La Pedrera
By: Gabriel Goldstein
Tags: Travel, Travel Writing, Journey, Uruguay, South America Travel

Sitting there I reached some kind of next level with the mate. Though I’ve been drinking mate for almost twenty years, it was almost always prepared like tea, steeped and filtered through a french press or teapot. And like the rest of my teas, I would add sugar. It seemed reasonable: it’s a bitter tea, smoky with strong notes of earth and grass and hay. It’s only been since Argentina that I regularly started taking it in the traditional manner, with bombilla and gourd, and though some people in that country do add sugar, it’s not considered the honorable or proper way to take your mate. I’ve been deeply enjoying the ritual and feeling of it, but almost in spite of the strong, biting flavor.

Tonight I actually savored the bitterness. I met it head on and embraced the bitter, the way you might with a strong delicious black espresso. It was like I found the true flavor of the yerba. Something about this and the cold salt of the sea and the heat of the drink was transportative. It made me think of my friend Zach from college, my first real yerba mate partner. He was just as into it as me, and we’d make strong batches of it in his french press, fill a couple nalgene bottles and go out on a road trip, camping or rock climbing or floating on a canoe. We had all sorts of great adventures and drank mate along the way, and here the combination of nature and this deep bitter flavor brought his presence so strongly to me.

Zach is someone who I have great affection for, but we have more or less stopped being friends. For a decade after college we kept in touch regularly if sporadically, and saw each other every few years. Then about nine years ago we had a falling out, over an incident that didn’t seem like that big of a deal at the time. But it never got better, though I tried to make it up to him. The last time I saw him, at his wedding, I attempted in as quiet a moment as I could find to apologize again — he just said with flashing eyes “I had forgotten about it.” I decided sitting there that this state of affairs was absolutely stupid, that I was going to reach out to my lost friend.

So when I got back to the hostel I sat out on the wooden patio deck and wrote him an email saying that I was ten thousand miles away but thinking of him and that I still wanted to be his friend. I said that if he could forgive me for acting like a dick, I would forgive him for holding it against me for years. Perhaps this was the kind of message that would cut through the bullshit, or maybe it would just add another layer to it.

After I had sent it, Nolwenn the French illustrator came and sat down at my table, which was a happy enough occasion that I proposed we take some mate to celebrate. Likely she had already been drinking it for a while, too, but she said, shrugging, “es Uruguay,” and I boiled another thermos-full of water, cleaned out my gourd and filled it fresh. This was the equivalent of chain-smoking and the first time I’d done two gourds back to back. But sharing mate is at least five times better than drinking it by yourself.

After the mate was ready, and we’d each had a couple turns with the calabasa, she asked me in English if she could give me a short interview about my journey. I said sure. She explained that her art project is to interview people and then make an illustration from it. I had a feeling that there would never be any illustration, but was glad for an excuse to talk to her longer. The twenty minutes of our interview is the most I’ve seen anyone work on their project at the hostel. Though perhaps the Uruguayo guy’s project is music on his guitar, and he’s practicing it.

She asked me why I had left my country, and I started talking about Trump, but then decided that I didn’t want him to be such an integral part of my story, and certainly not present in any potential illustration of it. I had this flash of a drawing with his orange face like a sun in the sky with a little me walking in mountains, and I said, wait, no, I don’t want this to be about Trump. Instead I started over and talked about myself, how I had felt like I was spiritually and creatively dead, that I left my country to come alive again, to rediscover the beauty and magic of the world.

“And you find it?” she asked. “Yes,” I said, but in my head I thought that maybe I had found it and then lost it again. “Where?” she said, and the first thing that came to mind was “Perú.” I thought about the Andes and the Incas, about Arequipa, the cold Rio Chili running down from above Misti and Chachani, the buildings made from white volcanic stone. I thought about the north of Argentina, Salta ringed by green hills, the Quebrada de las Conchas leading to Cafayate. And then I thought of the sea just an hour before, and realized that I haven’t lost it, I’m just tired. “I found it here, just tonight, where the ocean meets the shore.” I paused. “I find the beauty and magic of the world at this table,” I said, and smiled, and she smiled too. Did I say too much? I don’t care. It was true. She asked me the next question.

