By the way...

Tom's girlfriend is a stripper.

Gah, bloody tourism. Why can´t I just sit in a darkened room...

Right, another quicky. We´re now in ValPareiso (I think), on the coast...

So, yes, Defcon one. We had a big dinner, then proceeded to drink as much Chillian red as humanly possible. Meg got pretty smashed, and insisted we all go dancing. So, Mike, Strudel and I left the cabin (where everyone had gathered) and headed out to the snow pub. The snow was falling heavily, and on the way, we stopped into a pub restaurant with a guy on keyboards and the boredest looking bongo player I´ve ever seen (and I´ve seen a few, believe me). Poor guy. I bet he was a guitarist who got sentenced to three years on the bongos for some misdemeanor. Anyway, we scored some Caprihinias (I still don´t know how to spell it, but definitely know they´re better than Mojitos), then moved on to the snowpub, where we found Tim propping up the bar...

´Hi Tim, how are you?´
´I´ve drunken two hundred ounces of beer today.´
´Oh, um, right.´
´Did you ever do something then realise afterwards it might have been a reall bad thing to do?´
´Well, striking up this conversation..´
´What?´
´Oh, nothing. What did you do?´
´Turned over a table Jeff was sitting on?´
´!´
´Well, he told me to get out of his face, so I turned the table over.´
´Um, ah, a-ha, really? Um, oh.´
´Yeah, f&%$ing jock fly-boy pilot...´
´Hang on, I need the bathroom.´
So, yes, interesting times. I retreated to the other end of the bar...

Dang, they´re circling again. The CDs are finished and the girls are getting restless. Gotta go. Damned holiday, getting in the way of my PC usage...

Well behind...again

So I left things at the Snow Pub, with Mike in mid-set. Christ, it's now several days' later, I'm in Santiago, and I'm having trouble remembering what I've done.

Okay, so Mike's strumming away, to loud applause. It was all getting a bit odd, with Darren the Canadian and Chris the Virginian (the place, I mean the PLACE) swapping sheep jokes and headbutting each other. Interesting. We'd also lost Strudel midway to the pub, which was a ten minute walk down the main road. The next morning, those that had had reasonable nights jumped in the truck early (it turned out that Strudel had hid in a bush, then sneaked home for an early night. Hmmm) and hit the slopes. This turned out to be not quite as cunning as I first thought, since it was blowing a gale, and the slopes at the top were fairly bullet-proof. We retired to the cafe for icecream until it warmed up. The others turned up at twelve. Illness and fatigue are combining to mean that many people are now scaling back the amount of time on snow. Not me, though. I'm still bloody-minded enough to stick at it....

Heck, I can't really remember what happened that night. I think we had a pretty quiet one. Internet came back up, so I spent some time catching up (yup, that's how behind I am), then took a fairly early night. Next morning, again, only a few of us went up early, and it was, again, bullets up at the top. The best way I can think of to describe it was 'exfoliating'. I had my new board on, and was really beginning to bond with it. It's stiffer and narrower than my Supercharger, and I'm gradually discovering I can push it a lot harder. I think I'm falling in love with it, although the old board's still good for when the rocks are out. By the afternoon, the snow was beginning to fall steadily. Sylv was keen to stay...

(y'see, if I'd kept this up to date, I'd be able to say 'Sylv IS keen to stay'. Trouble is, I'm doing this all with hindsight, and you already know that we didn't stay.)

So, yes, she was keen to stay, since she's all about the snow. I'm, of course, about the snow, but also about seeing some new places, so I prefered to head back to Santiago to jump off to local places. It was now Friday, and our last day in Chillan. We hit the hot springs at four, and sat drinking beers while the rain poured down. This, of course, meant snow higher up. Back at the ranch, a massive barbeque was in progress, with various dead stuff presented for our delectation. The last night was...interesting. Defcon one. Ground zero. Call it what you will, but the 'Tim' issue, finally came to a head.

Right. The others have just turned up (cafe Melba), so I gotta go eat breakfast. Darn, I still have much to catch up on. Oh well, more when I get a chance...

The cast...

This is a work in progress...

Mike
Tour guide. All round good guy. Diminutive, but confident and efficient, yet very relaxed. Damn fine skier, telemarker and guitarist.

Megan - assistant guide
Real ´outdoors´girl. American, from Lake Tahoe. Was a school teacher and ski instructor, and has led bike tours in Spain. Just goldarn all round nice gal. Oh, and gives the best massage EVER.

Jeff Harder - ´Heffé´
Six foot three ex gridiron player and US airforce pilot. Now a soccer freak. One of the two ´transformers´on the tour (Sylv called Mike ´Strüdel´and Jeff Transformers, after the giant robots, as they´re both huge). Jeff has a political science degree and hates Bush, unusually for someone ex-military.

Mark - ´Strüdel´
That´s not his name, but his real name is something german, so... Ex US airforce pilot and water polo player. Even huger than Jeff. Nice guy and Transformer. yet somehow slightly more evil than Jeff...

