The Hollow Men

Now that the skiing has become a great deal more serious and despite apathy at the beginning of the course, we are all throwing ourselves at it with a desperate vigour. This tends to mean that we have few days off and any that we do have are spent furiously honing in on the weakness in our technique (mine seem to be worryingly numerous). However, luck made a fleeting appearance this week and we snatched the opportunity to venture off into the valleys of an Argentina that shied away from the prying and polluting hands of tourism.

Having been out the previous night in a typically eventful Argentinian night on the town, I was asleep when the decision to go was made by Alex and two others. So I was awoken and hurried into the car, having my notepad and backpack hastily shoved into my uncoordinated and unresponsive hands. Precious time was saved because I had no need to dress myself, I'd conveniently fallen asleep in my clothes, and before I knew it we were blasting down the ruta cuarenta to the soundtrack of bad, Spanish electronic music. Our destination was El Bolson,the bohemian hot spot of Patagonia. I had been told it was full of 'dirty f*****g hippies' by the chefs (because I came into the restaurant one day, wearing trousers I had bought at some local festival for dirty acid fiends, they recommended I should visit this place, saying that I would find 'my kind' there. Bastards).

We had been powering along in our little bastardised 4x4 for roughly 40 minutes by the time my hunger became unbearable, so we pulled over for coffee and a sandwich at the next town we came across. Having traveled a considerable distance away from the beaten track of tourism in the local area, the next town happened to be a ramshackle collection of hastily constructed wooden shacks with roofs of corrugated iron. We circled the town and turned around in the road, suddenly noticing a gaucho who was riding his horse alongside the road. Robbie, the culturally ignorant and hyperactive australian leaned out of the window and began feverishly taking photos of him, much to his annoyance. I suggested he stopped, due to the increasingly homicidal expression on the aforementioned gaucho's face, which was twisted into a wrinkled squint (or frown, it was hard to be certain) of deep and permeating irritation. Having noticed a rather decayed sign hanging from one of the cabins, bearing the word 'restuarante' we got out and put out heads togther trying to muster up the pathetic amount of Spanish needed to order coffee and croissants.

We were welcomed in by a very affable middle aged woman, who was sweeping the porch. The place was bare, and consisted of a couple of tables and modest chairs. It was, however, kept exceptionally clean (which was reassuring!). We sat down and took in our surroundings, noticing that the whole place was festooned with balloons. I waited for the woman to come back out so that I could ask her what the cause for all the festivity was, however I was somewhat lost for words when our waiter emerged from the kitchen. The gaucho, with his leathery face, rough calloused hands and (upon seeing us) displeased expression had come out of the kitchen, still wearing his poncho and riding boots bearing the rich and overpowering smell of horse. He placed the coffee and tortas fritas (doughnuts without all the sugar) on the table, said a civil hello and then quickly asked us all where we were from. Before anyone else could answer, I quickly gave a generic answer which was along the lines of 'all over the place' so as to avoid a Falklands dispute (I know one shouldn't judge, but believe me, he seemed like the type to turf us out). This seemed to appease the old fellow and he shuffled back into the bowels of the cabin muttering darkly.

The way the restaurant worked was interesting, because as we had ordered our drinks, the woman disappeared out of the front door and after fighting her way through the flurry of excitable chickens and ferrel children, she disappeared into what I can only presume was her own home. She emerged later, with an explosion of the intrusive cockerels that he had shooed from inside her house with all the ingredients for our food and the mugs for the coffee, and then cooked them in the restaurant kitchen. I pity the poor dear if she has to go through this elaborate procedure with each order the place receives! The coffee was excellent and seemed to have an exquisitely rural taste, along with the tortas fritas, which we coated heavily in the local blackberry jam and then gorged upon hastily.

It was only now that we realised there was a young boy munching away contentedly on some gruel like substance, heavily engrossed in watching Toy Story 2 on a tv, tucked away in the corner of the place. We watched this as the dregs of our coffee were drained and our very plates licked clean. Full and refreshed we left, also finding out that the balloons were there because one of the villagers had turned a magnificent 80 years old that day and the whole community was coming together later on in the day, to give her a special celebration, which I thought was fantastic, a type of unity that you can only find in the more rural places in our increasingly impersonal and modern world. We picked our way past wooden carts and daring chickens, then heading off down the road and making our way along the beautiful winding mountain roads lined with forests, towering cliffs and streams.

As we worked our way through the Patagonian wilderness we still saw political propaganda sprayed on the occasional rock, amongst the oriental, orange tinted trees and flowing creeks which wound their way intricately amongst their roots, casting an almost oriental air of tranquility amongst the menacing atmosphere of grandeur that is ever-present with great mountain ranges. We came across a strong, fast flowing river that was accompanied by a gendarmeria, a little hut with a lethargic policemen watching the traffic pass by, lazily smoking his cigarette probably waiting to return home to his family in one of the nearby towns. We carried on, eagerly awaiting our arrival in El Bolson, conjuring elaborate descriptions of how we expected it to be as rustic lorries passed us by carrying tons of wood stolen from the local, and internationally 'protected' forests.

The buildings became less and less sporadic as we neared El Bolson, camp sites started appearing on the both sights, along with worrying amount of German businesses such as 'Schmidt Hnoss', a vivid reminder of darker times passed. This would be the first of many German encounters in Argentinian culture. It has a considerable presence here due to Argentina's part in WWII. It turns out that in order to maintain a neutral standing they sided with the Allies, as they were likely to win at the time of their choice, but at the same time gave thousands of fleeing Nazi war criminals open and unconditional passports. So, I think I am right in having a slight (and not entirely intentional) moral agenda when I meet an Argentinian of German decent. El Bolson did not exactly slap us in the face with its brilliance, by this, I mean that I could have mistaken it for any rural gaucho haven that we had passed on the long journey down here. It is a fairly small, dirty, linear town, its main street lined with dilapidated trucks, itching to be put down. We crawled down the high street in our faithful little car, peering out at the groups of gaucho youths hovering outside sad looking corner shops and dark skinned old men sat, wearing the same working overalls (on a sunday) and baseball caps, the grime of poverty shining strongly from their tanned skin.

We parked the car opposite an immaculate and elaborate modern church and started heading towards the heart of El Bolson, the park. Its unhealthy looking browny green had been the only breath to break the monotony of the town's intense greyness which stole any opportunity of vibrancy and life from the people. We stumbled upon a miserable looking market arranged along the concrete path that enclosed the far side of the park, and were filled with a slight optimism that the trip had been worthwhile. Unfortunately my suspicions were soon confirmed and I was assaulted by the familiar feeling of oppression and irritation that I had found inescapable in British hippie circles. There was the usual air of fallacy that all the people were clearly aware of and were, in their usual contrived activity, desperately trying to conceal. There were the usual hopefuls sitting, strumming their guitars, singing songs about love and happiness in the town, in the vague hope that someone would give them a few pathetic pesos, whilst other dirty dreadlocked people sat behind their stalls smoking and emanating the sadness that was visible in their dull, lifeless eyes.

I walked through the market, trying to find a single thread of happiness and positivity, watched like an alien by brown couples who sat, the young men clinging to their women, pecking and nurturing the beautiful creatures, stroking their tightly curled, jet black hair, those tragically deep, piercing, Indian eyes glaring back out of their bronzed faces like dangerous jewels. I was accosted by vendors, stubbing their spliffs and emerging from their vacuous stupors leaping out, grimacing at me with yellowing teeth showing me their wares with a striking desperation. One woman, whose stall I had drifted over to because she had a certain mystical beauty flowing from her, spoke excellent English and showed me with an amazing knowledge all the stones she had, their origins, where she had found them and how they were formed. I asked her how she spoke such good English, and she replied that she had been at a good university and studied it. I wondered how the woman had ended up in this predicament, clearly impoverished, the dirt that covered her fingers contrasting starkly with the bright shining stones she was trying so very hard to sell. Filthy young children ran around with wild hair, not dissimilar to the matted fur of the motheaten dogs that were lying about the place, seemingly as depressed with their predicament as the human occupants.

We, once again, grew hungry and conveniently a waffle van was placed in front of us. The vendor seemed, from a considerable distance, distinctly un-Argentinian and indeed, it turned out he was from deepest darkest Guildford. He'd given up working for Mark's and Spencer's, claiming he was fed up of 'making ends meet'. I must admit, I found it confusing how he could possibly be doing any better working out of a van, selling fairly substandard waffles to the impoverished and the occasional and usually lost tourist. Anyway he told me how he was 'living like a king' with such vigour that it certainly seemed as if he was trying to convince himself as much as me. I got his email address, promising to read his blog and left to to his wife, their many children and the hordes of dirty urchins hanging around the other food vans. Poor sod.

