Ski Trip to Andes Mountains

We arrived at the airport an hour before departure…none of this crazy American security stuff. Since I had paid the discounted flight price online, by pretending to be Argentine and making up a D.N.I. number using a variation of my American social security number (by now I had learned to scam just like the Argentine’s do!), I hoped that Natalia’s mom would check in the family group of 5 at the flight counter and they would not ask me to pay the $200 flight difference for Americans. I got lucky! And boarded with liquids! And kept my shoes and belt on through security….was this what it was like traveling before I was 16 years old? (oh, and instead of peanuts, we got dulce de leche alfajor cookies! I love Argentina!)

We landed in Mendoza 1.5 hours later and checked into our hostel, which was already having a party! I had my first “choripan”, sausage in a baguette. Natalia and I didn’t get a room because we knew we would be staying out dancing until 2am when our night bus arrived to take us to Las Lenas in the Andes Mountains.

In the morning on the climb up the mountain, the bus got stuck in snow…did I mention it had been snowing all night and continued to snow all day! LOVE IT! People on the bus said chains were being put on the tires. Our bus was filled with young people because of the long, holiday weekend, so I took the liberty in starting the bus party with my ipod Zumba music.

The mountain views were breathtaking and everything was covered in lovely snow. We lucked out and stayed in 5-person apartment right there at the ski place, where Natalia’s mom made us sandwiches for lunch, heavenly homemade hot chocolate and Italian dinner! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nOg_rqaXrCA

I’m so glad Natalia had been to Las Lenas earlier in the winter and took skiing lessons from Andres…all that knowledge was passed on to me! I’ve attempted skiing once before when I was 15….well, actually I went on the high school trip to North Carolina, put on my ski gear and went flying on flat snow into a wall knocking down 4 people. I have refused to ski ever since. I’m so glad I learned in the Andes Mountains and attempted my first slope in South America!

Skiing is by far the most dangerous thing I have ever done…more dangerous than repelling upside down in Mexico, parasailing in Austria and canyoning in Switzerland. I was praying the whole time I would not fall and break my ankle….Tango Festival y Mundial (World Tango Festival) begins in Argentina August 13 and I want to have both my legs for dancing!!!

I took to skiing a lot better than I thought I would…my first lesson was while actually going down the beginner´s slope...i´m not a lady of curse words but my mouth was a string of screaming profanities...in spanish...at the fluent level...the whole 5 minutes down the flat-like beginner slope!!!! (I´m not even sure where I learned all those phrases.) Super proud, though, I did not fall! Second time around, I was getting the hang of twisting, switching directions and concept of “pizza and spaghetti” positions to stop. After day one of skiing, and lack of sleep from a week of partying, I passed out for 3 hours at the apartment and woke up to the pleasant surprise of Fernet and coke with an invite from the neighbors to pre-game and eat some bon bon chocolates. I’m beginning to wonder if I have developed an addiction to Argentine cultural partying…

My energy level surged out of nowhere. We chilled with the neighbors until 1am and then went out into the cold and snow…walked two blocks to the only dance club in the mountains called “UFO”. There was a line of people paying cover (men and women), but I learned well from Natalia the “Argentine- charm”. I walked passed the line of people, strutted up to the entrance and starred the guard down, who immediately opened the door and let me in without paying cover.

This was an insane night! First off, there was a random guy dressed as a cow! Argentine’s have quite a sense of humor and this spectacle made my night! Everyone danced, hugged, sang and kissed the cow! Even days later I break out into random laughter at the office remembering the chant “DALE VACA!” and egging on the cow to do ridiculous, embarrassing things. Around 3 am they started passing around flashing neon-light sabers and alien florescent head bands. I unfortunately ran into some more guys who thought they could steal a kiss from me…but I also met some great guys that protected us group of girls by dancing around us in a circle (felt like a Dane Cook comedy moment).

We got 3 hours of sleep that morning before skiing a second day. I could not believe how sore my shin bones were from the tightness of the boots the day before! It was actually quite painful, in addition to being akward, walking around like a semi-penguin with my ski gear on. My first fall of the day was graceful and during a picture moment! I was in line to ride up the mountain and asked some girls my age to take a picture…I was in “pizza” stop position but that didn’t stop the skis from sliding backwards down hill! I thanked God I’m a dancer because with my hands full of gloves, ear covers and ski poles I just let myself slowly slide into a straddle and my face planted into the snow….I was laughing hysterically for 5 minutes before getting up! I think my skiing skills were worse the second day….my second fall was trying a new route that apparently had little 8X8 iced over ponds lined with rocks in random places. As I was speeding downhill, my zig zag direction change techniques failed and the only thing I could think of was to sit down and slide on top of the pond, which is exactly what I did!

At the end of the day we took the bus back into Mendoza, arriving around midnight and checking into our hostel. I convinced Natalia to cancel our reservations because obviously we would be going out dancing ALL night until 6am plane back to Buenos Aires. So we opted for a single room for everyone to shower before dinner…this last minute room had a 2x2 bathroom. The shower was about 6 inches away from the toilet and it was great for multitasking- brush your teeth at the sink while rinsing off body soap under the shower, and when I was done the entire bathroom was clean!...and a little wet! Lol.

By the time we all showered and got ready for dinner it was 2am…luckily we found a Mexican place that served us fajitas for the table and giant margaritas at 2:30am! (Still in disbelief that an entire culture eats dinner so late!) Maybe that’s why they don’t work very much during the day and take coffee & mate breaks every hour at the office? We returned to our hostel at 4am and all 5 of us tried to catch a wink of sleep for an hour in the queen size bed….glad we got a photo of that one!

We watched the sun rise on our 6 am flight back to Buenos Aires and planned for that evening’s fiesta. We met up at my apartment in Belgrano and went into town to eat near Corrientes avenue, where we had our funniest restaurant experience yet. We asked for Sangria with white wine and he brought red wine. Then asked for chicken milanesa and he brought breaded meat. When we asked for dulce de leche crepes, he showed up with empanada looking things. It was a quilombo (mess) and we left no tip. We tried scoping out the party scene but our bodies called it quits early in the night when we were walking down Corrientes and couldn’t even form a sentence. We were in bed by 3:30am!

Monday was yet another holiday and we went down to centro, early in the afternoon before the tourist lines, to eat at the famous Café Tortoni, #1 café in Buenos Aires and top 10 in the world. We had the traditional churros y chocolate caliente and got to explore the entire interior. We made it in time for one of the opening World Tango Festival events and it was phenomenal…the live music and dancing!

Afterwards, we walked around centro getting our token tourist picture that we were lacking and then we headed to Buenos Aires Province for official goodbyes. We went to Carolina’s house to get Natalia’s luggage and I bonded with yet another Argentine family over mate and dulce de leche. I really enjoy the close family relationships of Latin culture...i´m actually a little jeaous of them.

There were tears of course as Natalia went off in taxi to the airport and me by bus back into the city…there went half of my Latin Heart, another best friend discovered in a foreign country and the last semi-American friend I have here in the big city. I guess the summer Fiesta is officially over and time to get back to work...new consulting projects, annual review of marketing plans and a group of Germans are coming.