Dr. Mark
Physiotherapist, and slightly smaller than Jeff. Works in Philadelphia, so knows Spanish so he can talk to his patients.

Tom Slatz
Looks kinda grungy, with long hair and a long goatee. Snowboard fanatic. Trades stocks from home, and has an ´eclectic´music collection. Likes eighties hard synth techno.

Chris
From Virginia. Bush supporter. Very well informed politically, which is kinda frightening. Has four snowboards with him, yet only boards on toe-edge - riding switch if he needs to change direction

Tim
Where do I start with this one?

We have the technology...again

Right, so I believe we´d just arrived at our accomodation, near Chillan. Well, I say near, actually it´s about an hour outside, but I guess that is ´near´for anyone who lives in a country bigger than the UK. Anyway, this place is basically a collection of ´Cabanas´ (small cottages) centred around a restaurant, outdoor pool (no thanks), shop, etc. They´re really cool. Each is heated by a wood burner, which we keep stoked up. I´ve also found out that somebody comes in early every morning to keep it lit, which is pretty impressive.

So, after our late night and bent axle incident, we were allowed to sleep in until ten. People are now beginning to fall ill, although I´m actually slightly better now. Breakfast was slightly subdued, but not enough to prevent a little banter at Mike´s expense. I should point out that this is the first tour Mike has led. Aaron is the part owner, and has led most of the tours in the past. Because many of the guys have travelled with Casa before, Mike gets a lot of stick along the ´this wouldn´t have happened if Aaron were here´lines. The wheel falling off was a classic example, although everyone appreciated the seriousness of the situation enough not to lay that particular line on him at midnight on what passes for a hard shoulder on a Chillian A-road. He takes it in good spirits too.

Mike´s quite a guy, actually. He´s travelled extensively, has worked ski patrol in a number of resorts, including Chillan, and works for the Canadian fire forestry service during the summers. He also plays the guitar very well, and often plays in local bars. On the road to Lonquimay, we managed to coax him into getting his guitar out and playing a few tunes in the back of the van. Very cool indeed, and I´m sure we´ll have him playing an evening set in front of the fire before the end of the week.

We set off for Termas de Chillan, with the boards on top of the van. By now, Sylv, Chris, Darren and Jim were all suffering with various colds, and Sylv and Darren elected to stay at home. Termas is by far the biggest of the resorts we´d hit so far, and the base chair seemed to go far out of sight up the mountain

Okay, so this is dragging a little. Internet´s been down now for three days and I´ve typed the above off-line and hidden it on the network. So, I´ll keep it short and sweet...

Then end of that day found Mike and I skiing alone. So Mike says to me, ´Hey, want to go on a little adventure?´Of course I do, and we soon find ourselves cutting under the boundary fence and hitting a steep and tight valley. The snow was completely untracked, and we carved down, doing jump turns to avoid sliding out of control. Mike, who used to work here as a guide, knew the area was avalanche prone, so took particular care to check the snow before descending. Eventually, we came out by some hot sulphorous springs and ruins and had to walk down until we were in sight of the base area. Quite a memorable experience, and I spared no detail when telling the others. We hit the hot springs afterwards - a muddy pool full of, presumably, Brazillian supermodels. Ouch.

Ach, details, details...

First night was fairly quiet, and consisted of another minor waxing party at our cabanos. Day two at Chillan, Sylv and Darren - my ´cabanos mates´ weren´t feeling good, so took the day off. This proved quite a wise decision, as it was windy in the extreme on the mountain. In the end, only five of us went up. The spindrift winding off the peaks was evident from the base. Nevertheless, we piled on resolutely and found quite a lot of powder. Highlight was when Mike pulled off the piste. We followed, now really knowing where we were going. Mike stopped, reached down, and fished a six-pack of beers out of the snow. A nice touch, I thought. There were some youngsters (well, probably twenty. How old do I feel?) building a kicker nearby. One asked for a light. None of us smoked, but Mike gave him a beer. I couldn´t help but imagine the scene when he returned to his friends...
´Well, they didn´t have a light, but I got this instead...´
We got home late, after having a few beers. I walked into Cabanos number one, and was greeted by the rest of the party, who were all sat around Aaron and Mike, on guitar. Beers were in full flow, and they´d also obtained a number of cap gun revolvers from the market they´d gone to instead of skiing. Carnage. Quite a night, which found me supplying vocals for Aaron´s guitar playing. Yup, I´d had a couple of beers. We ended up in the ´Snow Pub´, where Mike played a set.

Useful Spanish phrase...

This was taught to me in Portillo, by a Spanish ski instructor called Paula. I asked her what the Spanish was, to much hilarity from the others...

¿Dónde está el mono?

The response is...

El mono está en el árbol

I´m sure you can work it out...

