For a taste of Argentinian culture, try maté

For a taste of Argentinian culture, try maté

maté

Smithsonian Journeys tour guide Gabi Mlcek sips maté during a hike to Mount Fitz Roy. Pam LeBlanc photo

Here in Texas, we drink a lot of sweet tea and Dr Pepper. In Patagonia, the locals drink maté.

While traipsing through South America this month, I saw people sipping the infused herbal drink while chatting at cafes, sitting on street benches, and even while driving their cars.

“For us, maté is not just a drink,” says Gabi Mlcek, the leader of the Smithsonian Journeys trip through Argentina and Chile that I took. “For us, it’s an excuse – a moment to share with people we love, to see your friends and family, and talk with them.”

The drink is considered the national beverage of Argentina, and serving it is a lot more complicated than popping open a can of Coke. But that’s what makes it special.

How to prepare maté

Mlcek demonstrated the process one day, filling a special cup, also called a maté, three fourths full of dried yerba maté leaves, then pouring hot water over them. Traditional matés are made of dried gourds; today you can also buy wooden or metal matés.

maté

The national drink of Argentina is maté, a type of infused herbal tea. It’s served in a special cup like this one, and sipped through a metal straw. Pam LeBlanc photo

To prepare the beverage correctly, you have to follow two rules, Mlcek told us. One, the water must be hot but not boiling. Electric kettles in South America have a “maté mode,” which heats the water to exactly 85 degrees Celsius. Second, don’t touch or move the straw once it’s placed in the vessel.

The person who prepares the maté is first to try it, sipping the liquid through a special metal straw called a bomba with a sieve at the bottom. Once the person preparing the drink has taken the first sip, he or she adds more hot water and passes the maté to the next person. In this way the drink makes its way around the circle, returning after each person drinks it to the preparer, who adds more hot water.

“It’s an acquired taste,” Mlcek says. “It’s really strong and bitter.”

Maté is considered the national beverage of Argentina, and just about everybody drinks it. Cell phones are even equipped with a mate emoji – a pumpkin with a straw in it.

“The rich people drink maté and the poor people drink maté,” Mlcek says. “And we drink a lot of maté.”

With that, she passed the maté to me.

I took a sip. It tasted bitter and earthy, with a hint of dried grass clippings. Not exactly bad, but I’m not ready to exchange it for my morning tea quite yet.

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What to do when your wallet and passport gets stolen in a foreign country

What to do when your wallet and passport gets stolen in a foreign country

passport

Pam LeBlanc had her passport stolen while visiting Santiago this month. Pam LeBlanc photo

My husband and I were sitting at a table outside a fast-food restaurant in a bustling Santiago neighborhood recently, exhausted after a nine-hour international flight, when someone dropped a few coins at my feet.

I bent over to help him scoop them up. They must have spilled out of a hole in his pocket, I figured. Then a few more trickled onto the sidewalk. My husband leaned in to help.

Suddenly, something felt weird. I bolted upright and yelled at Chris, “Where’s your bag?”

He grabbed for his backpack, which he’d set on the chair next to him, but it was gone – along with our passports, his wallet and driver’s license, a wad of cash, his prescription eyeglasses, ear buds, and a library book. A man at a nearby table pointed down one street, and we gave chase.

It was pointless. We realized quickly that a group of thieves had targeted us. One man distracted us by dropping the coins, another grabbed the backpack, and a third pointed us in the wrong direction to chase the thief down.

Thank goodness Chris still had his cellphone, and I had my backpack, along with my own wallet and valuable camera gear. But we lost $400 in cash – especially frustrating since we rarely carry cash when we travel. (Our tour group advised us to bring it this time because we’d be visiting areas that might not take credit cards.)

Luckily, some quick action kept a bad situation from getting worse.

Make a plan if your passport gets stolen

After we gave up chasing the thieves, who had scattered in all directions, we made a hasty game plan. Chris would cancel the credit cards that were in his wallet while I called the U.S. Embassy to find out what we needed to do to get emergency passport replacements. We also asked workers at the restaurant to call the police.

Chris has an online ap that tracks his credit card purchases. He cancelled two of his cards but forgot about a third. Fifteen minutes later, the thieves used that one to place a charge for $2,100. Chris contacted the credit card company, which froze the payment.

