The Escape from Malargüe, and Santiago Redux

My debit card finally arrived! And the evening it did, I got the f*ck out of Dodge. No offense, Malargüe. You are a charming little town in a truly stunning location, but when Las Leñas closed and bus service to the mountains stopped, my reasons for staying were not many, and with Creepazoid prowling about my reasons for leaving were many.

My card arrived at around noon. I snatched it out of the arms of the FedEx guy, tore the package open, ran to the nearest ATM, and withdrew as much cash as it would let me. Just enough to pay for the hostel stay, not enough to pay for a bus ticket out. So I hit every ATM in town, and then started making an ATM cycle every hour, until finally I was able to pull out more money, enough for the 2am bus ticket to get me out and back to a place with snow.

Elated, I wandered through town, loving everything in sight. I loved the birds. Loved the dirt streets. Loved the buses rolling through town honking their horns and blaring sirens celebrating the return of the high school Judo champions, loved the friendly people, loved that my Spanish had improved to the point where I could sort of talk to people and make myself understood, loved the views of mountains in the distance.

I did a final round of sink laundry, put my clothes out to dry, and treated myself to a fancy dinner ($35 for a three-course meal involving locally-sourced goat meat, pasta, and wine-soaked pears as well as my own personal bottle of wine), spending two hours eating and drinking alone in a state of pensive ecstasy. I returned to the hostel around midnight to a horrible smell, which I traced to the ball of goo on the heater that had once been my ExOfficio anti-microbial underwear. You can't win them all.

The dessert course of my celebratory fancy dinner

My melted panties

At 1:15am, with the taxi I thought I had ordered nowhere to be found, I began the long lurching journey from the hostel to the bus station, rattling down the otherwise silent gravel streets of Malargüe with my 50lb snowboard bag, 40lb backpacking backpack, 20lb work backpack, and a purse slung over my neck full of food and wine for the journey ahead. About 10 minutes in, one of the wheels broke off of my snowboard bag, making the movement even more difficult, and progress far slower than I had hoped. It was exhausting, but I had to make that bus, so rattle and lurch I did, sounding like an earthquake, sweating despite the freezing temperatures in my t-shirt, grunting, lurching, panting, and lurching all the way to the bus stop. I arrived just as the bus was pulling away from the terminal. I dropped my bags and sprinted to the bus, yelling and waving my arms. I caught it, slapping my hands on the doors, the windows, whatever I could reach as I ran alongside. The bus stopped. I showed my ticket and pointed to my bags and the bus driver scolded me (or something, I didn't understand except the tone), but I retrieved my bags, put them on the bus, and collapsed, dripping sweat, into my seat.

Woke up to this view. Not bad.

I arrived in Mendoza at 8am, having almost sort of slept on the bus, and spent the hour between bus connections eating most of the food I had brought with me (since I knew it would be confiscated at the border crossing). Then with significantly less drama than the first departure I got on the second bus for a reverse of the Paso Los Libertadores trip of two weeks prior. Except Chileans are waaaaaay pickier than Argentinians about what is brought into their precious, disease-free, unjustly beautiful country so where the border crossing took about 40 minutes on the way to Argentina, it took close to 2 hours complete with bag searches, luggage scans, and questionings. 

Me, post-pat-down

Portillo ski resort. The U.S. ski team trains here in summer. Poor suckers.

Oh, and as the sole North American on the bus, I was singled out for an on-bus pat down and thorough bag hand search. Racial profiling at its finest: hey light-skinned girl, hand me your passport. Oh you're from the United States? Gruff voice! Stand up! Empty your pockets! Eagle position! Give me your bag! I think the guy was disappointed not to find anything, although I was sweating bullets because I had a pretty rock in one bag pocket that I worried would get me into trouble. But the pretty rock was never found, the one pocket he didn't search. Rock aside, I decided that the special treatment was acceptable. It's only fair that I, racially privileged white blonde girl (the red has been sun-bleached almost completely out of my hair now), be treated in the darker-skinned part of the world the way all too many darker-skinned people are treated when they arrive (and when they live) in the U.S.

