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South America » Argentina » Chubut » Puerto Madryn
September 14th 2008

Published: September 16th 2008

Herrow...this entry comes to you backdated from my trip. I am reminiscing and using my handwritten journal to jog my memory.

I love to snowboard. I learned to snowboard with Scott McLaughlin, one of the three guys that came to visit me towards the end of my time in Buenos Aires. Partway through the semester, my friend Arielle mentioned that she was going to make sure that a ski trip happened during her time in Argentina, and that sounded awesome. The issue being that the season in Argentina was only just starting as I was leaving the country. Scott, Arielle, and I managed to squeeze in a weekend trip to San Martin de los Andes during my last weekend in Argentina. It was pretty early season, but we were getting snowed/rained on the whole time we were there which turned out to be great. The snow was a little wet n sticky....but it was there and it was stupendous. We had a great time and had some crazy adventures.

The bus ride was aight...the best part was our 'flight attendant' who had the funniest way of saying 'muy bien'. Not only did he have a hilarious accent and prolonged 'bien', he said that phrase continually and had no clue that we were mocking him when we tried to copy his personal 'muy bien'. He was a small guy and really funny to watch try to handle a tray full of small glasses of hot water on a moving bus. He was, however, skillful as any busboy I have seen thus far in my journey. We saved most of our exploitation of in-flight booze for the return trip. The food on the way there was one of the shittiest bus meals I have had. This is the issue...I happened to score big time with a great bus company on my first trip in Argentina from Buenos Aires to Bariloche. Since that trip I have tried to compare the other bus rides to that one, and none of them come close. The company was called Nueva Chevallier and the seats were more comfy, the food was identifiable and edible, and I was served whisky just before bed...that's service!

We arrived to San Martín fairly early...walked with all our crap to the hostel and then went to walk around the very cute mountain town. There are basically two main streets downtown and after sufficiently exploring one direction, we asked a local shopkeeper about their favorite restaurant in town. The cheaper one sounded best and was right on the lake on the other side of town. A 10 minute walk later and we were seated at a booth with a great view of the lake and surrounding mountains. The meal was delicious. Salty as hell, but I like that. To start off, we shared a smoked fish appetizer which came with a few different cheeses. Then came the meal which for me was a sandwich that had both smoked venison and jabalí (a type of wild boar, I think). Very tenderly smoked meat and a great combo! Our next step was to try to walk off this ridiculous meal we had just downed, so our waitress gave us some nearby hiking suggestions. The hike ended up consisting of walking up a road that skirted the city high up on a mountainside. We followed the road along until it looped back down to town. Where the road dropped us off was something like a 'villa' where people lived in 2-3 wall shacks, barely supported on a very slanted hill. This area was about a 20 minute walk from our hostel and on our way back were looking for places to rent equipment. it seemed the going rate for rentals was anywhere from 40-70 pesos for a complete setup. Scott and I also had to rent snowpants and goggles. I got a snowboard for the first day....then switched it up to snowblades after that and had a BLAST - I want to find a cheap pair in Boulder to buy and be able to cruise around on. This is very surprisingly...I have been bashing skiing every since I stopped and moved on to snowboarding (just a little background on the situation).

Tonight was cooking night...especially after going out for lunch. We cooked some amazing grub with tons of veggies back at the old hostel, Puma Hostel. We were getting a pretty decent rate (45 pesos/night) and we had a room with just us three and a private bathroom. The hostel seemed pretty empty, but there were a bunch of people staying in San Martin who were living in Bariloche. That was surprising to me, because Bariloche is a much bigger ski destination (the reason we went to San Martin instead). As it turned out, there was more snow on Chapelco in San Martin than on the slopes in bariloche....also surprising because there was zero snow in town and nothing on the mountains that you could see from town. I was happy to hear that Chapelco was about a half hour drive out of town....mostly up a hill with beautiful scenery. However, the snow still didnt start showing up until we had unboarded the bus, bought our lift tickets, and walked up to the lift. The bottom part of the mountain was closed, but the top part had a decent amount of snow and I was happy. There were even some powder pockets up at the top. Here's the trick: In order to get to the top, you have to take a really slow 4 person chair (huge line), and then a rope tow lift (medium line), and if you manage to hold on to the rope tow the entire time...you just might make it to the top. More often than not, I fell off the rope tow somewhere between the halfway unloading point and the top of the mountain.