Chillan, and the wheels fall off

The journey to Chillan was interesting. It was, apparently, supposed to take two hours, but took more like three. We were somewhat delayed by the fact that one of the wheels fell off the trailer, containing all our snowboards. The ensuing line of sparks along the road was pretty spectacular. Luckily, the other van was five minutes behind us, so stopped, and we managed to pile all the boards onto the roof-rack, squeezing the rest between the seats on our van. The plan was for the drivers to return the next day to pick it up. Anyway, after a quick meal consisting of hamburgesas in Chillan proper, we heade up to our accomodation for the next four days. It consisted of a number of cute cottages, each with three bedrooms. Sylv and I were rooming with Darren this time. They were both now getting ill, so our cottage was becoming a bit of a plague house. We also met Aaron, who'd arrived from Santiago to join us. He was, improbably, shorter than I remembered, but was also feeling a lot better. There were also a couple of guys from the US - John and Owen - who'd joined the tour. I haven't spoken much, but I have to be honest and say I took a fairly instant dislike to them. I don't know why.

We stoked up the fire, then went to bed.

And now I´m going to bed. I´m a day behind, now, having just skied Chillan. More on that later. I´ll leave you with this, though. If you´re skiing with the tour guide at the end of the day, it´s just you and him (everybody else is eating or elsewhere), he worked a season in the resort as ski patrol and knows it like the back of his hand, and he says to you, ´Hey, do you want to come on a little adventure?´, what do you do? Right.

Lonquimay, part II

Next morning, after breakfasting, we again set off for the volcano. This time, after a warm-up run, we again set off for the summit. My legs were sore from the start, and my cold had gotten worse, so I wasn't in great shape. I wasn't going to let anybody do it without me, though, so I set off. This was much tougher, obviously, although it was also a lot warmer, and we were soon hiking bare-chested, with our clothes tied to the snowboards on our backs. I hiked on, helped by Sylv's GU bars (chocolate energy bars - magic!). We reached the avalanche pit in good time, and headed on. This was a lot tougher, being steeper and icey. What I thought was a twenty minute hike, was more like an hour and a half. I tended to take ten steps at a time, before pausing. I can't describe how exhausting this was. I crammed snow into my water bag, as I was running out fast. Mike and Meg were well ahead, and I had Mark behind me (a physiotherapist from Philadelphia). Jim was up ahead and Drew was just ahead of me, having set off a little before me. Eventually, I found myself twenty metres from the top, and had to scramble up some rocks, keeping three limbs on the face at all times.

The feeling when I eventually hauled myself over the volcano rim was remarkable. The view was, well, stunning doesn't do it justice. We rested. The wind was light and the sun was shining.. We posed for photos, ate trail-mix and enjoyed the view. The crater - which I had expected to be ten metres across - was actually more like two hundred meters, and formed a wide snow bowl. Mike checked the conditions, and we dropped down the outside (after first putting our clothes back on), heading back to the carpark. This was the steepest powder field I have ever been on, and was like nothing I´ve ever encountered before. We all screamed down, carving deep lines and shouting to each other. Fan-bloody-tastic. After we'd carved this up, we followed Mike down through some narrow gulleys and ended up on a wide, field parallel to the road. Bear in mind we'd now descended about two thousand metres or so. My back leg was screaming at me, but I held it together until I reached the hotel we were stopping at for late lunch. It was now four o'clock, and we toasted with beers and piscos on the deck. Magic.

Back to the hotel to pack, and with no time for a shower, we set off for Chillan...

Lonquimay, part I

As I mentioned, it´s getting rather tricky to keep this thing updated. I´m now in Chillan (pronounced chee-aan), in the south of Chile. I´ll try and split this up into a couple of posts...

So, let´s say I´ve just left Pucon. We headed towards a volcano called Lonquimay. We eventually ended up driving very slowly over a rickety wooden suspension bridge with a two tonne limit. On the other side of this was a massive wooden hostel, run by a Swiss couple. There was a heavy World War II German army medical truck parked outside, of course. I learned later that these folks had restored this jalopy and driven it all over the world. They were ´holidaying´ three years in Chile...

I was bunked in with Sylv and a twenty-four year old student, called Andrew, or ´Drew´, as he liked to be called. Drew was personable, in a Fred Durst kinda way, having shaved hair, and a chin-ey goatee. Like all the rest, a hardcore snowboarder, although I haven´t worked out yet just how he managed to afford to come on a trip like this. I´ve now managed to successfully communicate to everybody that Sylv and I are not a couple, so the only reason we´re still together, but sharing with others is because there´s a ´Tim´ lottery, which takes place at every new accomodation. Essentially, nobody wants to get stuck with Tim, because he talks. A lot. We all agree he´s a nice guy, with a heart of gold. Thing is, that sort of thing never manifests itself in conversation if there isn´t an enormous but. Darren is about ready to kill Tim, since they roomed together for the first four days. Darren´s a Canadian guy with an accent straight out of a cartoon...

´I jusht cayn´t shtand thaat guy. He´sh sho annoying, I want to kill ´im´

Get the idea? Anyway, we headed up to Lonquimay the next morning. This is a relatively new resort, being only two years old. There are a few T-bars and one very, very slow two--man chair. We ran this a few times - shedding clothes on each run, as it was getting hotter and hotter - then Drew and I hiked up out of the ski area and plowed back in. I´d never really done much hiking, so it was pretty cool to be on terrain where we could see no other evidence of human presence. We stopped for lunch in the tent/restaurant. The first thing we found out was that we had to order the food completely separately, before presenting a ticket to the kitchen. Obviously, the woman behind the counter didn´t speak much English. The conversation that ensued was pretty much straight out of Monty Python...

