Originally Posted by Reverend
Hola Maggots!
The huevo plato has arrived in Bariloche, Argentina. A brief TR and pics to come later this afternoon, after we burn them from Cornhole´s CPU.
Cletus, Cornhole and I met in Dallas as planned, and hopped aboard a 767 with more stoke than a Montana wildfire. Goofing around with the DV and other cameras, we drank a few cocktails, had dinner, watched some ski porn on Corn´s CPU, and tried to ignore the yapping granola momma in the seat behind us who was determined to talk to us about everything under the sun. 3 valum, 6 cocktails and 9 hours later, our plane touched down in Santiago where we immediately hooked up with my homeboy, Scott (Adolf Aller Busch in the LL thread). We collected baggage and realized Scott´s gear had been put on a plane to Mendoza, so we scrambled and actually got them to find it and remove it before the plane took off. We then picked up our van (El Huevo Plato or The Silver Egg) and took inventory of gear while Cornhole and Gramps went into Santiago to get food, stove fuel, etc. 4 hours later, Odin arrived and the band was put together.
Driving through Santiago is very similiar to the plight of the Humvee convoy in Blackhawk Down. The drivers are nutty as snickers, and the buses are only there to kill people. Scott negotiated the egg through all sorts of mayhem, while we continuously got on course, off course, on course, off course, etc. Finally, we hit the 5 due south to Chillan. We pulled into a monsoon in Chillan, and the stoke began to rise uncontrolably. Powder was going to be had the next day, and we knew all the traveling was a small price to pay.
Between Chillan and the resort of Termas lies a small rural village called Recinto, where we found a ¨cabana¨ owned by a couple named Javier and Maria Elizabeth. A great little spot, the cabin had bunk beds, a kitchen, hot water, a shower, a wood stove and communal area. We decompressed via a few pisco sours with our gracoius and comedic host, Javier, and then hit the sack with visions of fluff playing on the screen.
The next morning, Javier woke us up with fresh, warm pan (bread) and proudly showed us how one of the many chickens in his yard laid yummy eggs which he would cook for breakfast. The morning was foggy and gray, with dense clouds rolling through the lush, green forests of the valley. Surprisingly, the valley below termas looks like a rain forest...a canopy of dark green, huge waterfalls, and a dirt road through the villages up to Termas. We packed the egg and were on our way, redlining the cuisinart under the hood and blaring Particle as we made our way.
Termas was not what we expected. Turns out they are having a pretty bleak snow year, and it had rained on the mountain the night before. No fluff, but crusty snow and warm temps. That day we skied groomers and explored the resort, getting our bearings and rediscovering our skiing legs. We found some really nice corn slightly off piste and made some nice turns while I filmed on the DV. Unfortunately, the ravine we followed ended up turning to dirt, so we had to downclimb through dense fog, only to hitch a ride back up to the resort. No fluff was had, but our spirits were strong because we knew the touring would be good.
That evening we hooked up with Cornhole´s ¨special amiga¨, Karen, who is a very cool girl in med school rotation in Santiago. She joined our team and we shared a great dinner at a tiny little ¨hosteria¨in Recinto. The chicken in our soup had been killed minutes before dinner, and the empenadas were to die for.
That night we got drunk. Piscos with Javier and Cristal beer flowed like wine. A few of us commensed shotgunning beers outside the cabana while Cornhole spat game at Karen like Snoop at a party in the LBC. Sho´nuff, he and K retired early while Cletus, Scott, Odin and I sat outside and bludgeoned our livers.
The next day was sunny and beautiful. After some Nescafe and few pieces of pan, we headed up to the resort ready to tour. Took a few groomers to heat up the legs, and then toured North off the top of the resort. Undulating terrain with gullies and ridges made the tour fun and beautiful. We slowly gained elevation until we gained a big ridge where we had to down climb through scree on the otherside. At the bottom of the scree was a gully of pure ice, so the gang glisaded with skis horizontally in their laps down to the bottom of the gully, laughing all the way while sliding on their asses. I somehow managed to get my skis on at the bottom of the scree, largely thanks to a shelf Cletus had cut with his shovel, so I side slipped down and we all skinned up to a high saddle connecting two peaks. The view from the saddles was simply overwhelming...the Andes for as far as you could see, with massive volcanos in the distance. Cletus swore one was Aconcagua due to its incredible height, and we later decided it probably was in light of our geographical location. From the saddle we skinned up the second peak, shooting slides and DV as we went, everyone mostly silent from a combination of altitude and awe. We arrived at the top where we cut a bench and ate our PB and Js for lunch, admiring the view and taking our skins off. Cornhole dropped in first and the conditions were less than ideal. The wind had scoured the snow so that the texture was extremely rough and bumpy for the first few hundred yards down. Then it smoothed out, but the snow was very grabby and crusty. We all went one at a time, weary of an unfamiliar snowpack that appeared to be very, very bomber. Cornhole shot DV and soon we were at the bottom of the first pitch. We then skated up and over another ridge, to the second decent which was short, but steep and held nicer snow. Down we went, one at a time, making pretty nice corn turns while Cornhole graciously filmed yet again. At the bottom we reattached our skins, and toured back to the top of the resort, with an Andean sunset as our backdrop. Ullr may not have blessed us with new snow, but there´s no doubt in my mind that he was smiling on us from behind that orange, hazy sunset!
That night Javier and Maria made dinner for us, with garlic potatoes, lettuce, pan, and longinizas (delicious pork sausage). We soon deemed him the papas pusher (papas=potatoes) as he kept shoveling the fuking things onto our plates just as soon as we´d finish the previous one. He clearly thought it was funny as hell, and I thought I was going to vomit starch all over his dining room. The dinner was delicious, and we chatted about Chile, about what we did in the US, about his father the doctor, and many other topics. Javier and Maria were quite possibly the most gracious hosts Ive ever had, and our room cost us around $10 per person per night. After many a pisco sour and cristal beer, we returned to our cabin and packed up all of our gear and equipment, loading the egg for the mornings journey as we went.