Anyhow, I made it safe and sound with no rocks confiscated and no fines levvied and no arrests made back in Santiago, descending into the city just as a squadron of what looked like 20-some F-16s roared in formation overhead in honor of the Armed Forces Day part of the September Fiestas Patrias celebrations.

Fiestas Patrias. Biggest holiday in Chile. All the stores and restaurants were closed and I had eaten all my food.

But it was okay, because I arrived at my hostel (having left the wheel-less snowboard bag in bus terminal storage) to a wonderful group of friends-I-hadn't-met-yet and they fed me in exchange for the bottle of Argentinian wine I had. The conversation ranged from the best places in Chile, to engineering special beer fridges, to safety tips for visiting Brazilian Favelas ("Oh, the people are super nice! I love the Favelas! I hang out there until 3am all the time! Oh yeah, but if you don't speak Portugese and know people there, you'll probably die."), to strategies for the cultivation of soil fungus, to earning a living via travel blogging. I got to my dorm bunk bed and crashed hard, sleeping like the proverbial rock.

Food! Glorious food! And a creep-free hostel! Good folks at the Princessa Insolente Hostel in Santiago.

And the next day, I ate mind-blowingly delicious seafood empanadas (have I said yet how much I love empanadas? mmmmmm empanadas), filled a bag full of more empanada (you can never have too many empanadas, I have determined, but you can always have too few. my stomach thinks I have too few right now), and went to go chase more snow. This time to the Chilean side of the mountains, to Nevados de Chillán, the place I had originally intended to go first before the rain drove me across the Andes to Argentina.

OMG <3 Empanadas!!!

My stomach is growling just looking at this picture. Ohsogood.

And sweet, sweet baby Jeebus, I hit the jackpot.

(but you'll have to wait to hear about my awesome snow week until the next post)

My Hovercraft is Full of Eels: Adventures in Argentine Banking

I have no cash, it's snowing (actually objectively beautiful) in town, the ski area just closed for the season, the bus service to the mountains shut down, the bike shops don't accept credit cards...essentially, I'm stuck. Stuck until my ATM card shows up. So at this point I'm just blogging to keep myself amused.

But I had a VERY DRAMATIC, SUPER-RAD, EXCITING trip to a bank today! Read on for the full, uncensored, shocking account!

Completely out of cash, and with my Emergency Express debit card replacement not scheduled to arrive for another week (two weeks after ordering it),  it was time to try other options.

I had half jokingly asked a few places around town for temporary employment, but after a few very confused looks and one prostitution related response, abandoned that line of inquiry.

This was at lunchtime, when the place started to
clear out, but this is one of eight sets of seating
areas in the bank, and that was the only row of
seats that wasn't full in that particular moment.
It's Monday! Party in the bank!

Having money wired via Western Union or other agents (I keep hearing Xoom is great in Argentina, but only has 40 offices in the country and none even in the same state as where I am) wasn't an option:there were no offices in, or anywhere near town. I didn't have a PIN to use with either Visa card I brought, and Visa claimed there were no bank locations within 75 miles that worked with Visa where I could maybe get a cash advance.

But I was desperate, and determined to at least ask. So, after spending an hour looking up phrases I might need and copying them into my notebook, I headed to the town bank. And it was packed. At one point I counted 76 people (not counting 5 babies) waiting to be helped.

A22: The Winning Ticket?

I arrived at 11:30 and took Number A22, at which point the screen read E65. I took a seat and desperately hoped the ticker didn't run all the way through Z. An hour and a half later of playing with learn Spanish apps on my phone, I heard the familiar 'ding' announcing the next number being called, and was immensely relieved to see it go from E99 to A01.

Since it had taken an hour and a half to get from E65 to A01, I calculated that I now only had approximately 56.6 minutes of waiting left. But lo! only half an hour later, at A11, the Lunchtime Effect set in and as there was no A12, A13, A14, A15...you get the point...I started to clutch my ticket, get all of my important documents tother, and brace in a sprinter's crouch to be totally ready lest the the quick flipping of numbers stymie my chance to speak to the man behind the glass wall. A22 was called at 1:34pm, and I scurried up to the window just as the man behind the glass wall had his finger ready to call for A23.