(You have to imagine some licence, and broken English on her part. Also, my Spanish spelling is atrocious (sic))
´Hi, hable Englais?´
´Um, a leetle.'
'Okay, [motioning to the menu] I'll have the hamburgesa'
'Oh, we no have that.'
'Okay, I'll, um, have the lasagna'
'No, we have no that.'
'How about the hotdog?'
'No...'
'Right, do you, in fact, have any food?'
'Yes, we, er, have...'
'No, no, don't tell me; I'm keen to guess...'
Eventually, She actually added a steak sandwich thing (a 'Chiratso', from what I can tell) to the menu, so we had that.

So, having spoken to Mike 0beforehand, we headed to the top of the chair to begin our ascent of the actual volcano. Mike had already set off, since he was actually making the trail up in the snow. We followed the dot on the horizon that I assumed was him. I also ran into a guy I'd met in the hottup in Portillo. He was a snow journalist, and asked Drew and I to pose for action photos with the Pucon volcano in the background. We hiked hard for an hour and a half, putting one foot in front of the other in time-honoured fashion. I can't put into words how tough and exhilerating this was, but by the time I'd reached Mike's break point - about half way up, I was pretty exhausted. The wind had also picked up. Since I was hiking in only a fleece (having abandoned my jacket in the van), I began to get pretty cold. Mike was digging a pit, to perform an avalanche test. He left a square stack of snow in the middle, checked it for layers that may slide, then placed a shovel on the top and hit it with various forces to see the effect. Pronouncing it safe, we waited for everyone to regroup before heading on up. It got colder and colder and, since it was now four o'clock, Mike decided we'd gone high enough. It looked like only another twenty minutes to me, but I always do what I'm told in those situations, so we dropped onto a clear field and screamed to the bottom. Fantastic. (Note that this story isn't over...)

So, back at the hostel, we showered, ate and drank. I was still pretty ill and was pronounced by more that one of the group as a 'hiking mother f***er', due to my efforts on the hill. Pure bloody-mindedness and stupidity, of course. Also had a long conversation with Tim. I received some worried glances from the others, but this was all my own doing. He owns a recording studio, and has been in the business for a long time. We had a discussion on the practice of downloading music. Very intersting, is all I'll say here, suffice to say that I haven't really changed my opinion. And so to bed.

Of volcanos and viruses

So, yes, it´s getting more and more tricky to keep this thing up to date. I can only do my best, although I think that some of the nuances might be lost as I struggle to record events. Anyway, as Claire Rayner once said, let´s press on...

I believe I was ´heading into pack´. Did that, and reassembled in the hotel reception, where we said heartfelt goodbyes to all the staff, and to Chris and Pete, who I´d really clicked with (the´re the only people that got my ´Office´ references). Also got some choice photos of the boys holding Sylv over their heads. Some weird looks from the other guests, too.

After that, we piled into the cab (Sylv, myself and Mike - an American from New York, heading home after a month´s travel). I sat in the front, while I tried to learn a little about the US frat-house ´Greek´system. I´ve had to sit out many conversations since I arrived in Chile, since I know very little about the US. Incidentally, it was interesting to note Sylv´s blank looks whenever Chris, Pete and I got into a UK-centric conversation. Hopefully, it helped demonstrate just how I often felt. Not that this bothered me at all, but it was just, well, interesting.

The journey itself was pretty easy, although at one point we were crawling at two miles per hour (due to the ice), and I thought we may well be turned back. In any event, it took us three hours to get to Santiago, one of which was spent in traffic. The appartment was pretty small for a double, but was comfortable, and we soon filled it with drying snowboarding clothing and equipment (Slyv almost managing to melt a pair of socks on the one radiator).

Aaron knocked on the door while Sylv was in the shower. Aaron is the part-owner of CASA. He´s Chinese-American and, from the photo on the website, I assumed he´d be older. When I opened the door, I actually had to look down. The guy can´t have been taller than five foot four, and was wrapped up in fleeces and rucksacks in such a way as to put me in mind of some sort of koala bear. Y´know you get an immediate impression of someone? Well, I decided on the spot that Aaron was a good guy. Really friendly and enthusiastic despite - obviously - having a bad head cold. (I should note at this point that I had a slightly sore throat). We swapped a few anecdotes about Portillo and Vallee Nevada (where they´d been) and he mentioned that they were all meeting for dinner in an hour, if we wanted to join them. Of course we did...

We all met in the lobby. They were quite a mixed bunch - all guys, apart from Megan - one of the guides. They were, when I think about it, probably what I expected - being mostly in their thirties. Quite a few square-jawed types, and a couple of ´Limp Bizkit´goatee´d grungers. More on that lot later. We went for Mexican.

