Day 2, La montana

Woke up to some extreme yelling competition going on somewhere in the hostel last night. I was waiting for someone to pull a gun. Well, I’m sleeping on a flat bed and not a reclining chair, so who can complain? A quick move of the luggage up the hill and I’ve found my home for the next night at least. Rolly luggage is great, but it doesn’t perform at its best on broken cobblestone.

A little bit of adjusting to the new abode and I’m ready to roll up to the hill. Decked in snow gear and walking to the bus stop, I’m impressed that no one seems to think twice about walking through the city with your snowboard gear. It’s the town closest to the mountain, sure, but it has little feeling of a ski town. Forking over a little more than $1 USD gets you to the mountain in about 45 minutes. My riding buddy for the day was Derek, a 22 year old from Ohio I met on the bus. He just got into town for a 3 or 4-month jaunt in Argentina.

As the boots are getting laced, a smelly giant comes running up an nearly tackles me. Barry got into town just a few hours before and had been sessioning a mini-pipe, waiting for me to show up. Nice to see a familiar face. The round of introductions were made..Jon, Marco, Ralph, Pablo..an international Chilean crew for sure. Swiss, French/Canadian, French/German, American, Chilean..I think that covered it.

Ready to ride, those who were uninjured or willing to buy a ticket went riding. New snow meant smiling faces, which soon turned to sweating faces when we started our descent down the wet, heavy snow. Nice welcome to the hill when you haven’t ridden in more than 3 months. Ouch.

It’s an interesting sight for sure on the hill. Lots of beginners on the bunny hill and beyond. Only know how to do the snowplow on skis? Hey, no biggie. Let’s jump off this cattrack! Oh..there goes my skis and poles. Feel like taking out a skier on your snowboard? Sure, the hill seems to sway towards the one-plank anyways. Who needs anymore of those annoying skier types anyways? I’m convinced Argentines think the best way to get down the hill is by anything other than skis or snowboards.

Rode until 5, caught the bus back to the city after a ½ liter of beer. Eat, drink, sleep. That’s what happened. Yep, bye.