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...