I sat next to Aaron, and it turns out that Mike - one of the guides - is leading the tour and Aaron is trying to take a back seat. He was just there unofficially, since Megan is ´training´. They were a pretty good bunch. Tim, one of the guys I met, attracted some comment. Apparently, the guy, um, talks. A lot. He´s in his fifties, has large glasses, a big bouffey, frizzy grey pony tail, and puts me in mind of some sort of rodent. He´d stayed home this night because he was feeling unwell. I tried to reserve judgement. Mike - the tour leader - seemed like a good guy. I could tell he was trying to mitigate the comments of the others, when they said they were glad Tim stayed at home...

We were in bed by midnight, then up the next morning, with some free time, before heading for the flight at midday. Sylv and I headed off to find Cafe Melba, on Mike´s recommendation. After much to-ing and fro-ing, we tracked it down, and had a good breakfast, before a spot of internet-ing (that was the last post).

We met in the lobby at twelve. At this point, I had my first proper encounter with Tim. I introduced myself again...
´Hi. How are you? Are you feeling better?´
´Yes, not too bad. What did you say your name was, again?´
´Nick´
´Ah yes, what do you do?´
´I used to work in web development for a Swiss bank.´
´Have you heard of Nelly?´
(At this point I started to get confused.)
´Um, the rapper?´
´Well, I hadn´t heard of him, and I didn´t know if anyone in the UK would have.´
´Er, yes, he´s...´
´He´s doing an interview in my studio in New Mexico today.´
´Oh, is he? Ah, um, okay.´
Y´see, this seems to be the pattern with Tim. You´ll get into a conversation with him, then he´s pretty quickly seguay (well, not so much seguay as ninety-degree turn) into something he wants to talk about. Interesting. I rapidly worked out that there was a constant competition in the group not to end up next to him.

I extricated myself from that one and we piled into the mini-vans. At the airport, I had to indulge in a spot of fraud, as my ticket was under ´Nick Farrel´. I don´t know how they managed that, but the Chilean airport staff didn´t seem to have a problem with it. We headed on through, pausing briefly to take photos of the perspex boxes of confiscated ´sharps´(there were massive Kitchen knives, fer chrissake. I mean, how on earth does somebody have those in hand luggage - unless they´re some sort of travelling chef.) The flight was an hour an a half, stopping once to pick up and drop off. The aircraft banked alarmingly low when landing. This was, I was told by Mark and Jeff - two ex-US airforce pilots on the tour - the pilots weren´t using the instrument landing system (ILS) and were coming in by eye. It gave them a lot more flexibility to make faster landings. Scared the shit out of me, though - and I KNOW about aircraft! Incidentally, my throat was getting worse.

We were picked up from the tiny airport by the casa buses, driven by Marco and Werner (Verner?). Pucon was a three-hour drive away up into the frontier. It put me in mind of a Banff (in Canada) that had fallen on hard times. All the buildings were wooden, and a constant smell of woodsmoke pervaded the air. Our accomodation consisted of two two-story buildings next to each other in some sort of gated arboreal enclave. The place was full of dense trees, with wooded-walkways threading through to the various houses. There were seven of us in our building - three twin rooms and a sofabed downstairs. Heating consisted of gas fires and a wood burner downstairs which, again, led to the place stinking of wood-smoke. We threw our bags down, then headed for food...

(Y´know, this is just far too detailed, isn´t it? I´m boring myself. Okay, let´s go for brevity.)

Went to bed. Got up the next day. Went to bed late. Got up this morning...

(Hmm. Okay, happy medium it is, then.)

So, we headed out for pizza, but were told that, since it was off season, the restaurant didn´t actually have any pizza dough. Cosmic. In the end, we found a place over the road, and ate mucho steak. We got back to the lodgings (I can´t think of a better word for them) at midnight, then started on board maintenance. Jeff used to work in a board shop, and the guys all had equipment, so we got ptex-ing and waxing on the dining room table. My ipod went on the speakers, and it was quite an atmosphere. Tom also put the film from his helmet cam on. Tom´s an interesting guy. He´s got long black hair and a looong chin goatee. From Florida originally, he lives in New York and trades stocks from his laptop to make a living. He gets in something like fifty days of boarding a year!.

The next morning, my throat was feeling worse, and I was convinced I was coming down with a cold. Another &$%&$/$ cold! We grabbed breakfast at eight, then got kitted up to head up to the Villarica volcano, which dominated the skyline - completely white, right down to the steam issuing from the top. Half an hour drive had us at the base resort, which I can only describe as tin-pot. One nasty little cafe, with the most watery coffee I´ve ever tasted, and milk I had to specifically ask for. The winds were too high to go up, though, so we stood around for a while, then elected to go visit some volcanic magma caves instead. Tim decided to stay and hike to the top of the lifts (he was on telemarkers, unlike the rest of us on boards). This was, predictably, greeted with enthusiasm. The caves were mildly interesting, although the guide had to repeat everything in Spanish and English, which doubled the length of the tour. I was feeling worse, so wasn´t too upset we weren´t skiing that day.