After a few hours of rockin the mountain, we took a break in the lodge...it seemed like a good thing to do while it DUMPED outside. The snow had started to fall around noon and was coming down in the biggest flakes I have ever seen. Inside the lodge, we all had our respective bathroom time and ordered a few quilmes and a pizza...standard Argentine snack, I suppose. They had an internet station in the lodge...sweet! Another beer and we were on our way back out into the cold (which wasn't that cold considering my super warm jacket, etc.). I had bought my gloves at the 'estacion de omnibus' just before we left Buenos Aires and they were completely soaked. Every chance I got, I was wringing out moisture. I was at least happier than Arielle and Scott in the jacket department. Arielle had a white, poofy jacket that was just getting obliterated, but I think the babushka-type deal she had on her head was making her happy. Scott was just pissed because his snowboard jacket was getting wet when it was supposed to be all waterproof n shit.

At 5 we were looking for the bus we had gotten to the mountain on...they all looked the same. We found an acceptable choice...different than our original crew. It turned out to be an ENTIRE Brazilian family with several children that were incredibly loud. Just like one of those things after a long day on the slopes, I was still able to pass out. When I woke up, we were at Puma Hostel and the Brazilian parents commented on my incredible abilities to fall asleep under such intense circumstances....sleepings under adverse conditions has always been one of my best and favorite skills.

That night we treated ourselves to one of my favorite meals of my entire trip. We went to this restaurant due to the Lonely Planet review about lots of interesting beer choices. As it turned out, they also had incredibly original, well thought out, meals. The specialty plate was a meat & cheese board consisting of a myriad of smoked animals with a few great cheeses. We didn't order that, and instead ordered an appetizer, a trout dish and a jabali (wild boar) steak dish. As we sipped our beers and waited for the main courses, the head chef came out personally with a surprise dish! Apparently something they do with every guest to the restaurant, but the trout dish they brought out was phenomenal and 'complimentary'. It was some sort of combination of trout, sprouts, some greens and somethin else all packed into small 'inari' type crispy pockets.

Tonight, Scott and I spent some time cruising around the local bars and tearing apart the casino. The casino is apprently the town's pride and joy since there were easily more people inside of there than out at that time of night in the entire town. As we left the bar around 2 am....people were just getting there! It blew my mind that this small mountain town was on the same schedule (kinda) as Buenos Aires. What a culture...

Anyway, Scott and I got a decent nights sleep and were good to go in the morning. Today was Snowblades day. I was so excited and the little skis were so easy to carry. The only issue was the big, bulky, rigid, hard-to-carry, ski boots (I guess I still hold onto some of my skier grudge). However, they weren't TOO uncomfortable (really, not bad at all compared to what I was planning on...this is part of my reasoning now for wanting to buy snowblades). My plan that it would have snowed all night and today would be incredible, was shot as soon as we got on the hill and realized it had been raining for a good part of the night and was actually still raining during the beginning of the day. Luckily, it started snowing again a bit later. The stickier snow actually helped me since it was my first day back on skis in about a decade. My favorite part about snowblades is that they are so small, it is really easy to correct a mistake and therefor not fall. By the end of the day, I could do a 180, ski backwards, and then do another 180 and ski forwards de nuevo. Sweet.

We had to leave the hill early today in order to catch our bus back to Buenos Aires. The ticket offices issue hard, magnetic cards as your lift ticket that you pay a 20 peso deposit on and then have to return at the end of the day to get your money back. When I went to return mine at the end of day two, I realized that my card had broken in two. And the bottom portion was somewhere off in the snow, never to be found again. Even with all my argumentationing skills, I was out 20 pesos. We snagged a cab back to the hostel...a cab who quickly became our choffeur. We had a lot of equipment to return and did not realize that they rental places might be closed at 4 oclock for siesta. They were. We had the cab driver take us to the rental shop, then to the hostel, then back to the rental shop, then the rental shop where Scott and I rented pants and goggles. THEN, we had to leave him with the skis/snowboards/snowblades because the shop was still closed. We gave him enough cash to pay for the rentals and a generous tip, and just barely made it to our bus. Sweet. Oh yeah, we also managed to squeeze in a trip to the Sunday arts fair in the main square (have no clue how we did that, but I was on a mission to find a replacement maté gourd for the one I had left on my last long distance bus). AND it was raining the whole time.

Scott, Arielle and I really took advantage of the bus service on the way back. We were (unfortunately for the bus staff) seated right next to the bar which housed not only every soda imaginable, but a pretty decent stock of wines and a couple bottles of Old Smuggler whisky. As you could probably guess from the name, Old Smuggler is not exactly top of the line. However, we were able to do quite some dammage to the bottle which we realized in the morning as a mistake. It wasn't until the morning, in fact, that we realized exactly how much damage had been done to the bottle...it was about a quarter full (or three quarters empty, depending on your philosophical perspective). We had also taken care of at least one bottle of wine and all the Paso de los Toros Pomelo Juice they had. In essence, we got our moneys worth and had a great time.

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