We had been told that a worthwhile sight was the 'Cabeza del Indio', an interesting rock formation a few miles away from the town, up a dirt track an into the nearby mountains. Glad for an opportunity to get away from the market and its sombre inhabitants we piled into the car and drove at a rapid pace, not out of eagerness, but to get up the fierce incline of the road, whilst narrowly avoiding dirty hippies on bicycles. We parked the car and followed the signs across some sodden land into some woods, picking our way carefully along a narrow winding path and up some rickety wooden steps. Ritchie, who had accompanied us on the trip was feeling the strain of being exposed to something genuine and was clearly stressed. Earlier on he had been so bored he'd deteriorated to throwing chips at chickens and being racist to dogs, now, he'd worsened after eating too many sugary sweets and was clearly a bit overexcited. He'd ran on ahead, whooping and yelling and then started throwing rocks down at us like some kind of crazed animal. Naturally, this was quite annoying, so, after a verbal assualt, he calmed down and we left him to quietly destroy some of the more delicate parts of the cliff face as we found the 'Cabeza del Indio'. It was a clif face that had eroded in such a fashion that it resembled a face screaming out from the side of the mountain, in a deep anguish (probably why it's an Indian face, considering how they were completely butchered by the Spanish). We spent a few minutes, sat, trying to ignore Ritchie, dangling our legs over a dangerous drop whilst taking in the marvelous view. Far below us, the Rio Azul was weaving its eternal path through the low lying farmland and the attractive little houses that littered the plain, the haphazard stories and floors dangling off at a typically precarious angle.

And so we left El Bolson, feeling as though we were pulling our boots from thick mud, its vacuousness having already wrapped its spectral, parasitic fingers around our ankles in an attempt to sap the energy that we had brought with us. We left behind the gaggles of dirty people, some like that by choice, others not as lucky, passing their nameless bottles of alcohol throughout all hours of the day, putting the world to rights in a manner as repetitive as the mumblings of a self centred depressive. I was glad to be leaving, keen to distance myself from that old delusion that these people had a real reason to be exempt from a purposeful life, that there was some kind of depth to their lethargic existence, and mostly that these people were in possession of some kind of exclusive ethereal energy that they had somehow tapped into. Some kind of atmospheric passion that would keep their spirits full as they sat, their lives being drained away, like paint down a plughole, in this sad, deflated town with its graffitied walls and decaying statues culminating in the empty lake that gave out the reek of a corrupt dream, of an ideal dead and decomposing from the inside out.

Ich Habe Einen Sternfisch Im Meine Unterhosen

The last week has been spent skiing frantically, trying to improve. In my case, this usually results in severe ham string cramps and my arms and legs ending up in positions they shouldn't be in, with my face submerged deep in snow, writhing frantically in a vain attempt to right myself, like an overturned turtle. Or rather, like some turtle with irritating pieces of metal strapped to it, that it neither finds comfortable nor possible to coordinate competently. Other than this we (Robbie the energetic Australian and I) have been honing our long distance chat up skills via chairlift. Unfortunately, despite much practice all we seem to have been able to do is shout bastardised Spanish at an offensive volume which usually merits a slightly nervous smile and (presuming they didn't hear us properly) on rare occasions a lackadaisical wave.

So it turns out that despite all this epic falling and what you might consider sexual harassment we'd been engaging in, we'd actually passed BASI 1 and I, your very own layabout degenerate fiend, am now a qualified ski instructor. How's that for a scary thought. Scum of society to someone with some qualifications and a job prospect in under a month and a half (oh yeah, I also got my A Levels, which weren't too bad in the end). However, this was done and dusted, and come the next day, typically, we were all immensely bored and I think the hotel was fed up with us hanging around making the lobby look dirty, loitering around the fireplaces, lounging about in the squishy armchairs that we had been occupying regularly since we had arrived like a bunch of hobos who have stumbled upon some luck. So the more proactive of us (a minority of which you may be surprised to know that I now 'proudly' include myself in) decided to venture out with a touring company that would ferry us around the Patagonian wilderness, pointing out interesting varieties of moss and other lichen. Oh, and a glacier and some waterfalls.

So we had luckily prepared in advance (probably because I wasn't entrusted with the organising process of the day) and had paid the small price for the trip. And also, in typical Argentinian style, we had to pay the guy who recommended we go on the trip a 30% cut of 44 pesos. Strictly on a confidential basis, as you do in a country completely dictated by the black market. Anyway, we were told to be ready at 8.15 sharp or the bus would leave without us, in the strictest of tones. So we were up, and bleary eyed at the aforementioned time, ready as could be. And continued to be for the next 45 minutes, due to the reliable system of negotiations here in Argentina. Anyway, we'd all fallen asleep on the sofas in reception waiting for these layabouts to turn up, and were awoken by a short, wiry individual with greying hair in a mullet, who, once having woken us up, thrust out his arm, charismatically announced that his English was poor and that he 'spoke like Tarzan'. Having gotten up and noticed that his eyes were freakishly far apart, making him look like some kind of biped trout, I asked his name, which he had so far forgotten to share with us. It turns out that his name was Ricardo, which was announced with a massive, excitable grin and much bouncing up and down, like a badly trained terrier.

We were hurried on the bus by Ricardo, assuring us that we could call him Ricky Martin (who he bore a similarity to, in the same respect that whenever I hear or see either of them, I become immediately irritated) and laughing to himself maniacally. I enthusiastically attempted to say a quick 'hello, how are you' to the driver in Spanish, only to receive a slow turning of the head accompanied by an incredulously blank look, with his jaw hanging loose like some kind of genetically challenged fool. I quickly moved on, embarrassed and with the rest of the passengers staring at me, fixedly, as is the norm when inspecting a new arrival to your company on a bus. Some of them even said hello and I was starting to feel at ease until I noticed the alarming number of poorly applied toupees floating above the moth eaten 1970's seats of the bus, only to be accompanied by a disillusioned skiers worst enemy. The one piece ski suit. Now in my opinion, the one piece is some dreadful invention that should have died a painful death with the rest of the 1980's, like Duran Duran and flared trousers. In fact, so hated are they that it's a game, on piste, to spit on them, and if that's not possible, then you just have to yell 'ONE PIECE' as loud as humanly possible, in a vague attempt to rid the owner of their crippling delusion of looking inoffensive. Honestly, crimes against fashion I tell you. In fact, considering their disgusting and vulgar nature on the slopes, why would you harm society even more by wearing them in public ? ON A BUS ?!! Fools, fools the lot of them. So I took some incriminating photos of them whilst they weren't looking and let them be.

It was soon after we pulled out of the driveway that we discovered Ricardo's excitability would not be contained on the road. He bounced up and down ceaselessly, rabbiting on about the mountains across the way, stopping mid sentence to ask us if we were American, which, fortunately we were not (they aren't too popular here, due to damaging their economy somewhat). I would have appreciated his non-stop commentary if he had held the microphone a decent distance away from his mouth, so that he wasn't in danger of choking on it and so that we might have understood some of the lightning speed Spanish firing out of his mouth at a thousand miles a minute. Honestly, he sounded like a horse racing commentator on amphetamines! I managed to zone out by hanging a dangerous percentage of my body out of the window in order to take some blurry and, in general, poor quality photos of our high moving surroundings. However, 20 minutes down the road we were stopped and everyone had to pay $30AR to get into the national park (where the glacier was), except us, when the arse of a ranger realised that we weren't Argentinian (thanks to Robbie yakking away, loudly, advertising our foreignness) and subsequently demanded more money off of us.

After this covert theft had been completed we powered on down the precarious dirt track with scant regard for other traffic, Ricardo leaping about like some kind of crazed animal yelling about 'this rare trees that come from Canadia' with the fellow passengers' toupees now hanging off at extreme angles. Every so often the charismatic driver would screech to a sudden, unannounced halt and we would all pour out and take pictures of nothing in particular, and then be hurried quickly back into the van when various other tour buses starting piling up behind us on the narrow one-way mountain track. Nevertheless the surrounding area was exceptionally beautiful. In fact there was one particular thing that has stuck me of late, in this particular valley we were busy polluting with our aged van, there was an abundance of dead, skeletal trees. Peculiar because it was contrasted by the most amazing blues of the glacial water and the deep greens of the surrounding shrubbery, emphasising this oddly beautiful sense of morbidity that added to the silence and atmosphere of the enormous valley. I had been told on the absolutely reliable authority of Mark that there was a disease ravaging the country's tree population, in a similar fashion to Dutch Elm disease. Which, fair to the man, seemed (on this one, rare occasion of anything that he has ever said) believable enough.



Our first proper, arranged stop was at some waterfalls, Los Alerces, which were in fact really quite amazingly beautiful. The river leading up them ran a deep, emerald green, slowly twisting into a frothing frenzy of colour and energy, culminating in an epic show of the raw power of nature. The water crashed down in a satisfying roar, sending spray up in a shimmering display of colour, the tranquility and permanence of the rainbow creating a delightful contrast against the swirling inferno of water below. We all snapped away, looking incredibly touristy and probably getting very little worthwhile photography accomplished. Once again we were ushered like unruly cattle back towards the minibus, being allowed a short toilet break and a quick look into the coffee shop. I required neither of these things so I snuck around, trying to look inconspicuous, in the surrounding (and off limits) barns. This went relatively smoothly apart from a very lazy dog sitting and watching me with an expression that pretty much said 'oh you silly bastard' and a cat appearing from a hole in a wall and hissing at me rather aggressively, which I then tried to take some photographs of, got a bit scared and left. This was not the end to my shameless tourism. As the rest of the group sat about drinking coffee and complimenting the hosts, I was outside shouting at a small, and in the opinion of some people, cute dog, trying to get it to sit still and look at the camera lens for one photograph. Which I don't think was a particularly unreasonable request.


