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.
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