I like talking to Nolwenn; she has this particular quality of being dreamy and down to earth at the same time. I think I would know she was an artist even if no one told me. This is the beginning of her journey; she’s been here for six weeks and will leave soon. Her path is west into Argentina, and eventually north to Perú and beyond. We are ships passing in the night, although neither of us is passing very quickly.

She is long gone from my table by now, back to her volunteer clique, and I’m still where we were sitting at dusk. My chosen spot, in the back corner of the deck, where I’ve spent most of my non-sleeping time at the hostel. There are canvas chairs and the table is the right height for writing. All the volunteers are at the big central table, drinking Portal beers, rolling and smoking cigarettes. I pick up bits and pieces of their conversations. Usually if I pay attention for a short while I can discern the topic. They are talking about Notre Dame in Paris burning today.

It’s a strange dynamic to be the only guest hanging out with all hostel volunteers, and often just tangentially hanging out with them. The other two guests are an Argentine couple and they’re either in their private room or out somewhere all the time. The first night here I was fully part of the volunteer group. I ate dinner with them, though I had made my own in lieu of their group meal of veggie crepes. Afterwards Guillermo and Rodrigo and I all got our guitars out and sat on the deck.

Sadly it never really turned into playing together, just each of us taking turns playing songs. I wanted to pick along with theirs but it didn’t feel quite right, as everyone else was just listening respectfully. Then eventually everyone started asking me for covers of old American classic rock songs, and I’d pull up chords from the internet on my laptop and do my best. In the end it felt like I was doing a show, that I was this American guy with a passing cameo in their movie. Sometimes doing a show is great, but I didn’t want a show; I wanted connection.

I like all of them, but I almost resent their social scene, conversations going on and on, their constant laughter, the Uruguayo guy strumming on his guitar, Aitana and Guillermo being cutesy and quietly making out on the bench. It’s like they’re taking up all the oxygen in the place. Every so often someone will call over to me or walk by and say “¿Gabi, todo bien?” and I’ll just say “si, si,” or “¿Gabi, como te va?” and I’ll say “bien, bien.” This is being on my own, but without any of the benefits of solitude.

At the end of my designated week on the coast, I find myself on the verge of heading still farther east, in the opposite direction from where I think I am going. The place calling me further is the mysterious, off-the-grid, off-the-road settlement of Cabo Polonio, which everyone here talks about tones of reverence. My recent trajectory has taken me to dramatically smaller and smaller places: from the megacity of Buenos Aires to the big city of Montevideo, then Piriápolis, a quaint little beach town, now to this village, and next to some lighthouse outpost with a hundred residents.

Cabo Polonio is off the road system, and you have to take a 4 x 4 over the dunes, or walk in. I’d heard about this place back at the Contraluz in Montevideo, but hadn’t planned on going through all the trouble to get there. A few days around these volunteers, though, have convinced me. It’s unanimously their favorite place on this coast. They use the words energia and magico and there’s a sparkle to their eyes when they talk about it. I’m an easy sell for that kind of thing, and Nollwen says I would love it there. Tomorrow I’ll be heading that way. Guillermo made me a reservation for a bed at their sister hostel, the Viejo Lobo, saying that during this week everything would be booked.

At this point I am just drifting along with the current. I’m going to Cabo Polonio mostly because there’s really no reason to stay here longer, and because people are telling me I should go there. Not only am I almost out of money, but I realize that I am almost out of energy for traveling. I’m ready to arrive, and I’m fairly certain that this end of the world beach village will not be my destination. But you never know, and I also feel like to get to where I’m going, I have to keep moving. So long as I get somewhere.