A little later, Ricardo's jabbering was starting to piss me off, so I decided that I'd already seen the majority of the view from the abrupt stops we'd already made and promptly fell asleep. I had one of those moments where you whack your head violently against the window pane and wake up swearing under your breath only to find your crazed tour guide furiously shouting about something with a concerning amount of passion whilst wafting about a large picture of an otter. I thought it would be best to go back to sleep. I awoke as we were nearing the glacier, and at pretty much the same time as the driver had spotted a small shard of ice and promptly refused to go any further, accentuating this with furious texting and refusing to acknowledge any kind of communication. So, we walked. Uphill, on ice, in tennis shoes. Soon, the ice turned to snow and we were soon surrounded by the magnificent stillness that was the Tronador glacier (Tronador meaning thunder), only broken by the subsonic boom of the ice breaking off from far above and crashing down into the valley. As amazing as this experience was, taking my glacier virginity, so to speak I couldn't help but feel slightly let down, only because it was so far away from the viewing platform, and due to the strictly touristic format of the day.

However, I considered the day a great success, and due to the fact that I was far, far away from the other members of the cabin moping, being hungover and 'relieving' themselves furiously, I was on top of the world. In fact I was so elated that I fell asleep the entire bus journey back and so avoided the dreadful tirade of verbal assault that came with Ricardo's existence. The next day I would return to the week's of skiing, in preparation for my next (and considerably harder) exam, with 5 days of depression, severe confidence issues and the further punishment of my already aged knees. Joy of joys, I'm a ski instructor.

Unfortunately, the time has come to start taking things more seriously, the time to ignore the massive stock-piles of cheap beer and spirits, to ignore the calls of the local bars just itching to stay open until 7am and to hand over all those mischievous cigarette packets. This isn't because we've all had a sudden moral breakthrough or any substantial epiphanies (like that time in The Simpsons Movie, however, that would probably help), nor have we converted to some weird Christian cult or even become better people. It's just that our BASI (British Association of Snowsports Instructors) examiner has arrived and will be 'constantly assessing us', meaning that if we have a cheeky beer at an inappropriate time or someone feels like they want to have a liberating coffee and cigarette on the hotel balcony, they will (probably) be branded as a sporting sinner and cast into the purgatory of trying in vain to make up for their 'heinous' mistakes, doomed to brown nose until they catch some kind of disease.

His name is Alex Leaf and he is one qualified chap, the dog's bollocks of ski instruction, and I must admit, he's not at all what we were expecting. The first time I saw him I didn't even realise that he was someone I was in any way connected to, he's a small, unassuming 52 year old chap with a stiff walk and a charmingly weather-worn face (which is probably attributed to being a volunteer on a life boat, something I would give the majority of my limbs and my first born child to avoid doing). It turns out he's actually from just down the road from where I live, back in the UK, in the town of Brixham, Devon. This, incidentally and to my great amusement is where my absolute khazi of a secondary school, King Arthur's Community School in Wincanton, Somerset sent us for 4 days to get rid of us, getting us to live in some really rather dilapidated, mouldy, smoke stained cabins to expel some energy and teenage angst. But all we did was sneak out, running around the campsite until the early hours of the morning, getting cigarettes off the employees and committing some serious house invasion on the more targetable other students, picking them up and placing them in hedges, living up to the nature of the true British youth. Anyway, it's nice to have a fellow Southerner out in Argentina with me, who understands my, evidently, regional sense of humour and also enjoys talking in an exaggerated local accent when being sarcastic about something (an affectation that has earned me some extremely odd looks and awkward silences in some social circles, the humourless bastards!). He's is also the most fantastic skier I have ever had the pleasure to see and be taught by. You wouldn't expect it, but as soon as he clicks on those little, white skis, he radiates an infectious energy that is only enhanced by his wonderful, fluid and energetic skiing style. On our first day skiing with him, we and all the rest of the mountain were thoroughly put to shame as he cut fluid and perfect lines across the mountain, rising and falling with impeccable grace.

In the days that we have had the gift of his instruction so far, his influence can be seen in every single approach of our technique and attitude. In fact, I enjoy the sport even more than before, feeling an addition to the fluidity of my own skill and even beginning to feel that I too, may, one day be one of those people that others watch ski by as they sit high above on the lofty (and bloody incompetent) chairlifts observing the more able skiers as they glide down the mountain, creating the most wonderful and enviable lines as they dominate the pistes. The arrival of Alex has not been the only blessing of late. We are also being graced by the absence of cloud and high wind, replaced with the subsequent presence of the sun! This means that, finally, we are able to enjoy the full view from the top of Cerro Catedral, which is the most gigantic, breathtaking view that I or any of my fellow skiers have ever seen. However, I wont be uploading any photos of it any time soon because due to its enormity and grandeur, it is impossible to satisfactorily capture within a feeble camera lens. Which is immensely frustrating, because, believe me, I've tried!

Also, due to the amount of time we have free (a point of annoyance amongst the group, considering the brochure neglected to mention the amount of cabin fever that would be included in the course), we've all gotten a bit bored, and so three of us decided that we should just, you know, climb a mountain. We got this out of the way one afternoon and unfortunately entrusted Mark with path finding duties (well it wasn't so much of an entrusting, more of a duty that he forced upon himself, which, we would have been more than happy to swipe off his hammy, hunched shoulders) and quickly found ourselves edging across a steep slope of scree, holding on by our fingernails to something with the strength and consistency of play dough trying not to fall down a ravine onto some very sharp rocks. Which made us all very happy and contented with our decision to allow ourselves to end up in this predicament. A considerable amount of time later we had decided to stop following Mark, in favour of following a very moth-eaten dog that seemed to look like he knew what he was doing and ended up somewhere near the top (above the snowline, which means we definitely were not giving up) before we had to turn around, in order to time our descent to end before nightfall. After some very aggressive snowball fights and getting up close and personal with some condors that I tried and failed to photograph competently, we decided it was time to call it quits and that we would tackle Cerro Ventana another day. Being of a lazy and adolescent disposition, we decided that as soon as it became possible (and not completely lethal) we would just fling ourselves (equipped with ski poles, to look professional) down the mountain and to try and jump down as many dangerously high things as possible. We filmed it, fell over a lot and came down a lot quicker than your average mountaineer. Sir Edmund Hillary would have stood in a jealous rage wishing he'd done the same in his youth.

So as the week continues we continue to live in paranoia of our continued assessments for our level 1 exams, pretending to be studying very hard and to have given up all our nasty habits. Meanwhile, the local people in the poorer suburbs of Bariloche have been rioting, meaning that it's an absolute bugger to get a taxi (I know I'm such a tourist, but we must all get around you know!) because they haven't got enough food. Well that would be the second time we've been here, and last time, the police ended up killing people which resulted in a lot of burnt out cars and unusual concentration of Molotov cocktails being hurled about the place. Which is always nice for your very pathetic, very British looking foreigner to wander about in like some kind of semi-retarded sheep. Oh well, Im sure someone will be paid off and the black market will do it's job, just about feeding the poor and giving the rich people iPhones and cocaine.

And look at this link, Alex's blog. http://worldclassskiing.wordpress.com/. Lovely chap. Plus, there's a photo of the back of my head on there too.

So Mr. Birch, Do You Always Sleep With A Ski Pole Under Your Pillow?

After being in a hotel room with Richie and James for 2 weeks, I figured that our cabin, which we were told would sleep nine, at least, would be absolute luxury. However, a few weeks later, I am, you could say, somewhat 'disillusioned'. On the day we were to move out of the hotel, we were informed by the very nice (but slightly...odd) receptionist that there had been a 'problem' with the cabin. Apparently there had been something dodgy with the septic tank, and the rest of the house was paying the price for it. This was swiftly confirmed as soon as we stepped outside the front door and were practically punched in the face by a decidedly...potent... smell, causing much cursing and reaching for hazmat suits. Upon entering our new 'temporary' cabin, it became evident that things would be a touch more cosy than we had previously anticipated.

It contained two twin rooms, and there would now be 7 of us. As Mark had announced that he thought the cabin would be 'cool' (however considering he is sleeping in the cupboard under the stairs, I hardly blame the bloke). Now as much as I like the man, him being a terrible nice chap and all that...I can't help but feel incredibly irritated by him, nearly all the time. I can hold a conversation with him, and it's usually a pleasant experience, but maybe its the fact that he's clearly got the worst ADHD I've ever seen, in my entire life, that occasionally provokes this sense of annoyance. Or maybe its the way he repeats the same anecdotes time after time and still laughs hysterically to himself with the same vigour ( something that has always annoyed me). Who knows, but the general consensus of this little part here is that I did not want to have to share sleeping space with him, considering it would already be a compact four to a room (and his feet smell like something that's died inside a wall).

I have also, having spent an extended period of time with my roommates now, found out some of their less desirable attributes. For example, one of the new 'eagerly' awaited arrivals, Robbie who is 28 and from Australia, is monumentally hyperactive (and a morning person, the worst kind of person in my opinion) and also, has a habit of singing in his sleep. For example I was awoken from my peaceful slumbering (something that rarely graces me with its availability) one time to find him, dead to the world, shouting out 'Roxanne' by Sting and the Police, in a similarly high voice to the balding Geordie himself (ironically he is rapidly losing his hair himself, maybe its cathartic release for his own follicle anxieties?). Another one of my company, who I have aforementioned in previous moans is James, lovely young man, but my good god, he snores like something hardcore. My father is the worst snorer I have encountered, so I thought I may have been prepared in this sense, however, this guy is something else. Not only has he severely disrupted our collectively fragile and sparse sleeping pattern, but also Devon ( the new American girl) and Jess's, who sleep at the opposite end of the cabin (separated by several partitions!). The walls vibrate a bit, and we all have permanent headaches and intensely bad moods. So, as you may have guessed by the title of this particular entry, I have had to take more...corporal methods. Meaning that I've taken to sleeping with one of my ski poles in my bed so that if I am rudely awoken by this bastard's nasal noise pollution, I can simply roll over and give him a firm beating with it. And don't worry, it doesn't hurt the man, he's well cushioned.

