), showed us the facilities. 

Really awesome common room. 

Our tents are set up outside. 

After we had all showered, Nacho gave us a lesson on the history and culture of maté. He spoke in heavily accented English, so I didn’t catch all of it, but got the gist. Maté is a drink made in a special cup with a straw called a bombero. The straw has a filter in it. He showed us the whole process of making the maté, from the temperature of the water, how the herb is poured into the cup, to how the first sip through the straw is spit out. Then he showed us the ritual of the maté, and how it originated with the gauchos. The ritual is very specific with several rules. The main one to know is that when you’ve had enough, you say, “Thank you.” We did two rounds, then said, “Thank you” because we didn’t want to be up all night from the caffeine! It was really interesting, and Nacho is pretty funny. Later, after we had our dinner Nacho came back in to the common room and played guitar and sang. 

I did a video too. I’ll try to remember to put it on Facebook. 

The whole day was great! We ended up doing 51kms, and having a great time on the beach and at our campsite! Tomorrow we go to Coyhaique.