Monday, June 26, 2006

We was robbed!

Well, I was robbed. England managed to fight and struggle and, in the end, whimper their way past Ecuador.

Meanwhile, Friday night my small rucksack was knicked from under my table in quite a posh cafe where I was eating and waiting to move on to another city in Argentina.

A couple of weeks ago Clare and I moved off in separate directions, her North to Bolivia, me back South through part of Chile and into Argentina again. She starts her month volunteer work tomorrow having just done a week's Spanish course.

I spent some time climbing a mountain, too much time in 2 coastal resort type towns, got temporarily hooked on a gambling pinball type game, saw lots of hummingbirds and forests of wild Chilean palm trees....then in Argy I checked out a nice and leafy Mendoza and experienced the first proper festivities after their 6-0 win. I then b*ggered off to more remote areas again, saw some cool Indigenous rock carvings from around 500AD and Bovedas dated at around 1500AD, which were cool to photo domed buildings but didn't quite grasp what they really did.

Then spent about 5 days in the mountains looking for snow. I found snow - quite a lot of it - but not on the Argentinian resort. So after a few days at "Puente del Inca", which is a natural stone bridge with the coolest colours and patterns created by thermal springs and chemicals such as sulphur that have ran down the cliff faces, I crossed back to Chile to spend 2 days snowboarding! Portillo was a cool resort - all in jobby - so used the outdoor thermal pool set by the lake, played some B ball in the gym, some table footy, table tennis, pool and a good and tiring 5-a-side footy match with a mix of Brazilians, Chileans, Argentinians and even a Yank. Also had a quality night out with Alejandro (room-mate), the nut-case Albarita and all her fellow workers from the resort in a proper cool pub across the road.

As for the boarding, the snow was pretty good with some rough hard areas and some lush slightly sticky powder. The 2nd day I went for it properly trying off piste with Alejandro, really hard runs and some jumps - some of which I even landed. However, I also had two proper crashes resulting in aches and whiplash that is just going now about 3 days after.

So, most of what I told you had cool pictures to go with it but the camera along with my passport was stolen. So sorry! Other stuff knicked weren't too important but will take effort to replace but hey...

Off to Buenos Aires again now to get a new passport!