Meanwhile, I reached the U.S. Embassy, which told me we’d need to apply for emergency passports. I made an appointment to go in the next morning to fill out the necessary paperwork. We needed the passports quickly, because we were flying to southern Chile in two days, then crossing into Argentina after that.

We tracked down a place that took passport photos and set off to get that done. We also reached out to the leader of our group tour, whom we hadn’t even met yet.

We got lucky

Then, a miracle. After getting new mugs made for the passports, I got a call and a text from the Embassy. Someone, an official told me, had called in to report finding our passports (but not the rest of our belongings) in a trashcan. The official gave me the woman’s contact information.

Since we’re not fluent Spanish speakers, we enlisted the help of our tour group leader (what an introduction!), who contacted the woman, then called an Uber and went with us to retrieve them.

The woman who found the passports worked at a bank. She’d gone out to take a smoke break and noticed a couple of passports in a small trashcan on the sidewalk. She pulled them out and – here’s the lucky part – decided to call her son, who works in customs at the Santiago airport. He advised her to call the U.S. Embassy. If she’d called the police, it may have taken days to reunited us with the passports. We’d have missed part (or all) of our trip.

We thanked the woman, hugged her, gave her a reward (which she tried to refuse), and made our way back to the hotel.

We’d lost some cash and a few odd items, but with our passports in hand, we could get on with our trip. A couple of things had conspired to make us victims of petty theft.

First, we’d just arrived in Chile, and our hotel room wasn’t yet ready. We left our suitcases at the hotel desk, but took our passports with us because we didn’t want to leave them unattended. Second, we were jet lagged and not thinking clearly. Third, we didn’t pay attention to the warning signs – nearby buildings had burglar bars and we’d been told thieves sometimes grab cell phones from the hands of unsuspecting walkers in the area. When someone dropped money on the ground right next to us, we didn’t realize at first what was happening.

Tips in case your passport gets stolen

Here are some things you can do to avoid becoming a victim yourself…

  1. First, carry your passport in a zipped interior pocket or in a cross-body bag. Or leave it in a safe in your hotel room, if you’ve got one.
  2. Second, be aware of your surroundings. Buildings in the neighborhood where we were walking had metal security bars, and we’d been told that thieves sometimes grab cell phones out of the hands of unsuspecting pedestrians. Still, we weren’t on high alert.
  3. Never set your bag on a chair next to you – especially if you’re outside. Keep the strap looped over your shoulder or in your lap.
  4. Know exactly what’s in your wallet, and immediately cancel all your credit cards. Keep a list so you don’t forget one, like we did.
  5. Use your cellphone to take a photo of your passport and keep it on your phone.
  6. Report the theft to police (we waited an hour at our restaurant, but they never arrived) so you can get a theft report for insurance purposes.
  7. Contact the U.S. Embassy to report the incident and find out what to do next.

 

 

 

 

About Pam

I’m Pam LeBlanc. Follow my blog to keep up with the best in outdoor travel and adventure. Thanks for visiting my site.

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Banff Film Festival returns to Austin in March – as a one-day event

Banff Film Festival returns to Austin in March – as a one-day event

Banff Film Festival 2025

The Banff Film Festival returns to Austin – as a one day event on March 22. Photo courtesy Banff Film Festival 2025

The Banff Mountain Film Festival returns to Austin next month – as a one-day event instead of the two days it has covered in past years.

But if you’re up for a day of binge-watching cool outdoor and adventure movies, you can still get your fill. The festival will still feature two collections of films – one at 2 p.m. on Saturday, March 22, and a completely different one at 7 p.m. the same day.

Read more: No matter the season, Banff serves up adventure

I go every year and consider the festival one of the best annual events in Austin for folks who prefer hiking and pitching tents to glitzier pastimes. Our city historically draws some of the largest audiences for the traveling show, which stops in more than 500 communities and 40 countries each year.

Read more: I rented an old-timey swimsuit and soaked in Banff Hot Springs

Whole Earth Provision Co. again hosts the Banff Film Festival 2025, and donates proceeds from the event, along with funds raised during its State Parks Month event in their stores where customers can make donations for parks. In all, the two events have raised more than $317,800.

Tickets are $35 for the matinee and $40 for the evening show (prices include service fees.) Tickets are available online at the Paramount Theatre website.

 

 

 

 

 

About Pam

I’m Pam LeBlanc. Follow my blog to keep up with the best in outdoor travel and adventure. Thanks for visiting my site.

Where is Pam?

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