We headed back afterwards, then rendezvous´d to head to the hot springs, forty minutes away These were pretty incredible. They were down a flight of steps into a valley, with a fast-flowing river. The changing rooms were over the hottest pool, with stairs going down into it. Mike had also brought some beers for us to quaff. We alternated between the hotpool, the cold pool and the river - the macho amongst us succumbing to peer-pressure and sitting in ice cold water for five minutes at a time. I was figuring this would kill or cure my worsening cold. As we left the pools, Mark received news that he´d got the FedEx job he´d interviewed for, so celebrations ensued. I slept the journey home, then we all headed out for pizza (the restaurant, forwarned, had prepared some dough). We ate, although I wasn´t feeling particularly good. As part of Jeff´s efforts to stitch up Mark, we each gave him a shot every quarter of an hour. I hit him with a double Jack Daniels, which I thought might help my throat. He was pretty battered by the time we left the restaurant and headed to ´Mammas and Tapas´ (I kid you not). I paused briefly, then headed home for an early night. The others arrived back at 3am.

During the night, the wind was blowing so heavily, we knew the mountain was going to be closed, so we slept in. Another hearty breakfast - together with stories of the evening´s antics, and we were free to do our own thing. We may go mountain biking this afternoon. That decision will be made in ten minutes.

So there we are. That was pretty epic and, I´m afraid, not particularly entertaining, being merely a record of events. I´m losing the detail - the cave guide´s haircut, the five guys sharing a bottle of wine on the street at 8am, Jeff´s metrosexual handbag. I need to fill these in, but I don´t know when I´ll have time. Got Mike a beauty at breakfast with the pepper. As I left Portillo, Chris told me to mention how unusual it was to see pepper, since Mike had done this and the guys had never let him forget it. I kinda understand his point of view, since it took me two days before I saw pepper so I could play the line. This morning, there was pepper. I remarked how suprised I was, to no one in particular, and noted Mike´s open mouth and double take from the other side of the table. We both burst out laughing.

Hokay, my throat hurts, and my nose is blocked, but I guess it´s worked out well that I haven´t missed any skiing. That´s all for now. I´ll try and come up with something funny to say next time.

Portillo, it's been emotional...

Santiago it is, then. After much to-ing and fro-ing, we've eventually found an Internet cafe near our appartment. So, what's been going on, then. Well...

Wednesday morning (I just checked the PC calendar to work out what day it was!), we woke late, after a night of 500. I've now recruited another to the cause - Mike's from New York, and I've written the scoring system down for him so he can take the game back to the US and spread the word. In fact, he got the hang of it quite quickly, although there were still a few issues:
'Oh, so if I bid 'eight' I have to actually get eight tricks?'
'Um, yes.'
'Oh. Ohhhh.'
'Uh-huh.'
Never mind. Oh yes, another classic from Sylv, who had been chain-smoking all evening...
'God, it's real smokey in here...'
'Yuh-huh!'
We found out, too, that Pete had had a pretty special day - performing a full back-flip off a kicker, then scoring with a portuerican (spelling?) girl in the hot tup. What a guy.

Anyway, we woke late and hit the slopes. Visibility wasn't bad, but the snow was pretty lumpy, necessitating fully bent legs all the time, which was pretty exhausting. I've also found that I keep running into people on the slopes that I've met in the hotel, and visa-versa. The problem is that I never recognise them, since they're always in hats/helmets/goggles/etc. I met a couple of guys yesterday. Some of you will be amused to note that one of them asked me if I'm 'The blond guy that sits with Sylv and the two English guys' at dinner'. Blond? Goddammit.

Since we still had some Tio Bob vouchers left (Tio Bob's is the bbq restaurant at the top of Gargantua. It's owned by the hotel - of course - but guests can take one free meal up there per week.), we had lunch there with Jeff, Danielle, Amanda and Jason, some folk from Carolina we met. I still have my god-given eating talent, and destroyed a plate of sausage, chicken, salmon, salad and potato, before helping Sylv out with the rest of hers. She told me she'd never seen anything quite like that before...

So, out of there, and down the slopes. The cloud had descended and visibility was non-existant. I closed my eyes and 'used the force'. After that, we did another run, but it really wasn't worth staying out, so we headed in to pack...

Gotta go catch a plane. More later...

Nearly Nirvana...

Look, I don´t want to wax too poetical here, but I think this might be worth remembering. For me, that is. Anyway,

Let me paint you a picture...

It´s one thirty in the afternoon, in Portillo. We´re in the dining room, eating another fantastic three-course meal (dijon Pork, I believe). It´s been - as some of my Colorado aquaintances put it - "Pukin´it down, maaan". We´ve had almost a metre of snow overnight, and all the lifts are closed, due to avalanche danger. The atmosphere is good. Everyone is excited at the prospect of the slopes opening with fresh powder, and the rumour mill is running on overdrive. A series of glass-shaking booms rattle the windows, and everyone runs to the terrace. They´re blasting, to clear avalanche risks. This can only mean that they´re planning to open the slopes. They guys we´re eating with drop their knives and forks and leave the dining room at a jog.

