PREFACE
Friday - Snowboarding in the Andes
Friday - Jack Daniel (the dog)
Sunday - Chile vs. Brazil (0-3)
Tuesday - More dance class
Wednesday - Chile vs. Colombia (4-0!)
Thursday - My first test
Thursday - Septiembre 11
Friday - Isla Negra
Putting off reporting the snowboarding experience was an act of humbled intimidation. Pictures offer a prostitute's fidelity to the wrenching beauty of the mountains, so, needless to say, the task before me is daunting.
But, I'm here and you're not, so you'll have to take what you can get. Sorry, suckers.
SNOWBOARDING IN THE ANDES
I was late getting to SkiTotal, a few blocks from the final metro stop, Escuela Militar on the eastern edge of Santiago. Guy, whose warm invitation had brought me out, was just leaving as I arrived. As his bus pulled away, he told me what to rent and where to follow him, which I did without much difficulty.
The ride to the summit was a lesson in intimidation. Our friendly and English-speaking driver, the same one who devotedly tapped his horn at two girls we passed, the same one whose cell phone ring was a police siren, expertly navigated the certain-death bluffs and 50-some switchbacks between us and the peak. Straddling cavernous potholes and passing sluggish trucks (not as easy on a mountain as it is in the Prairie State) without an ounce of apparent effort, and using a standard transmission, as is the norm in Chile, his skill was highly visible. More than once I saw him cross himself as we passed road-side shrines dedicated, I assume, to less attentive drivers than he.
Scattered up the mountain were errant burros, watchful carabineros, fascinating specimens of home architecture, and this church, even more solitary than it looks.
The views, or the altitude, or both, brought a frequent knot to my stomach. A potato-fed Midwesterner from glaciated Illinois, I could never have been convinced of or prepared for the gory magnitude the Andes emanate. The beauty of it, climbing the product of tectonic plate collision, crags sliding away as one's position changes to reveal endless gray-blue geography, was profound.
And the snowboarding was pretty fun, too.
It has been suggested many times that I would like skiing. Friends and family have invited me along to some or other resort. "I'm not sure I'd like it," I'd say, "it seems like a lot of money and trouble, and I don't know if it would be worthwhile." In Chile, I figured I owed it to myself to see the Andes up-close, and a ski-trip seemed like, if nothing else, a means to that end. Guy invited me along with him, Murphy, Jon, Britt, and an assortment of other USAC-ies, and I, having seen Guy's athletic skill demonstrated on his longboard, figured it was a good offer.
"Do you want to ski or snowboard," he asked.
"Do I want to ski or snowboard," I replied.
"Snowboard."
"Is it anything like skateboarding? I've been on a skateboard without falling off once," I bragged.
"Well, no." He went on to explain the subtle differences between the sports. I would be attached to my snowboard, he said, by devices called "binders," which use ratchets and teeth and, I believe, were invented in the medieval era to scare the shit out of Midwesterner college students snowboarding for the first time.
Guy's expertise went beyond binders. We reunited atop Valle Nevado, boards-in-hand, and he asked another unanswerable riddle, "are you regular or goofy?"
I didn't respond.
"Turn around- face that way," he said, and I did, expecting him to discern from my figure whatever it was he needed to know. Instead, he gave me a gentle shove, forcing me to step forward.
"Regular," he said definitively. What he was looking for, and what I had just unconsciously displayed, was my snowboarding stance: by stepping forward with my left foot when shoved, I demonstrated that my left foot should be at the front of the board, hence, "regular."
After a quick crash course in strapping into my binders, which turned out to be much less nefarious than they sounded, Guy told me that I wanted to emulate a "falling leaf," slowly swooping from side to side, down the hill a little with each swishing motion. For the first five minutes I was less of a "falling leaf" and more of a "falling idiot," but I managed to spread out the amount of time between falls until, eventually, it became enjoyable. Down the bunny hill we went, bit by bit, fall by fall, with Guy and Murph slicing expertly ahead and stopping to wait for me to catch up. By the bottom of that first bunny hill, I was really enjoying myself. Murph got a kick out of it when I, pleased with a particularly long stretch between falls, announced to a random lady, "hey, what's up, I'm snowboarding!"
We lined up for the lift, which wasn't a chair but rather a stick one grabbed and let drag one up the hill. Murph and Guy went first, and I got about fifteen feet before flopping to the ground, shuffling out of the way of the next person, and looking up to Guy. "Just keep going," he said. I made my way back down, held on to the stick all the way back up, and set off down the bunny hill again, this time alone.
The day went well. I got better and better until I was doing entire, five minute runs and only falling four or so times. There was a sticky spot early on when I, having dropped a rented glove off the ski lift, traversed "fresh powder" to retrieve it. It wasn't actually a run, but the lift operator said I could do it if I wanted to, so I mustered up the courage and set off. The endeavor took about 30 minutes, almost none of it spent actually snowboarding, but I did find the sucker (with some help from the lift riders).
We spent all day on the mountain. After lunch, I reunited with Guy, Murph, Jon, Britt, and an assortment of others, and we rode a five or so minute lift up from the lodge to a higher peak, and had a real good time. I would thrill myself with relatively slow speeds, falling like a leaf hauling ass and zig-zagging from one side of the run to the other. Guy slid effortlessly up the sides of the runs, spinning around, hopping over fences and being generally impressive while Britt dropped off the edge only to zip back up from what appeared to be an abyss. I had a few spectacular falls, including a "yard sale," so named because by the time you've stopped flopping and rolling around, all of your equipment is spread out on the run, but no serious injuries at all. Guy estimated my top speed at one point to be 30 M.P.H., and I knew I was enjoying myself when I realized that I was more proud than terrified of that.
At five o'clock, back at the bus, our driver took the stack of discarded complimentary hot-chocolate cups, giving the impression he knew of a nearby trashcan, but instead stuck them under the windshield wiper of the adjacent bus, grinning at its driver before hauling our exhausted lot back to Santiago.
Back home, I found a German shepherd puppy named Jack Daniel had joined the ranks of pets at 1653 Republica de Israel. He laid between my feet Sunday night while Ricardo and I watched the Chile-Brazil game, consoling ourselves with sandwiches and coffee brought out by Gabriela.
Tuesday night was the second dance class, followed by cerveza and "completos," hot dogs Chilean style, engulfed in guacamole, tomatoes, and mayonnaise. Wednesday saw Chile hand Colombia their asses and Thursday's test results remain to be seen (it could go either way).
Thursday was also the 35th anniversary of the Pinochet coup, which prompted mourning for Allende at Palacio de la Moneda, the seat of government in Chile and the site where Allende took his last stand.
Yesterday was the class trip to Isla Negra on the coast (not actually an island), and home one of three of Pablo Neruda, Chilean Nobel Prize winning author and poet. It was more than satisfactory, but it's half-past twelve and I'm still in bed, so reports of seaside shenanigans will have to wait. I did buy a kite at a gas station en-route.
Spoiler alert: there wasn't enough wind to fly it, though.
Stay tuned.
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