We've finally had a bit of snow, which I should hope you would all understand to be a good thing whilst doing an extended stint of skiing, no ? Well, at Cerro Catedral they seem to think differently. In fact, for a ski resort it seems to be almost allergic to weather conditions of any kind. There may well be 150 kmph winds at the very top of the mountain, where only one lift reaches, but just for good measure they usually take it upon themselves to shut the whole damn mountain, all day, despite improvements in the weather. And for the less fortunate people without a season pass, there is no information telling you that this has happened aside from the usual sea of disgruntled penguin like characters waddling around getting too hot and having to buy food that they can neither afford nor actually want to eat. This means that you usually queue up for a positively heinous amount of time in order to acquire a disgustingly expensive little card from a smugly smiling employee (to let you up the mountain), only to find out that the horrid little troll has sold you something completely obsolete because one of the lay about inbred lift workers has had his hat blown off by a slight gust and decided it's dangerous enough to close the entire mountain. This generally causes a violent throng of people clustering around the ticket office brandishing their passes demanding refunds, which of course the damn stiff fiends won't even think about providing. But luckily I have a season pass, so I can just sit back, and laugh. Until I remember that I too am stuck here with no prospect of getting home before the bus driver decides to grace us with his presence, nor in possession of any money so I have to get up, put on my best frown and join in.

On another snow-related note, you would think that a hotel situated in a climate prone to snow would be prepared for harsh circumstances, however Estancia del Carmen seems to be completely inept in this respect. We were happily ensconced in the bar, having a drink after closing time, and they were trying in vain to teach me to make a vaguely drinkable coffee from the fancy machine they have, when all the power went out. This was not unexpected as they had been flickering for many hours. But I was suprised to find out that Mariano (the gormless, slack jawed owner of the hotel) was just annoyed that we had woken him up to tell him this news. His reply was something like 'well the people are asleep, they will not know if there are lights or not', despite the fact that we could hear children crying and the low rumbling of people's complaints rising steadily. Furthermore, he, on this silly basis, decided it would be a 'waste' to turn the generator on, casting us all into even darker and colder night than usual. We retreated to the chef's cabin with a crate of beer in tow 'to keep us warm', however, their cabin being somewhat decrepit at best, it was virtually impossible to even sit still without breaking something or at least causing damage to some inanimate object, or more often, yourself. At this point Frederico emerged from some dark corner of the cabin with something luminous and green in his hands and a massive grin.
'At first' he announces, 'they said I was stupid for buying this, but now, I am the clever one', promptly lifting up this object and holding it there like that scene from The Lion King and presses a button, where a massive flame emerges, revealing it to be an enormous, joke sized lighter.
'He paid like 100 fucking pesos for that stupid thing', another one mutters.
Well, I shouldn't really have expected much more from the man who is so addicted to smoking it actually wakes him up in the night, and keeps at least 4 packets under the bar, at any given time.

Oh and also, on a final note, since I've started moaning about everything in this particularly pessimistic and bitchy entry, I have learned that one of the main chairlifts up the mountain kind of...fell over, whilst people were on it...due to the high winds and mass amounts of snow. However, I'm sure they're exaggerating.

What The Dutch?

It has been a most surreal time. Firstly, and most unfortunately I, and most of the hotel, have been introduced to some absolutely terrible concoction of music, of which the genre is named 'Rockney'. This is an amalgamation of 'Rock' and 'Cockney' as you may well have guessed. This band goes by the name of 'Chas & Dave' and if you are a Tottenham fan ( I am told...) you may have seen them play at varied matches ( and if so, God rest your tortured, troubled soul). Unfortunately this music is not to my taste, and causes me (and most of the customers in the hotel restaurant) a great deal of grief whenever it violently accosts my ears (usually on a daily basis as one of the people I, unfortunately, have to live with enjoys it a great deal, the bastard).

Aside from this irrelevant and boring information (I like to share my irritations with you all, so that you may also feel my pain) I have had an interesting couple of days. Firstly, one of the staff in the hotel, Frederico 'La Bestia' Romero, has been attempting to improve his English, and just generally gets bored with being at the hotel and decided to take James and I out on a 'Journey'. We drove out of the hotel in one of the other chef's 4X4's, nicknamed the 'Monton de mierda' (a.k.a. the heap of shit) and drove off down the (admittedly rather dangerous, icy road) at a hundred miles an hour. We voyaged around the peninsula that was surrounded by the lakes Nahuel Huapi and Moreno. Our first stop was to drop off some publicity leaflets at a restaurant named El Casco (might I mention, the only hotel to be in possession of a full 5 stars for a considerable distance). As we pulled up to the hotel car park, equipped with gleaming statues and fantastic, mesmerising pieces of art, Frederico said 'hhhokay, now we enter the expensive hotel, para los gringos, los yankies y los brasiliens. It is an art hotel, I know the owner, you must pretend you are millionaires'. Now, this, for me, would particularly hard. I have, up to this point, neglected to mention that I was rudely awoken at an offensive time in the morning to go on this journey and did not have time to change out of my green and yellow striped pajama bottoms + hoodie. Not a good concoction for aiding a friend make business connections. However, this was not to scare me off, and we entered this RIDICULOUSLY swanky hotel, with million dollar views over the lake and pretended to appreciate paintings that cost more than my house, which are dotted casually around the place.

We just about managed to gain the receptionist's attention (despite my appearance likening to that something similar to a 'fucking hippie' as described by the other kitchen staff), secured some weird and very condescending looks thanks to both James' (hungover) and my (sincerely, chronically and offensively) under dressed look, passed on the leaflets and very conspicuously snooped around the bar and restaurant, successfully pissed of some rich Brazillian tourists without actually having done anything except exist, live and breathe within visible distance of their caviar and champagne. The poncy tossers. We felt exceptionally unwelcome and decided it would, perhaps, be time to move on, before we were advised to do so forcefully by one of the irritatingly obsequious (or not) staff.

The receptionist ignored both James and I on our exit as we attempted a very gracious goodbye in actually, quite good, Spanish, so I whipped out my camera and started taking very conspicuous photos and looked like a right tourist. But I didn't care. We drove on down the road for a couple of hundred meters until Frederico swerved off the road violently and into this peculiar campsite saying 'We must avoid the workers and the other campers, drive very fast and hidden to the other side of the camping, and there is a nice beach...I know this man there, but, he might not remember who I am, nevermind.' So we proceeded to power through this campsite narrowly avoiding some Brazilians who were very territorial over their one square meter of turf that they had probably paid half their life savings for (not that they are poor, it's just a complete rip off), some very angry camping staff (who are usually the worst kind of loser, stupid caps and shorts that would fit a ten year old etc...)and came to an abrupt halt on a beach where it turns out that this chap in question did remember Frederico and all difficulties were solved. It also turned out that there was a really nice view of Lago Nahuel Huapi and so Fred walked us along this pier lecturing us on how this was his dream to live here, and that now, we are walking in his office (he also told James off for throwing his cigarette butt in the lake for the same reason, which is admittedly a disgusting thing to do. I hate littering as well. I once had a car-ful of people and were going on some trip somewhere and this girl came along, not that I liked her at all, she was just in my car. Anyway, so she threw a load of crap out of the car window and me, not being the forgiving, easy going type, stopped, reversed, made her get out into the (satisfactorily) POURING rain and had her pick up every single piece. We have not talked since. Take that crime!). So they were talking about something boring and I decided it would be time to take pretentious, bad photos considering the lake had gone a deep blue in the light and was looking rather picturesque.

We then drove up to another hotel, this one named Llao Llao, some enormous castle - like building perched on the top of a hill, looming ominously out of the snow and proceeded to snoop about in it trying again to go under the 'millionaires' guise, but just ended up making the place look a bit dirty and probably turned away a few prospective, previously enthusiastic customers. Later, we were kicked out of the nearby forest by a ranger because he said if we stayed here much longer it would get dark and we would die in the wilderness. We ignored his advice and ventured onwards into the dark to find Fred's 'Hidden' lake. This lake turned out to be extremely eerie and had an unearthly echo. Now, I, not being the most courageous of chaps got a bit freaked out by its likeness to a scene in a horror film where everyone gets brutally murdered and their bodies dumped in the woods, never to be seen again. Beautiful it may have been, but I decided to lighten the mood by climbing into a hedge and making owl noises. Which didn't work and I ended up looking like a bit of a twat, so we left, but decided that if we were to kill Jorge (the receptionist which no one likes), this is where we would do it, so in all it was a constructive trip, despite Fred being an hour or so late for work.


That night we went on a tour of some Cervezerias (beer factories to your average scummy Brit)and proceeded to get ripped off in one called 'Blest', directly on the tourist route where they sold disgusting concoctions of strawberry beer for a pound of flesh, or thereabouts. However, we could scribble on the beer mats and stick them on the walls. But that was the height of the novelty. So with a communal 'bugger this' attitude we jumped on a bus and headed to the next neighbourhood, where we found ourselves wandering down some godforsaken dirt track, and then stumbled upon the local bar. Fortunately it was happy hour, we filled ourselves with cheap ale and then found two random blokes from Leeds holding up the other end of the bar (not literally you silly buggers). They joined us out, and we jumped on the next bus we could find and hoped for the best. We encountered a lot that night including a post office with a shady nightlife, some very questionable bald headed characters, one of which was taking to James saying something along the lines of 'You must be embarrassed to support Tottenham'...follwed by a reply of 'Don't make me punch you, you f*****g ****',which caused a fight and lots of attempts to make up usually resulting in a tirade of four letter words (football banter, what utter bollocks). We also met up with some other people doing ski courses and I think someone got glassed by someone else, so we left, believing there were more fish in the sea.

