go go go

The guys call me Leesa Seempson. As Mees Seempson I went skiing with Moka (nick-name means fly), Bart (Simpsons lover. Real name Rojo), Fredo (Frederico), Madeus and Mariah, his girlfriend. Madeus, an experienced skier, took me and Mariah around the difficult parts, speeding. Following the zooming red jacket of Madeus like usual, I lost him for a second when I bounced over a large bump, just about landing on one ski zooming on... finding him at top speed again, he must be testing us, so I matched his speed and daring. At the bottom of the slope, after a bumpy and fast ride I stopped next to him to say you´re crazy but that was great. He turned to look at me, with a face saying what are you doing? It was someone else wearing the same jacket. The guy couldn´t understand why I had followed him and stopped very close. Across the slope I heard Lisa, hola, lets go again! Mariah and Madeus were taking the lift to the highest mountain, I followed like a sheep. These two are brilliantly crazy - I thought it was my spanish misreading ´cerrado´ but the slope really was closed and dangerous. If I didn´t think they were mad I would in a minute when they took me off piste down some ice at a 45 degree angle. Scary but one of the biggest excitements of my life!

Diego kept pretending we were having a proper conversation amidst the other boys. Testing my theory I´d say something really random like the trees are blue and he would say yes. Walking in the snow, amazingly my holey trainers weren´t keeping my feet warm. They have never been so cold that they were stiff before. When we sat down in a log fire restaurant, two of the guys ran back to the car to bring me a spare pair of socks. Off came my trainers and on went their socks. Bless them. It took Frederico a few days to perk up his english but he improved a lot and was able to tell me what they were up to. These Argentinians would mostly speak spanish and Id listen, at this point I can work out what people are talking about generally but revert to trusty english, as if they will understand. We said random words that we´d learnt in eachothers language and it made vague sense when we weren´t laughing. Moka and me had our conversations on a computer most days. Google translate is a great tool but the translations aren´t quite right. At one point it said he was a woman when he is home... maybe he is?

This christmassy snow covered town has a chocolate shop every few doors. Walking into a huge store full of different types of chocolate was a dream come true! The temptation was too much, I bought one of the largest box of assorted chocolates. I had to try everything! Only a few steps away from me was a canteen, I had to look at the menu as it could only mean one thing - a chocolate menu! Almost, it was a six page pudding menu. Heaven. This was heaven. I bought a tiramisu icecream sundae - mmm mmmm. Every thought disappeared and the chill from outside didn´t bother me, this was the meaning of DELICIOUS.

It might be worth noting how forward men are in this country. A few taxi drivers gave me their personal phone numbers and asked me out to dinner, one even played me a song that he had written, and sang to it. Men who are friends all hit on the same woman in front of eachother and in front of the girls boyfriend in a very obvious way. I was told people were friendly here but come on guys.... Apparently Argentinians are jealous men. I´m not suprised. It can also be normal for a man or a woman to be in love with one person and have another partner that they simply like. I heard this story all over the country.

At the bus station, the roads to Chile were snowed in but the bus wanted to go anyway. After five hours we were back at our primery destination, Bariloche. At some point they had decided driving in heavy snow conditions was a bad idea. One more night with the boys was good. We ate chocolate and had a delicious mexican meal with Caipariniah cocktails. Second goodbyes later and even with warnings that the roads may be closed again... I was going to Chile on a different bus which wasn´t going to take me all the way. I would need to swap buses two more times to make it to Valdiviar 9 hours later.