Screenshot from my very helpful
Learn Spanish phone app.

I was ready. Sort of . Clearly whatever my opening line was wasn't making any sense (maybe because of things like the photo at right), so I passed my notebook with a carefully-written translated explanation of my situation through the hole in the plexiglass shield to the teller, and he read, and chuckled, and read, and chuckled, and read, looked up, and said....

"No."

I protested, "But I have two forms of I.D.! My visa card! I have no cash! Pleeeaaase?"

"No."

"Is there anyone, anywhere else in town who might be able to help?"

"No."

"No?"

"No." And with that, he waved me away, and A23 approached the counter.

At least I tried?

This is unrelated to the post, but if
anyone reading this is a bird nerd,
what is this cool dude?
Spotted him while walking at the
edge of town. He looked sort of
like a falcon, was about 6" big,
plump, beautiful gray-tan, white,
and black markings.

I returned, defeated, to the hostel, where Creepy Dude from the previous post was waiting, so I snuck out the back door and scurried off to wander aimlessly through town, letting the falling snow calm me down.

In an effort to cheer myself up by giving myself something to look forward to, I stopped by the bus station to see if there was any possible way I could pay for a ticket to Las Leñas with credit card since I had literally no cash (something they had scoffed at before). They replied that it was a moot point, Las Leñas  had just closed for the season and there was therefore no more bus. 

Even more dejected, I moped in circles around town until I was famished, my being famished falling conveniently at exactly the time when everything in town closes for the afternoon, but chanced upon a restaurant tucked quite a few blocks from the main part of town, that, like some celestial gift of mercy, had a Visa sticker on its window. And I drowned my frustration in a mini bottle of very excellent local Malbec while eating some very excellent local trout (a regional specialty), and decided that if I could just learn a few key phrases (like whatever "If you touch me again I'll feed you your nuts, creepface" is in Spanish), I could deal with this situation.

At least lunch was good. Excellent, actually.
And not only was that bottle of wine adorable,
it was also muy delicioso.

And, belly happy, I returned to the hostel, where creepface was gone, and here I sit, blogging, to decompress from what's been an upsetting and frustrating few days.

Except I have excellent news for tomorrow: I explained the latest news in the ongoing saga of my debit card and consequent inability to pay for my room at the hostel to Ramón, who once again was very forgiving. I asked him for advice on what to do to pass the wait time until the card arrives, and he again said "no problem" and offered to loan me his bike (for transportation to cool places) and his cell phone (in case I get stranded somewhere) and sending me off on an adventure to go see something awesome tomorrow. Once again proving that there is at least one shockingly, unnecessarily nice person for every creepface out there. Ramón, you saved my day. Thank you.

Boarding Las Leñas Day 1: rain, sleet, and smiles

I came to Argentina for one reason: Las Leñas.

Woke up to this email of encouragement
from my Ph.D. advisor. 

My original plan to go to Nevados de Chillán, just a few hours from Santiago, to stay and snowboard with a group of mountain guides there, were thwarted by a big storm that was supposed to dump snow (see my post on arriving in Santiago), but turned to rain instead. So, I checked over the snow reports for all of South America, and Las Leñas was the one place that looked like it still had a good forecast. I packed my bags, hopped the bus, crossed the border at the top of the Andes, and a long bus trip later arrived at 1am in Malargüe, Argentina, where I checked into a hostel and slept a few hours before my 7am ski bus wakeup call.

I groggily crawled out of bed, shoveled down a quick hostel breakfast (little portions of toast, butter, and jam), packed my day bag, and was about to leave to walk to the bus when Ramón, the hostel proprieter, stopped me, scolded me for being late, and drove me to the bus terminal (I returned with wine later that day to make up for it). The bus from Malargüe to Las Leñas leaves at 8:30 from the central bus terminal, takes about an hour and a half, and costs $50 Argentine pesos round trip (<$8USD if you use the official exchange rate). It's possible to stay at Las Leñas, but lodging at the village starts at ~$300/night and I obviously wasn't going to cough up that kind of money.