The mountain has been closed for the last 4 days or so due to a severe lack of snow and high winds, which effectively turned the whole mountain to ice and caused a steady flow of horrendous injuries that we observed from the safety (or so we thought until we learned that last year one of them had fallen off in the high winds causing horrendous injuries and a mysterious lack of information concerning whether people had died)of the chairlifts and cable cars. However after being stuck at the hotel for days, developing an extreme adaption of ping pong named 'polypong' which involves 3 standard tables shoved together along with a snooker table, as many people as you can give bats and balls to and all the walls, windows and usable surfaces in the room. Due to our inactivity, the bar has had a significant increase in revenue and we even started helping the kitchen staff with the most boring of jobs. However, it has been forecast to snow heavily for 2 days and who knows we might actually be able to ski on good conditions for once without severe danger of death or, at least, a violent maiming at the hands of good old Mother Nature. Oh yeah, and some other people are coming to join the course, one Australian who has already done half of the course elsewhere and some American girl (great,now we'll get thoroughly harassed by some buffoon who is incapable of saying anything that is neither loud nor crass). Great.

Just your honest salesman

This is a real shop. And yes, look closer, it's for newborn kids. Argentina seems to do this, for example, yesterday, Michael Jackson's music was blasting out as I walked past the creche area of Cerro. Dear dear.

Psycho-Magnet

Recently, something rather unpleasant happened. Well perhaps not unpleasant but definitely not useful, enjoyable or pleasing. Our little group dynamic was ruined upon entry of some people from another course, Peak Leaders, who had arrived early and were having to stay in our hotel. We were assured that it would only be a week, and fortunately it was, but dear Christ it felt like longer. At first they seemed like two unassuming, middle-aged women, but soon proved to be capable of being very troublesome indeed.

One of them was blonde (dyed, heavily), wore an excessive amount of foundation, whose thickness defied gravity and had a face that looked like she was sucking on a wasp, or at best, like she was wearing very ill fitting dentures. Not a pretty sight. However when you didn't have to look at the other one's face, the main cause of trauma was the completely psychotic nature of this other woman, who actually wasn't that bad looking. But she had crazy eyes, which freaked me out, probably visibly, but that was okay because it seemed to help me escape from her latter line of fire. I, unfortunately, have had some exposure to people of a somewhat ' unstable' or 'unconventional' disposition, perhaps to the point where I would say that it might perhaps be the karma of my sarcastic and rude observations which causes them to come into my life so frequently, which pleases me oh so much.

Basically, their arrival was timed with that of one of the Chef's handsome buddies who came from Hawaii, have the usual stereotype of a ripped beach bum and you're not far off. It was quite amusing because everyone else proceeded to get jealous of this mysterious tanned fellow with his 'attractive charm' and proceeded to call him a 'beardy hobo' and a plethora of other utterly soul crushing insults. Anyway, these two women and a girl from my course went out with him on a debauched night on the town in Bariloche, ended up getting a bit drunk, aside from the sketchy woman, who doesn't drink (surprise surprise) and coming back to one room and all falling asleep in one bed. I heard from two people that 'nothing had happened' and they'd all been drunk and fallen asleep whilst watching family guy, however, I also heard from the bunny boiler that they'd all fallen asleep, at which point she'd 'left' and she'd presumed 'other things' had happened. Probably to plan her sick schemes and think indecent thoughts, the damn psycho. I was luckily excluded from the ensuing scenario as I feared that I'd say the wrong thing and get stabbed in a dark alleyway by this sadistic monstrosity, and chose not to join them that night.

However the next morning, the psycho bitch surfaced at about 12 noon and started accusing one of the others about sleeping with this Hawaiian dude, whom she had supposedly 'pulled' after he had sunk about 12 fernet and cokes (a considerably stronger and substantially more evil mix than your average vodka and coke), and her, none, so that she could be a freaky manipulating stalker and tempt him into her bed (which didn't work because she stank of desperation). This argument was all done very publicly and turned out to be very embarrassing to watch, let alone be involved in.

Anyway, she didn't let it drop and stropped about the hotel shouting at people and demanding if there was 'some kind of problem about her within the group'. Unfortunately we had to ski with her for a few days as they asked Mark whether they'd be allowed to come into our lessons for a small fee. This caused a certain amount of awkwardness, as you might imagine, and the accused girl demanded that we ski away from them one afternoon, Mark obliged as he said 'her voice pissed him off ' and was more than pleased to cast her into oblivion for the afternoon. So he bluntly said, as we got of the chairlift, 'yeah so I'm going to take my group this afternoon, my priority is with them and not you, enjoy yourselves.' Naturally this did not go down well with the histrionic specimen and come 3.30, we felt her wrath, storming up to us and saying 'it was far too sudden', and that 'she didn't feel it was proper behaviour' and again asking whether there was something between 'her and the group'.

This continued the until the next morning, and then worsened, when she stormed into our room demanding a lift pass as hers had run out. Now forgive me if I'm being a bit harsh, but if your pass has run out, it's your own fault and noone else should care, or even attempt to help you, there is no injustice in this matter and you are the only idiot, the git amongst the pigeons...so to speak. She, however, disagreed and burst in when two of us were sleeping and the other was naked, trying to get dressed (or sodomise us, I'm not sure which) and basically attempted to blackmail a day's skiing of us. We promptly told her to fuck off, being previously asleep, hungover, aware of her psychotic tendencies and one of us Scottish (considering these factors, I'd say that was mild reaction). She then went down and moaned at Mark, who, it turns out, had already sorted her with a lift pass, and told her, but just didn't give it to her straight away, due to being busy with some other organisational issue. This caused another enormous display of emotion and shouting, which resulted in Mark shouting back at her and her finally backing off from him. Unfortunately, she then turned on me and started asking me what the issue was with her and members of the group, a million questions a second. I had no choice but to throw my hands in the air and tell her, simply, to piss off, and that it was her own issue and that I would have nothing to do with her, her arguments, problems or anything else for that matter, did not and would never care (That's what you get when you bother a Birch when they are up earlier than they are accustomed to, trying to eat their breakfast in peace). This repeated itself throughout the day, we all became very bored of her and our manners vanished rapidly.

Basically, the tone of the trip was soured by this horrid woman and the morale thoroughly dampened, our patiences tested to the limit and our tempers exhausted. We were unhappy and looking forward to her leaving, forever, and moving into our spacious, and liberating cabin as promised. Goodness were we mislead.

More Fascism With Your Steak ?

This is a small portion of the enormous view that I get to wake up to every morning. On the first day, for example, there were three condors circling immediately in front of my room. I had heard that they had the biggest wingspan of any flying bird, but had never imagined that they would still look enormous hundreds of feet below. And funnily enough, they look a bit different from the ones that you see depicted in the Warner Bros cartoons, a bit more majestic you might say.

At 7:30am, we all staggered downstairs to the restaurant where we were assured there would be breakfast of enormous proportions, adequate for a whole day's intense skiing. However, this would prove to be the starting point for me to learn to take an Argentinian promise with a pinch of salt. For example, if you order a taxi for say 12.00, don't expect it until nearly an hour later. And let's not even mention how long it takes to get served in a restaurant. Admittedly, you have to 'chill' and understand that its a different culture, but when everything takes so long to to that it is not possible to have a functioning or structured day, it does become a little tiresome. We found the restaurant very closed, and with no members of staff in sight, not even the night guard, which was a little worrying. Then, the bus driver turned up and bullied us into the van immediately.

We arrived at the mountain and spent the day comparing prices for skis and the like, and I ended up buying a nice pair of carvers off a little Italian man that looked like devil in possesion of sneaky eyes and a shiny head (a fatal combination in my books) for under £150 pounds and decided to rent boots until I could find a pair I liked enough to buy. This brings me onto the worst aspect of skiing, which is a deterrent for a lot of people that I know, wearing the boots. I have a weird raised part on the top of my right foot and the same except not as bad on my left, which makes it virtually impossible for me to even get the majority of boots on my feet let alone wear them, or god forbid,even be able to ski in them. I figured that maybe this discomfort was all in my head, being the neurotic poofter that I am, and just took the first boots that I could get my feet into. This proved to be a horrid mistake as on my first run down a comfortable red run, I lost the feeling in most of my toes, which then started to bleed and the pain on the top of my foot was so unbearable I had to then come straight off the mountain and get a different model. I tried on every single model of boot in the store, none of which were suitable without considerable force. So, I went through all the rental shops in Cerro Catedral, and only in the very last one, was there a boot I could put on, and it was mildly less painful than the others, so it would have to suffice.