An hour later, a small crowd is gathering on the nursery slopes. The main lift has been running for an hour, but only taking up mountain guides. The sky has cleared, and it´s only a matter of time before we´re let up the hill. I adjust my bindings back on my board, so my weight is placed back, to let me surf through the snow. At some unseen signal, the group charges down the slope towards the lift. It´s like some sort of land-rush, as people jostle for positions. I sit at the top and observe, rueing the fact that I don´t have enough memory left on my camera to record this charge. We make our way down, and are on, probably, the eighth quad chair up. As we ascend, the previously-tracked slopes are now pristine and untouched. Everybody´s practically busting with excitment. I´m quietly happy, but find the enthusiasm of the North Americans amusing.

We reach the top. I glide down the transistion and into a wall of snow. The piste is covered with over a foot of new snow, which is now being smashed down into a compact trail by the eager skiers and snowboarders. Pausing briefly to strap in, we survey the mountain below. There are already some tracks, and without further ado, we drop in. Incredible. This is the best snow I´ve ever been in. Utterly soft, and slightly sluggish; I find myself coaxing my board, rather than actually steering it, since sharp turns are impossible. I adjust myself, and lean back so I´m surfing through the snow. As I plough down the steepest parts, I bounce from side to side, and ice-cold snow sprays my face. The slopes are filled with whooping and cheering. I bounce back onto the piste, then hit a ridge of snow kicked up by a piste-basher and fly through the air. I land on my back, yet still have a massive smile on my face. I raise my arms, acknowledging the cheering from the group of skiers I flew past. And to the bottom. Everybody is grinning, and spirits are high, as people scramble back up the mountain.

Every run, I become more ambitious, bouncing down through steeper and steeper powder. The Gargantua gulley opens, and everybody races to get first tracks. The snow is waist-deep at times. Racing down the hill is both terrifying and exhilarating, tinged with the knowledge that any landing will be soft. My board catches a few rocks, and I´m briefly smug that I left my brand new Option Redline in the ski store, electing to take out my old and beaten-up Supercharger. My legs being to tire, but the heart is still willing. This is without doubt the best snow I´ve ever experienced, together with perfect visibility. It simply doesn´t get better than this. I´m smiling and my heart is pumping, yet I still feel subdued next to my American companions, who are slightly more expressive in their enthusiasm.

The powder has now been pushed into lumps, and all the fresh tracks have now gone. Riding out is still immensely exhilerating, yet much more difficult, and unstable. My legs are failing, and I´m not making the turns. Even so, I keep pushing myself up the chair. I glance at the clock. It´s ten to five, and the Hispanic lift attendant motions that it is to be my last run. I´m happy to have the decision taken away from me. The light is failing, and I´m running on vapours, yet still very happy. I plough down the now-lumpen slopes, kicking up mountains of snow-spray, before hitting the side of the piste, and hopping back on. I ride switch to the bottom, then turn round and glide up to the nursery slope. Unclipping my board, I take one last look at the mountain, before heading for the hotel.

They haven´t opened the bigger half of the mountain, so hopefully tomorrow...

Let it snow, let it snow, let it...actually, that´s enough now, thanks...

So, a little catching up to do, then. Now, where was I...?

I guess I should start with - christ, what day is it, Tuesday? Okay, Sunday, then. We hiked up Roca Jack to make a traverse over several powder fields, separated by rocky ridges. That morning, I´d traded in my new board for my old Supercharger at the storeroom. This proved to be a good decision, since I put a six inch long by one inch wide gouge down the centre, to the core. The technician made a face when I showed him. I spent the afternoon riding switch, and can now do it comfortably, albeit without the top speed I have going forward.

And so to the evening. Tres mucho pisco sour and beers. We ended up running into a couple of English blokes, which was SUCH a result. Finally, the asides, comments and cultural references I´ve been making are being understood, and the topic of conversation is more St. Anton than Colorado. Result. Pete and Chris (for thou art their names) are from Bath uni, and are the incoming and outgoing Bath University ski club captains. They´re top blokes, fantastic skiers, and cardboard-cutout characature public school boys. Oh, and they´d just finished a tour with Casa - the same crew we´re going to travel with. Marvellous. So, we spent the night drinking with them. We also ran into Jerry - one of my roommates - in the bar. He´s been on the Bourbon since roughly four o'clock, and was plastered. He´s made me promise I´ll bring out a bunch of people to use his condo in Beaver Creek, near Vale (incidentally, I have it on good authority that in Beaver Creek there´s an off-licence that´s called, inevitably, ´Beaver Liquors´. Brilliant.). All we would have to do is pay for cleaning. How could I possibly refuse an offer like that? Anyway, once the band had stopped (and the moustachioed Polish crew had given up wrestling random women onto the dance floor), we hit the ´club´- a small nightclub in the basement of the hotel. It was at this point that Sylv´s fleece went AWOL, containing her camera, room pass, etc. Now, some girls (women, ladies, whatever) get upset and emotional. Sylv gets scarily aggressive. Normally I´d offer a hug. In this case, however, I had no punchbag to give her, so retreated to a safe distance. Several of the hotel doors weren´t so lucky. Yup, I´d say she was pissed off. Understandable, though, as it was much like when my li´l sis had her camera stolen in Uraguay, it wasn´t so much the cost of the camera as the photographs on it. It´s interesting how different people handle their emotions.