Las Leñas is like the Aspen of South America: big mountain, big snow, big price. The target clientele at Leñas, as with many of the other better mountains in Chile and Argentina, is wealthy foreigners, so the prices they charge are similar to the more expensive U.S. resorts. Bad news for me. The good news, and the reason I risked coming, was that Leñas is famous for powder and mind-blowing off-piste and backcountry terrain.

Mountains! With snow on them!
That's a good sign, right?

The bus ride up was spectacular. The plains gave way to hills and canyons, and I could see mountains in the distance. I was excited, especially when the roadside bumps turned from dry foothills into increasingly big and increasingly snowy mountains. When raindrops started to appear on the bus windows I took that as a good sign that it was snowing up on mountain.

Ooooh, optimism, how often you have broken my heart.

Rain. Rain rain rain. And rainy patches of slush over mud on the slopes. Apparently in the 48 some hours since the last time I had had internet access, the forecast had turned to Noah's Flood and all of the snow was washed right off the mountain. But the first bus back down the mountain wasn't until 5:30pm, and the restaurants were too expensive to spend the day drinking beer and eating, and I sure as hell wasn't going to sit outside in the rain and wait for a bus for 7 hours so off to the ticket counter I went. I closed my eyes, handed over the credit card, and cringed while they charged the $70USD for a lift ticket (for late-season skiing in the rain? the vultures!).

Oh yeah, let's DO this!!

So, I strapped on the board, pulled down the goggles, checked out the mountain map, found the lifts that would get me up to the highest possible elevation (snow? please? snow?), and up I went.

Again optimism -> heartbreak. The upper lifts were all closed.

Sad face.

Well, whatcha gonna do. In my case, laps on the dinky beginner slopes, which were more like ramps between mud patches. After about 20 some laps on one run, it was time for lunch (and late enough that I could finally call my bank about the lost ATM card from the previous post), so I slopped my way into the lodge, leaving trails of filthy mud and dripping water as I went. I tried hard to find a payphone (apparently they don't exist there? that is what customer relations informed me), and then attempted to weasel my way into some free internet access, but no dice, and had to pay another vulture $10USD for 2 hours of internet access (have these people no shame?) so that I could skype call my bank. Bank wouldn't do anything until I mailed them a handwritten letter, so I skype called my dad and got him to fax one over for me. I then paid another $50 to have a replacement card sent to me emergency express, and assured it should arrive in a few days. Relieved, got myself a cup of insta-noodles ($8USD! Blaaarrrgh!!) and wandered on back into the rain. Expensive rainy crummy day.

But then! I rode the lift up and at the top, the rain turned to sleet. Optimist re-awoke.

Sleet? Does that mean snow somewhere? HOORAAAY!!
(taking selfies and playing with the fancy new GoPro graduation present kept me entertained in the rain)

Determined now to find snow, I took the board off and started to hike. And hike and hike and hike. And, about an hour into the hike, the snow started to fall. About the same time, I saw what looked like halfway decent ski-able terrain. In the far distance I saw a group of black spots on top of a ridgeline, and as I hiked the started to drop one by one into a big ice cream bowl of untouched snow. And there was hope.

So I kept hiking. I spotted a line I wanted, down a steep couloir that ended in a cloud of mist, and did something not very smart (but it sure cheered me up) and bootpacked it, alone, wishing more than once that I hadn't left my crampons and ice axe in Oregon but using my board as an anchor when I could, made it up into the mist cloud, turned on the video camera, and down I went. And it was super fun. So I did it again, going up higher into the chute the second time by scrambling my way up an exposed rock spine and dropping over an into the couloir.

 And then it was time to go back to the bus. So despite the rain and the mud, I had a great first day at Las Leñas. Worth the lift ticket. Worth the trip.


And it kept getting better... Continued in the next post: Boarding Las Leñas Days 2-3: Hiking off the thesis belly and a day so exciting I almost pooped myself

GoPro video footage from the day (my first attempt at stitching together a video from GoPro footage!) is up on YouTube! Check it out. It was originally set to the end of "Rain Song" by Led Zeppelin, but YouTube wouldn't let me use it. In the comments here, give me suggestions for other songs to use and I'll see if they're available for copyright clearance!