Not just another Snow-Job

So I leaped out of bed this morning, dashed off to catch the bus to Buenos Aires only to find out that the pass is still closed, but MAY open tomorrow. Which is what they said yesterday and I´m sure they´ll say tomorrow. Not only that but all buses out of here pass through Argentina, so I can´t go anywhere else either. The other option is go back to Santiago and catch a flight, which is looking like a better and better and oh yes far more expensive option.

First the nice pretty pictures...

Here´s a shot down the street from the Hostel in front of the Acensor late last night.



Here´s the same shot this morning



Heres a shot from the window in my room a couple days ago.



Enough with the niceties. So with a day to kill and hope to skewer and roast on the barbie, I set out of in search of an adventure in Valparaiso, or Valpo for short. I happened upon a old hole in the wall bar advertising cheap prices on beer. FYI, I´ve given up blogging about or searching out a hoppy robust West Coast IPA style beer in the rest of the un-free world. I´m even a little hesistant mentioning it, as I might get my hopes up, and start frothing at the mouth and have to be put down like the rabid Chilean dog I am.

So I´m drinking a beer, and yes they are big...




and I start up a conversation with Karl from Germany who finds it rather odd that a foreigner would pick this bar. He says this bar is for old people and everyone here will be dead in 10 years, maybe less. He and I fit right in. Karl is a tortured artist and poet, (as if there´s any other kind.) Here came here traveling 30 years ago and never left. Heres a shot of him in his US Navy surplus overcoat.



So we have a couple beers, and a couple more. Know that Karl is MAYBE 140 lbs soaking wet downhill with a tailwind at altitude. Three beers and this guy is a drunk tortured poet. The coversation, which is all in Chilean Bastardizion Spainish gets harder and harder for me to understand. Here´s a shot of Karl his girlfriend and me. In case you´re wondering thats the gimp leg pointing skyward in all its glory



We start talking and and the conversations turns to my travel plans, which I happily disclose Buenos Aires as my next destination. Turns out the newspaper says the pass to Argentina isn´t going to open for ANOTHER 10 days because of the snow in the Andes. Talk about your all time snow jobs. Another guy in the bar seconds this, and I am...lets just say... less then happy as those bastards at the bus station have been telling me, ¨posiblimente mañana, mañana....¨ Probably knowing full well that a bus isn´t going to even see the light of Argentina in the next 10 days. You live, you learn. I just wish I could be learnED instead of learnING.

So ummm, on the bright side, even though its been some time since I´ve been, well... intimate, I can say I got a really good ¨Snow¨-job.