Anyway, after writing it off, it was handed in at reception the next day (Monday). The cash had gone, but the camera was there, so happy days. Meanwhile, the snow was bucketing down. After having a very long a leisurely breakfast, we played cards until lunchtime (regular ´Scotton Tours´travellers will be pleased to note I now have three new people playing ´500´), then headed out to hit a spot of powder. It´s everywhere, and reminds me of what snowboarding really is all about. I still managed to find the only rocks, though, which made a nice noise. Since I have two boards, though, I´m not being too precious about it. Hit the hot-tub after that, and spent time rolling in the snow. Oh yes, we then did yoga. Yes, you read that right: Yoga. This was the Bath boys´ idea, and was the first time I´d done it. Yes, there WERE some very attractive women in there, but we were doing it purely for the holistic benefits, right? And to prepare for the inevitable night of drinking...

So, dinner was spent trying to think up interesting rumours to start. I was particularly pleased with mine - that the Maitre-d (spelling?), a portly gent who´s jowls had jowls, used to coach Alberto Tomba, the great downhill skier. Chris swallowed this immediately, so I think it might work. After dinner, it was more 500 (whilst listening to a band murder Led Zeppelin and the Beatles), then down to La Posada. This is pretty much a shack down by the main road, and is where the locals and staff drink. Very cheap, and with a big wood fire burning away, which left all our clothes smelling like Bonfire Night. That closed at 3:30am, and left us hiking back through two-foot deep fresh snow to the Octagon, where we´re staying. I managed not to wake my room-mates, who I´m getting to know very well now.

So, it´s now, um, Tuesday morning, and the snow´s still ´pukin´ down. The road is closed, so we could be stuck until Thursday. If that´s the case, we´ll have to arrange to meet the Casa tour later on. The thought of fresh powder ain´t too arduous, though.

Things are ticking along nicely...

It´s amazing how friendly this place is. Saturday was transfer day, and I´m pretty darned please we came in mid-week, as it´s carnage. This week, the hotel appears to be mostly full of Americans. Jacque, my young Argentinian room-mate, has been replaced by Jim, Jerry and Jack - three guys in their fifties from Virginia. I ran into them in the hot-tub (not literally; that would have caused issues) before I realised they were my new room-mates. I was invited to help myself to the red wine and ´Wild Turkey´Bourbon they brought, so I think this´ll work out. I´ve found myself talking to almost every person I share a chair with, as well as anyone sitting nearby in the hot-tub. There´s a diverse bunch here, but they all (at least, the North Americans ) share a love of snow. Unlike European resorts, this place is small and enclosed (like a cruise ship), so you see the same people time and again. Sylv has three new roommates, two of whome are Spanish, and one of whom is from Brazil.

I`m over the jetlag now, and waking up at a decent time. Not sure whether this is due to the snowboarding, the vast amounts of food and alcohol, or the high altitude, but it´s done the trick. Speaking of food, it´s fantastic. The fish is awesome, and so well prepared. Generally, I finish one, then the waiter brings another. The waiters are the best I´ve experienced, being attentive, funny and very relaxed considering the ´silver service´nature of the dining. Heck, even the boot guy (we store our boots by the ski store) remembers me, so that when I walk in, take off my shoes and walk up to the hatch, my boots are already sitting on the sil waiting for me. Unbelievable. He´s definitely getting a tip.

I trashed my board today. I took the new one out yesterday and it´s fantastic. It handles like a dream, and has plenty of pop to it. Even the board storage bloke called it ´beautiful´. I caught a couple of rocks, though, so I put it away in favour of my old ´beater-board´. Good thing too, as it got destroyed today. I took a seven inch gouge to the core down the middle. The repair guy reckons he can save it, but it won´t be pretty. Never mind. We hiked up the traverse from Roca Jack today (it´s avalanche prone, so they generally close it in the afternoon). Powder and rocks: A deadly combination. Still, it´s all good preparation for heading South. I spent the afternoon riding Switch (backwards), and can now do it pretty smoothly. Also threw in a couple of tentative one eighties, and they´re coming along nicely.

So, the sun is STILL shining, but snow is on the way. Apparently, it´s going to dump on Monday and Tuesday, so Sylvia - very much wearing the pants, these days (that´s the US ´pants´, by the way) - has taken it upon herself to book us in for another night. Hopefully, we´ll still have time to get back to Santiago and hook up with Casa to hit the volcanos.

I´m afraid this is turning into a record of events. I didn´t want that to happen, but I guess it´s worth doing. I´ll see if I can´t turn the corner shortly...