After a very irritating day skiing, we had been invited to Mark's girlfriend's parents house for a traditional Argentinian 'asado', which is a bit like a glorified barbeque. So we rocked up, an hour and a half late, early considering we had ordered a bus in order to have us arrive a bit before the meal to socialise, by local standards. Pancho, which is a nickname for Francisco, was standing in the doorway, looking like something fresh out of the mafia...except for the oven gloves. He's quite a small man, but stocky, with a full head of white hair, and big, old fashioned square glasses. His mannerisms are slow and deliberate, taking considerable thought before saying or doing anything. We were seated in around a large table in a wonderfully light annexe to his house,which he made himself with wood from the trees growing in his land. As always when surrounded by new people there is a little awkwardness at first, however for me, this was a new personal best on the scale of uncomfortableness. Pancho sighs, places his hands on the table and fiddles with his steak knife and speaks.
'In Argentina...we....have...the English.' We all smile and nod as is appropriate in situations like this. He realises he has made a mistake and speaks again.
'I am sorry, I mean, in Argentina we ...hate... the English, because of the Falklands.'
We all looked at each other with looks of despair and wondering why Mark had invited us here, presuming he knew his slightly dampened view of the English. Richie then seized this moment to announce that he was Scottish, and not even a little bit English and that they should get on fine. I had no such luck. This left me wondering why all these awkward situations hypothesised about by people for fun, are actuality for me.

Once Mark had left the room he launched into a nationalist speech about how Argentina's neighbouring countries were traitors and how people had the wrong impression about his country. I,having been encouraged to drink by both Pancho and Mark, made a slightly tactless comment implying that people have forgotten about the Falklands, and that they mainly think about Maradonna and football, cue more fascism and passionate speeches about how primary industry was operating behind closed doors and something about secretive US satellites. I feared where his steak knife might end up at the end of the night. I envisioned his mafiosi buddies roughing me up, shouting nationalist propaganda and then rolling me up in a carpet and throwing me into Lago Gutierrez, doomed to be nibbled by trout for all eternity. But luckily, he just kept serving steak and pouring beer, even if he did refuse to listen to what anything of what we pommies were saying. I'm sure he'll warm to us with time....

Over the next couple of days my boot troubles worsened, causing my toes to bleed more often than not and by the end of the first run I would have completely lost the feeling in both of my feet replaced by a revolting pulsating and tingling sensation. It came to the point where I would have to buy boots and get them specially fitted to my feet, at this point willing to pay any amount of cash to be comfortable, as it was no longer possible to scrape any enjoyment or improvement from the skiing I was doing. So after a similar experience of trying on every purchasable boot in both Bariloche and Cerro Catedral I found, at last a boot which when I put on, I was comfortable, really, surprisingly, comfortable and they were only 994 pesos which is under £200 quid, and considering they were made by HEAD, this was an extremely good deal.

After this successful and very, very welcome purchase we caught the bus home, and had our first unsavoury encounter with some Brazilians (of many). We were the first people in the queue for the bus having got there considerably early to avoid a sardines situation, and there was a large queue of people behind us, all was gravy, to speak until the bus arrived and this surprisingly ordered queue started to descend into chaos. This was worsened by a large group of Brazilian tourists, dressed in the uniform given to them by their travel company, who waddled their overweight, arrogant lard-arses straight to the front of the line, intending to cut in front of us. We stood in front of the as of yet, unopened door, holding onto the handle for dear life, reluctant to give up our spot. These enormous bastard tourists barged in front of us, waving what they believed to be their superior currency in our faces. Well, it was about time that they met pounds.fucking.sterling, and they, goddammit, went on behind us, also helped by Mark shouting at them and calling them little shits. Dem Brazilians dun' know jeeh.

Back at the hotel we did the customary trip to the bar after a typically massive steak, engaged in some not so subtle banter with the bar staff, played unsuitable music slightly too loud, drank some more and I actually went to bed feeling enthusiastic for the next day's ski knowing that I would be able to walk the following day and who knows, maybe I might get a bit better ?

That's Nothing Some Prozac and A Polo Mallet Wont Cure...

On the day of our departure we were informed over the phone by Mark that we would be expecting 'severe delays' due to some strikes that he had apparently mentioned during dinner the previous night, which none of us had been able to recall terribly well. He also mentioned that he'd been waiting in line for three hours, and wasn't expecting to leave any time soon. Ace. It was pouring with rain and we were scheduled to leave at 1.30pm, when we would be picked up by a taxi. We dossed around watching family guy, packing and trying in vain to rehydrate ourselves. We decided that at 12.30 we had time to make an omlette from our remaining ingredients, which were meagre when we bought them previously, and were now just desperately depressing. So we set about cooking and making a general mess which ended up in causing the apartment to smell strongly of cheese and for the kitchen to be covered in jam. How the jam got there is still a mystery.

The three of us sat down to eat our delightful monstrosity of a meal at roughly quarter to one, when the phone started to ring. I picked up the phone, and after a lot of shouting, making up words in Spanish and gesticulating (which in hindsight was not really very effective), ascertained that it was the taxi driver, a wholesome 45 minutes early. It was also around this time that we remembered that Mark had also left us under strict instruction to leave the apartment spotless. One glance at the kitchen left us filled with a deep fear and sense of dread. So we decided to throw everything in the sink and wipe everything down with what I think was a towel, then making a swift exit to a slightly pissed off, and very damp, taxi driver.

Upon arriving at Buenos Aires' domestic airport we paid the driver and were promptly dumped outside the wrong, arrivals, door. So I ventured in, feeling like a sardine with little hope of finding the remains of one trolley, let alone three fully functional ones. This was one the few times I have ever felt anything positive towards British people. The love that the British have for queuing is only admirable when you are many thousands of miles away from it, however when I remembered the amount of sighing, shuffling and hushed outbursts to fellow travelers that this is 'outrageous' and how someone should 'speak to the people in charge of this mess' that would go with it, I instantly preferred the Argentine way of queuing, which is achieved by not doing it. We finally arrived at the check in after lots of dark mutterings about 'bastards' who had managed to waltz in (well, as well as you can waltz in a confined space full of people and most of their worldly belongings) and cut the entire, lengthy throng of people without even being questioned. Again, this process was mostly done via the medium of sign language and mime, with broken phrases of Spanish chucked in there, without much effect.

By the time we boarded the flight it was already 4.30, much later than our original departure time, by, say, three or so hours. The crew announced that we had a slot to take off in about 15 minutes and that they would pass out drinks and food to pass the time. Two hours later, and we were still sat on the tarmac, feeling quite annoyed. Morale and patience were running low amongst the passengers. Particularly in one, slightly haggard looking old man who was traveling with his wife and grandchildren. He started off by going up and making lots of hand gestures, pointing at his watch and raising his hands to the heavens. The tired looking air hostess calmly tried to assure him that we would be flying soon. Which didn't really work. Twenty minutes later the old git had gone back to his seat and had started clapping loudly. This caught on around the fuselage and people were chanting something, which I can only presume was the Spanish equivalent of 'why are we waiting'. I wont lie to you, this annoyed me. Because being British I am accustomed to waiting, and things often taking far longer than they should. I was patiently reading a book, and quite enjoying it might I add, and was not pleased by this crusty old fool causing a right kerfuffle. This was not the end of the problematic situation. For the next twenty minutes or so, people were marching up and down the aisle, shouting at the air hostesses, stamping their feet and generally being quite noisy. It became quite an interesting spectacle to watch.

The hostesses had had enough and now announced that troublemakers would be ejected from the plane. This wasn't enough for the aggressive OAP who had clearly riled up his tired blood and was not in full flow, where most Brits would consider writing a letter of complaint, this man was inches away from the poor hostesses nose, shouting his head off. I wanted to kill him, I have never met such an annoying stranger. Silly old bugger. For once, I sympathised with the staff.

We landed and were waiting to meet the fourth member of our entourage we had been hearing about. We envisioned a sculpted Adonis, fresh out of Sloane Square, who liked polo and wore blazers. Then we met James, 27, who, to be honest was a bit short and spoke like a cab driver. I later asked him what his interests were: Building development, Architecture, Football and Golf. I somehow doubted we'd have much to do with each other throughout the course. In fact, he's the most physically amusing person I've ever had the opportunity to meet. He walks with the most stereotypical cockney swagger, and makes the most robotic gestures with his hands. When having a drink,he holds it at right angles to his body, even whilst sitting down. Weird. I asked him what he wanted to get out of his job when he first started. "Basically, I have always been interested in making as much money as possible. That's my main concern. Making money." Now this was a slightly awkward conversation for someone who has never worked an honest day in their life, avoiding employment like the plague and content with having no income whatsoever.

It was late by the time we arrived in the hotel, Estancia Del Carmen. We all 'bonded' over a beer and went to bed tired, Jess had a double room to herself, and we were stuffed into a a triple room, with no openable windows and one minuscule bathroom to share. I found this confusing considering we were promised our own cabin, practically independent of the hotel. The room was essentially quite nice aside from a bit of a rapey painting hung on one of the walls. We flung all our possessions into the room, sank some beers and went to sleep, trying to ignore the current status of our room which could only be described as ' a bit of a sausage fest', with the prospect of actually getting onto the snow nearing.

Ain't Sayin' He a Grave Cleaner...

We were woken up by Mark banging on our apartment door at 10 to 12, shouting 'Chicos! We should cook steak sandwiches!'Now as watching Sacha Baron Cohen's film 'Bruno' is a test of how conservative you are, a long trip to Argentina is similar except a test to see how long you can go without vegetables (to date I have only seen them three times, and one of those was at a distance)and how much steak you can stomach before you have a massive heart attack. So far I am passing the test with no cardiac issues surfacing.

