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.