This travel blog is created with the express purpose of entertainment of the author only. Any collateral enjoyment derived by any reader (invited or not) is purely coincidental and in no way reflects the intention of the author. Furthermore the incidents depicted in this blog did actually occur and any similarity to persons living or dead is intentional. With respect to grammer, punctuation and spelling the reader understands that the aformentioned entries are created spontaneously in a dark internet cafe with some guy chain smoking in the next booth with his ashtray as close to me as physically possible while talking into a skype headset so loud his voice probably carries all the way to San Diego. So you´ll excuse the rough edges.
That being said, after last nights entry I took a walking tour with Hans and Franz. For a couple of OG´s these guys are real go getters. Hans is an interesting guy, speaks a little broken English and even less broken Spainish. Half the time I can tell what language he´s speaking unless of course he´s talking to Franz and then readily identifiable as German. He has a bum hip and walks with quite a pronounced limp from a bus accident in Brazil. He receives a pension in Germany because he´s disabled and cant work, but he can walk 20 miles around Santiago with no problem. Go Figure. Our walking tour turned out to be a tour of circles around the Plaza de Armas looking for what Hans said was a ¨bar¨
Here´s a couple shots of the Plaza
And this
The only bars we found were the really dark kind with chicks in flourescent G springs serving coffee under a black light. uhhhh no thanks, not my thing. Apparently theres not much night life here in Santiago. Lonely Planet says most discoteques close in feb and open up in a neighboring town called Valpariso (my next stop.)
(authors note: These events transpired yesterday, but I was in a bad mood and the post lacked my usual wit and charm, so I cleaned it up and am sending it today friday)
Which brings me to today, but starting with yesterday, it rained most of the day here and snowed in the mountains. The weather report said today was sunny and clear. A true bluebird. 6 to 8 inches of fresh powder and clear blue skys. Dying to Ski, I set the alarm for 6, (3am your and my time) and hit the subway for Skitotal. The subway was so packed I didn´t need to hold on to anything as the bodies pressing against me kept me from falling
Doors would open and people would just keep shoving in until they were sticking out the door and it wouldn´t close. Unreal.
Skitotal rents skis and provides transportation to the ski areas. Here´s a look on the way up.
and another even closer
On the trip I met Rolan, from Austria. That guy could ski.
BTW, rope tows suck...
Georgeous, beautiful day couldn´t get any better until this guy...
...was skiing off piste in 6 inches of powder on top of hardpack and rocks and caught an edge. Third run of the day, on the recently operated on titanium leg of course, twisting it in the same direction as the fracture. Here´s my snow report right after it happened before the pain set in. I got my game face on.
So what did I do? What any good skier would, took three more runs and skied on one ski. I mean its just pain right? Heres after I realized I was done skiing. I´m a little grumpy in this one.
Here´s what the rest of my day looked like.
So again I did what any good skier would do, proceeded to elevate my leg and my blood alcohol concentration simultaneously.
So the leg feels a little better today. Good enough that I´m off on a walking tour of Santiago. At least the bluebirds song was not filled with lyrics of Doctors and crutches.
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