After forcing down a healthy breakfast of pure meat, we ventured into the Recoleta district where we stumbled upon a large, outdoor market. Within seconds of entering the market Ritchie stops, turns around and with an important tone of voice announced 'I can smell weed'. So we all, including Mark, went forth to find the source of this curious scent, and on the way discovered some fairly interesting, non intoxicating, products. There were the typical products there to lure tourists and those born with a similarly low-level of taste like Ponchos with 'BUENOS AIRES' woven into the chest in large, red writing. There was also a guy sat behind his stall with a mass of old newspapers. Great, I thought, some hobo has nicked this poor bastard's stall and has spread his mighty collection of old rubbish around it, in a slightly more acceptable version of a dog pissing on a tree. However, it turned out that upon closer inspection, this dirty little chap was not homeless and this mass collection of paper was part of his trade. How, I hear you say, can someone make a living from old paper? I shall tell you, this chap sifted through his pile of paper looking for certain shades of colour and then proceeded to twist it in a particular fashion so that it became possible to fashion a little statuette out of them. This doesn't sound very impressive in writing,but when you become face to face with a massive, brightly coloured, surprisingly robust paper goose in the middle of a market, it does become slightly hard to ignore. But, that didn't make me want to buy it. You'd have to be a right nonce for that.

As we emerged from the mass of vendors, weird models, strange leather faces and Brazillian tourists we came up to the Recoleta Cimeteria, which is one of the city's main attractions. At first it looks a bit disappointing, just a rather crumbly red brick wall with a few images of Jesus staring down at you in a rather condescending fashion. However upon entering you get that atmosphere descending down on you that always happens at some point or another when you go into a fairly historic graveyard. This was momentarily lifted again when Ritchie blurted out 'Since when the f**k does being dead become a f*****g tourist attraction, if people came up to my town and started taking pictures of dead people, we'd think they were f*****g weirdos'. However, I separated from the group and went around taking what I hoped would turn out to be some pretentiously moody and maybe even arty photos. Which I cannot say was a great success. However in doing so I learned that Recoleta is the resting place of Eva Peron who was the second wife of President Juan Peron. There was a throng of tourists surrounding her grave and I must admit I was not overly keen to see it so I moved on. Besides, at least 50 per cent of the crowd were Americans. In fact, instead of suffering from an invasion of German, speedo-clad, tourists, Argentina seems to be plagued by very annoying Americans who have no concept of respect or culture or, Brazillians, whom I will come to complain about in due course. However, the tourists were a minority in comparison to the enormous cat population, who seemed to occupy every other tombs, which I must admit I found a little disturbing.


Recoleta Cimeteria is in some ways similar to Brompton Cemetery in London, and fortunately, does not have a reputation for being popular amongst certain members of the gay community. It is essentially quite Victorian in appearance, all the graves are elaborate and evidently quite well looked after. Despite the constant presence of death which surrounded me I didn't actually get the impression that I was in a place where people were laid to rest. This may have been due to the way the cemetery was laid out, effectively in blocks, like the rest of Buenos Aires, and that there was a lot of greenery around, and a good amount of trees which provided sufficient contrast to the cold, grey of the tombs. I was also surprised to see that there was actually a team of tomb cleaners, who went around with a little trolley containing cloths, polish for the coffins, feather dusters and the like. They seemed to be perfectly at ease in the tombs, however one of them wasn't quite as placid when I tried to take a sneaky photo of him, which caused lots of shouting and brandishing of fists. I escaped being locked in a tomb for eternity by gesticulating in sign language that I was 'taking a picture of the bird on top of the grave'. I don't think he was entirely convinced.


Afterwards we all followed Mark out of the cemetery who was running around the courtyard with a contraption he called his 'maddy-cam', something made out of brown plumbing material with a camera crudely attached to the end trying to film a pigeon, which drew a crowd and caused people to take photos, at which point I suggested it might be a good time to leave.

That night we went out for dinner, just around the corner from the apartment. Again we had a sumptuous steak feast washed down with many bottles of beer. I remember having a 'spanglish' conversation with Mark's girlfriend about George Orwell and whether, in all my knowledge of teaching prepubescent teenagers English, it was too hard for Argentine 12 year olds. At this point I was feeling horribly tired and the combination of a heavy meal and copious amounts of alcohol was not helping. I was not providing much coherent conversation. But at least I was better than Ritchie, who was drunkenly trying to obtain directions to the nearest toilet in very loud English with a slightly frightened looking waiter. Whilst walking back to the apartment, on the way to ending a fairly incident free day, I was promptly targeted by one of the local drunkards and had some horrid concoction from a plastic bottle poured over me when I told him to piss off and that I wouldn't give him any money, I hope to God it was just coke.

We went back to Jess' room, promptly buggered the air conditioning and went to bed. Expecting hangovers and a hair of the dog mentality to be the order of the ensuing day.

The Paris of the South

The first thing that struck me about Buenos Aires was when I looked out of the plane window at roughly 5:00am and saw the sea of flickering red lights which at 10,000 feet or more (considering we were descending)and I could not actually see and end to them. It's not like London where there is a finite limit to the light pollution whereby you normally can define the end of a city, more or less, the city literally rolls on for an incomprehensible space.

As we pulled away from the airport we entered one of the most impoverished Barrios, where you can expect to see the poor constructing their homes from whatever they can get their hands on. A kind of inner city shanty town. In fact, across Buenos Aires there is a kind of form of recycling in existence. During/after the siestas (which last most of the afternoon, all year round) usable rubbish is simply left out in piles on the streets, and come nightfall, the poor will go around the city dragging massive carts that a horse would find difficult to carry collecting up this rubbish to use in making their houses, the sleep in, to clothe themselves with or less often, to sell. Another thing that is quite evident across Buenos Aires, particularly in the slightly less affluent areas is the abundance of ever so slightly aggressive political statements spray painted in large letter across the buildings of certain areas. Milder slogans such as 'Hasta los personnas, no los corporacionnes ' are fairly common. However considering it has only been rougly thirty years since the country came out of a military rule, democracy is still a baby here, and understandably with this new freedom of expression, generally and politically, combined with the immigrant basis of the population, it has created a passionate environment in terms of politics.

Like the U.S.A, Argentina is an immigrant country. Aside from the native peoples whose presence is still in the country today there is are large Italian and Spanish presences. There is almost a dichotomy in respect to demographics, particularly in metropolis-like environments in the limited regions I have seen, such as Buenos Aires. This dichotomy, in my opinion, lies in the ethnics of the people, from Latino to European. This, in all senses of the phrase is not a black and white description, the population is equally ( well...sort of) as diverse as other cities worldwide. This immigrant influence is not only present in demographics. It is more immediately striking in the cities' architecture. This, I am told by Mark, the fountain of knowledge.....as it would seem, is the reason why Buenos Aires is referred to as the Paris of the South. I can easily see why to be quite honest. For me the city was immensely like an amalgamation of London, Paris and New York, yet with an unmistakable South American quality which was omnipresent. The city won me over instantaneously with its somewhat chaotic nature and confused charm.

Also, having, as aforementioned in previous posts, had a fairly sheltered and comfortable existence, South America was at first a bit of a culture shock as little as I like to admit it. I find it extremely pleasurable to be surrounded by a completely new people and the eccentricities of their culture, and I must admit, little, slightly nerdy things fascinate me. I am told that the bus, as we know it was invented in Argentina, despite being the supposed pioneers of the thing we call 'bus', they appear to have stuck with a type of bus that can only be described as 'retro'. I'm not talking good old Dorset where the council have spent all their funds of cider and Wurzel's cd's and then remembered that they have to buy buses so they bulk buy the cheapest modern alternative, furnish it brown and get some homeless bloke to sleep in it for a week so it smell like an old foot mixed with burrito, but genuinely old, 60's/70's buses. They also have developed a mechanism which I believe is unique to the county whereby a tool is attached instead of a hubcap which via movement of the tire, perpetuates the tyre pressure..thereby minimising cost. or something. But I thought it looked quite alien. So when the traffic was at a standstill..I ran out, whacked out the old camera and squatted down and took the odd snap of the bus tyres. I recieved odd looks. Also, Argentinians cannot function with a wheel to hunch behind and a horn to beep. Nor can the pedestrians survive a day without cat-like reflexes, a sixth sense and scant regard for giving the finger and various abuse! Also, to deal with the sheer millions of people that depend on buses for daily use, they have to travel in packs of three...something oddly animalistic about that. Fucking hell, all this bantering on about buses, I feel like Boris!!

Another thing that shocked me aside from the people, the architecture, the traffic and the public services, was the perpetual tsunami of dogs, ferrel and domestic. Argentinians love their dogs, even the strays are more well fed than that bastard of a Labrador that messes up my home back home. Dog walkers walk about 25 at a time. Sheer madness!

Having arrived at the apartment where we would be staying for 2 nights, just off Santa Fe and Beruti, we made good use of the Supermercado and buy some good, cheap, local beer. Seriously, you pay more for the bottle than you do for its contents. Anyway, at Mark's suggestion we stuck into it, and after my first steak dinner (of many) we went back to the apartments and Ritchie and I went down to a girl called Jess' room who was also on the course. We managed to bugger up her lights, blowing all the fuses, breaking the heater and seemingly stopping all hot water in one go. Admittedly this was after Beer, schnapps and vodka in what could not be described as modest quantities, this was, as you can imagine a poor time for us to go and call on the landlady. Fortunately she spoke no English whatsoever. I say fortunately because this became obvious to Ritchie, who in his drunken state, and through his impenetrable Scottish accent decided to just point at all the things that were broken and shout "HOLA...BALLBAG, COCKNOSE, ADIOS...BALLBAG..ARSEHOLE..BALLBAG...QUE?...BALLBAG!" which she, thank god did not understand. However, I cannot say the same for 'Clitoris' and 'Anal' which he also decided to say, a lot. These words are exactly the same in Spanish. Despite the initial shock she was as in as much hysterics as we were. So, I think I can safely say crisis avoided.

