I had been told that there were a few families living in these mountains who earn a living from making calabash mate gourds, called "cuias" in Brazil. With the hope of learning the basics of their trade, my only means to contact them was by going there in the flesh. I decided to hitch-hike the 70km from Palmeira das Missoes to the quiet mountain pass known as "O Vale Das Cuias" (Valley of Gourds) in the north of the province of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. 

I set out early and hitch hiked lift by lift, taking anything that I could get instead of demanding a lift that would take me all the way to my destination in one go . Beggars can't be choosers. I was picked up by some soil scientists, a truck carrying rice and then a radio presenter who eventually dropped me on the other side of Federico Westphalen where I started to walk the 25km which was meant to be the area where these "cuia" making families lived and worked. It wasn't before long that I managed to get a fourth lift in an old dirty blue bakkie. The man inside was blue-eyed with dusty ash-brown hair, he was quite thin and wore old shabby clothes with sandles. He was probably about 40 years old but his hard sun-tanned complexion made it difficult to tell. I told him that I had come in the hope of finding the people who made gourds in that region, and just as God would have it, he happened to be one of them. In fact, his cousins, brothers, nieces and nephews all worked with "cuias" in that same area. One thing led to another and before I knew it I was chopping, cutting, grinding and polishing gourds. I even managed to make a pretty good one for Luca.

I managed to hitch a ride back in the other direction to find my gourd mentor's cousin, who was meant to be one of the most talented gourd artists in Brazil . I got a lift from a retired military general who dropped me in a spot where I could see what looked like the farm house that had been described to me. There were six people sitting in fold-up chairs outside in front of the small square wooden house drinking mate. One of them was leaning over his own lap chipping away at a large cuia with a steel nail and a short wooden club. All six noticed me approaching and stared at me in silence as I neared them. As I got within speaking distance I removed my hat, greeted them, introduced myself. It wasn't a tense moment for long. In no time I was sitting in my own lil' fold-up chair getting even more wired on mate and watching the man work.

The three gourds that I made myself I was allowed to keep and are already on their way to South Africa along with 20 plain gourds and and 8 very special hand crafed works of art which happen to be gourds too.
 
This is what I learned when I made it "by thumb" to The Vally of "Cuias" : VIDEO PLAYLIST

NEXT ENTRY: I head into the cold and the wet in search of wild yerba mate. TEASER VIDEO