So after we had saved ourselves from eviction on multiple levels, we retreated, with God awful jet-lag, and finally hit the hay, to awaken to a fresh (or not) day to explore the diverse behemoth that is Buenos Aires.

The Journey

My exit from my local town was rather different to how I had idealised. There was no glorious sunshine nor throngs of teary companions bustling to give me one last hug goodbye, neither were there doves released or any sign of divine intervention. The reality was that I was woken up having missed my train with the most disgusting hangover imaginable by the satellite repairman barging into my room looking for a phone line outlet. Luckily two of my friends were staying with me and after several failed attempts to eat the corner of a piece of toast we collected my items and left. So disappointing was my exit from the Birch nest that my mother did not even come with my to station (having assured me that she did love me, but had other stuff to do...I was not fooled), and didn't even cry. Now that for me one was enormous anti-climax, the pinnacle of her creative output, leaving, without a single sign of waterworks!

During the train journey, I also developed a new disdain for the people in charge of pricing the items on the food trolley, considering everything to be exceedingly overpriced. However, this may have been biased by the fact that at the time I had 70 pence to my name, and carefully perched in the corner of the carriage, pale as a ghost with blood red eyes I would have been reluctant to serve me too.

In London I went through a typical shopping experience with my father, whereby I am frogmarched into a shop he considers 'appropriate' and am then dictated at to which items I like. Unfortunately this was in order to buy ski gear, sturdy boots and warm, weatherproof clothing, which inevitably involves technical talk. This, for males in general, is an area of intense masculinity where absolutely noone, not even the people selling the equipment, the experts, know what they are talking about. There was much talk of altitude, temperamental weather conditions and my father asserting at regular intervals that this was not a fashion parade. He also clearly got lost in the technical jargon our bland assistant was excreting and in a blind panic starting blurting out 'waterproof', 'resistance' 'durable' in the pauses in conversation whilst taking his glasses on and off knowingly and manhandling certain products in a showgingly assertive manner.

Later on, I arrived at Gatwick airport, and considering I was going on ski course, I feared that I would be surrounded by 'hooray henry' and sloaney types. To my absolute horror, I was queued directly behind two twenty-something year old, Jack Wills clad girls, engaged in a tirade of 'Yah's'and 'Dahlings' whilst filling each other in on the latest action on the K.R. (King's Road for us mere mortals). However, I plucked up some courage and asked if the were heading to Argentina, to my delight, they were going to sun themselves and meet some of daddy's friends who had a house in Spain. I later met a Scot called Ritchie who would be heading to Bariloche as well. I feared the initial conversation may have started of with a "Ey! Yooo're one of they Anglishmen aren't ye?' kind of twist. Luckily he shook my hand and no sharp items were drawn.

After some mild gambling, drinking and the standard rating of women in the bar we seemed to be getting on swimmingly, sharing a similarly poor conversational vocabulary and blunt sense of humour. For the record, and on a slightly different note, I am not a good flier.You may argue that this is not a good trait in a young man filled with wanderlust....and on this occasion I would be forced to agree with you.

The 12 1/2 hour flight was terrible, stuck in the middle seat without a wink of sleep ending up watching a catastrophically bad Steve Carrell film dubbed in out of sync Spanish. 4 times. However in retrospect Aerolineas Argentinas must be complimented on the aesthetics of their air hostesses. However, I stress, this compliment cannot be stretched to anything else. Except perhaps in the eyes of my Scottish friend who claimed to "f*****g love plane food". I suppose after haggis, microwaved rabbit testes would seem an absolute treat.

We arrived at 5.30am, and proceeded to wait for an hour in an extremely complicated Immigration queuing system. I very excitingly had my first passport stamp given very forcibly by a very large woman who's stamping I feared might break the table. I was lucky and had all my baggage arrive, but several others did not share the same fortune. Finally at ten minutes to eight we met Mark who would be our instructor for the next three months, A 52 year old, trance mad Aussie who had been in Argentina for four years. Unfortunately, after a possible, 7 minutes we heard him speak Spanish for the first time, and he speaks the language about as well as Christopher Walken speaks English....on helium, while drunk. We had a lengthy and tedious negotiation with a bus driver and after a couple of not so subtle bribes we were off and venturing into the heart of the unpredictable and completely mental Buenos Aires.

It begins....

Well, here I am sat in my bedroom in my comfortable house, living out my comfortable existence in deepest, darkest Dorset. On Wednesday I part to Bariloche, Argentina, with a company called Base Camp for four months to gain some qualifications in ski instructing. Oh, also, something you should probably know is that I haven't skied for 1 1/2 years, so you may judge appropriately that planning/ organisation is not my forte.You may argue that this sounds quite comforable too, I thought the same, until recently.


I have always had aspirations to travel and see the world, but like your normal teenager I'm quite a lot better at talking the talk than walking the walk, so when people gave me the 'life' conversation at family meetings (or somewhere else suitably awkward enough to incite this dreadful conversation) I'd usually come up with something nonchalant like..."yeah I'll leave school, save some money and go traveling", and that would be that. No further thought required. However, let us say that this beatnik, free will attitude did not ride well my father, a very straight man, the kind of sort you think would wear brogues to bed and says 'so what are your plans' quite a lot. I was grabbed by the scruff of the neck and plonked down in front of the computer screen and asked whether I'd like to be a ski instructor for a couple of years, following a swift dialogue of 'I wont have some layabout bugger for a son, you'll go out and work boy!', with much wagging of fingers and knitted eyebrows. I liked mountains, I liked skiing, snow's good, and I don't like being too hot. I saw no error. Images of a nice tan, cruising down gentle and perfect slopes whilst laughing with like-minded people entered my head. A few months after I had agreed to this new plan, I started thinking...oh bugger, I'm going to have to teach little children, and really macho middle-class men, and women who'll have a terrible mid-life crisis halfway down a mountain and expect me to be sympathetic, and finally, I am quite unfit. To start with I used to smoke about 12-15 cigarettes a day since and age which would cause angry and concerned whispering if revealed, eat absolute rubbish ( mainly McDonald's and microwave meals, burnt baked beans if I was feeling creative)and strictly abstained from any form of exercise.

So, smoking was the first thing to quit, and that has gone quite well, I only lapse occasionally and don't crave them anymore.(unless I'm really, really bored or have had a sip of one too many ales) I started eating regular meals of good,healthy, tasteless stuff and even got an induction to the local gym. This was all going swimmingly and people started to comment on my appearance. Most were to the tune of 'Yer, you don't look like a vampire anymore, well good mate' or 'Yeah, you've got a well funny running face'. These minor confidence knockers aside, I was feeling quite good. And then, I turned 18, and moved to a town where to my absolute DELIGHT, there were 14 pubs. Excellent. Oh and I might have had some A-Level exams. Two and a half months later, many many house parties, raves, packets of cigarettes, pints, nights, hangovers later all the fun ended with a trip to the doctor's when one of my darling friends showed me that I looked like 'a bit of a corpse' and had turned a bit grey.

So with 4 days to go and a sense of something which feels a bit like determination I receive an email from the Base Camp saying 'Some students don't feel the need to follow a fitness regime but we recommend a strict and thorough course of exercise consisting of 2 x 30 minute runs a week, plus daily press ups, sit ups and visits to a gym. Swimming is also recommended. (Now on a side note I have refused to swim ever since I joined my secondary school where the swimming teacher was an old, red faced man with sporadic patches of hair who paid semi naked children a bit too much attention for their own good. Overreaction I hear you say ? Bollocks! The nick name 'Dirty Dave the Dildo' comes from somewhere. No smoke without fire you know! and on another note, my habit of deviating dreadfully from the initial topic will be tamed...hopefully)

My course consists of five hours of on snow training, 2 hours of lectures and theory lessons, plus one added hour of self-supported study. Every day. Now let's get down to brass tacks here, I only had two hours of lessons a day at sixth form and I personally felt that was quite hard work, and often felt that Thursdays weren't worth going in for. And on a more extreme note, I learned that as part of the course I have to be buried alive and wait for someone to find me...no offence but it would be just my luck to getting the thickest bastard in the country, who can't tell his arse from his elbow, as my rescuer. Insert visions of a dark, cold, wet and thoroughly unpleasant death here. Oh well maybe I'll have the common sense to carry a small plastic spade with me on that day as I don't fancy having to lick my way out whilst some bumbling idiot walks around asking nearby skiers whether they've seen my (probably) frozen corpse.

I have finally packed my bag today, actually bought clothes and suddenly become a bit worried that technically...I'll be leaving home (sort of). I'm sad to leave a few people behind, but more exited to start a new (and bloody knackering) chapter of my life. I have been told that the region I'm headed to is incredibly beautiful and is one of the gems of Argentina. I look forward to developing myself mentally and physically and will hopefully find a few facets to myself that I hadn't known about or consciously allowed to develop, and a few more cliches along the way...

So, have you the one about the lazy, smoke filled, sodden, Dorset git who decided to go into a career in sport?

No neither have I, so I suppose I'll have to let you know...