Goodbye Argentina

One of the best thing in backpack travelling is that you can change your plans anytime and you´re only schedule is the one you make by your own. What does this mean to us? That our next step is to take a bus to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil instead of going to northern Argentina!

We are now in Iguazu, watching one of the biggest waterfalls in the world. Or as it is supposed to be. We got a bit disappointed yesterday, since the rainmakers in Brazil have been lazy and there´s not a lot of water. Guide told that normally about 1600 cubic meters per second roll through the falls, now only 300. It means that just the biggest falls are still amazing to watch, smaller ones are quite dry.
Otherwise Iguazu falls are great. This far one of the greatest falls I´ve seen, has been Halistenkoski in Turku, Finland, so this makes an impression. We also made a Grand Adventure thing yesterday. A jeep and boat ride, which was supposed to take us just next to falls watch the power of water even closer. But because of lack of water in river, we couldn´t go that close. Made us wonder if we could swim a bit closer but we decided not to be Finnish this time.

Four days in Buenos Aires passed quickly. We are starting to be at least on national level when it comes to walking distances. Our hostel was in nice barrio of Old Palermo and we basicly just wondered around from nice restaurants and cafés to little inving boutiques the area is full of. To be a bit more touristic, we took a tango dinner one night and even got to floor with local professionals to show our moves. Which, as it´s easy to guess, were at least as good as theirs.

I managed also to get rid of 30 kg of "stuff", when I send every unnecessary thing to Finland. It cost 150 euros by boat. Luckily I had sold my skis, because they only accept their own regular packages and they don´t have the ski-model. I guess that if I had tried to sell my skis in international post office, the officers had got even more bargain price. I also had a brand new guitar, bought to my dad, which they didn´t accept. We started to realize that we might have to carry the guitar all 7 weeks to Peru. But suddenly, just before the bus to Iguazu left, our luck changed and we found a company from nearly closed busterminal which delivers stuff from BA to Lima, Peru. At least this is what I now hope or otherwise this guy has a nice new guitar now.

Then we said goodbye to luck and jumped quickly to bus. The ride to Iguazu was supposed to take only 18 hours. After sitting four hours on a side of a road in middle of nowhere and changing busses times, the trip took 26 hours. Nice. You could think that if a bus doesn´t work, they would send a working bus instead. They didn´t. They sent another bus which didn´t work so the mecanic guys had two buses to fix.It was a bit over 30 degrees and the air condition was not working, so the time was not exactly flying.

Well, after all, tomorrow we are taking a bus to Rio. Idea is to spend something like a week around there and then get to Bolivia. How, no idea. Supposedly there are buses going to bolivian border and so on. That´s other great thing beside the change of plans!

Buenos Aires, part IV

Las Lenas and skiing is now in past and I'm in sunny Buenos Aires. Amazing, it's like summer here even if it's supposed to be middle of the winter. This is my fourth time here and I have to say that I really like this city more than Santiago.

Last few days in Las Lenas were good. Rental skis worked and we hiked a lot which was good since I'd been doing nothing for couple of weeks. We also got some nice runs even though the warm sun started the melting process again. I sold my skis, unfortunately for a bargain price. I only had two days to do it, so I decided to ask only 100 euros since they were in quite bad shape and with loads of binding holes in them. Finally I ended up with everybody coming to me asking about them and I guess that I could have asked the same price I paid for them year ago. Especially all the skipatrols were really eager to buy them and I almost caused a fight between two of them. However, now I don't have to send them to Finland which is also the case with my avalanche equipment, these days owned by a Australian snowboarder. He promised to pay double if they save his life.

Now it's only few hours until Johanna is here. Half a year has passed amazingly fast but I guess that's just something which always happen when yoú're having good time in interesting places. Even in Malargue.

How bad can the luck get?

I thought I was pissed off waiting the weather get better.
I was wrong. It started now when the weather got sunny and my bindings ripped off from the ski the 4th time. So what now? Pair of K2 Seth Pistols in sale, in case you are heading to Las Lenas. That's the only reasonable thing to do since the skis don't cope very well with my telebindings. It's still possible to attach normal slalom bindings to them, so my mission is to find a person who likes fat, sexy, fearless, reeeally fast and little bit used....skis. There's no sense sending them back to Finland any more.

I had heard that the ski rental here has a really wide variety of skis. From 90's.
So I headed there to investigate it and after fifteen minutes of begging and asking some better skis, the guy climbed to attic and soon came down with pair of brand new K2's, almost the same as mine. Of course they're not telemark but if they'll make me smile again tomorrow, they're good enough.

If you don't count the skis, sun is shining. Beautiful weather and good snow. During the two weeks waiting here, I started to do something I'd never believed I'd do.
Sudoku.
Explinations are that I didn't have anything to do and just hanging around is terribly expensive also a bit boring if you do it two weeks. I wouldn't say I'm addicted but I might change my major to accounting from marketing. Numbers just take you away with them. Yesterday I started a treatment to get rid of Sudoku and started playing chess with Loki, my Australian new roommate. Kiki left to Santiago because we wanted sun and powder. It was obvious that if she had stayed, it had been raining old ladies today. So thanks Kiki and hope you find some powder from Chile.

Back to business

After two days in San Rafael, now back in Las Leñas.
Finally it looks good, lot of snow, no wind, rain or fog. Seems like it could be some nice skiing coming the next days. Only problem is that the top lift has it´s wire off from the poles after the storms. So it could be that it won´t be possible to get where the real fun starts. Just have to cross the fingers and see what´s happening.

San Rafael was ok town. We found a nice bar where we visited both nights. Yesterday it had nice live jazz going on when we were teaching the bartender to make a long island ice tea. The result was glass full of different spirits and coke bottle next to it. I also celebrated the thing that it was exactly one week away when Johanna is coming here and got my hair cut. After a one year and couple of rastas, that wasn´t so easy. But now I got this nice office hair (just till shoulders) which means that it´s possible to be recognized at the airport next week.

We also met a nice Australian guy who came with us to here. He´s been skiing couple of seasons in Kashmir, India which sounded like "the real extreme skiing". I mean that of course we also here some bombing here but they are just for avalanches and not caused by pakistanes. Might be a trip worth of thinking, a bit different skiing holiday.

And the snow came

I got some serious demands to write also in English so here I go.

Right now I´m in Las Leñas, Argentina, doing the same than the previous week: waiting. First, it didn´t snow and the skiing was bad. Then on last Thursday it started to snow and it hasn´t really stopped. Also the wind is amazing, I could hardly sleep last night because of it. No, I wasn´t sleeping outside but it´s just so noisy when wind blows. What this storm means, is that we´re waiting again.

Luckily we don´t have any skipass for a longer period so our only worry is to think what to do during the days. It´s not easy here, I can tell. First we stayed some 70 kilometers from here, in Malargue, which is a really slowgoing village. We got bored spending time there and tired coming here when it started to snow. The trip to here took more than 2 hours per direction. So yesterday we moved to a even smaller village called Los Molles, which is 20 km from here. I don´t know if you can even call it a village because there are not many houses. It means there´s even less to do. We are staying in a little refugio and which is a really nice hostel-style place. Weather forecast now shows that there would be 1,2 meters more snow on the top during the next couple of days. And by now, there must be already 1,5 meters new snow. So when the day comes and the storm ends, it´ll probably be amazing with this snow. At least after a week waiting that is what I hope. I still have a bit over week to stay here so hopefully that will happen before my leaving. If not, I guess I have to ask Johanna to bring also skis and then the nature of our trip will change a bit.

Just minutes ago I received a message from my roommate Markus that he´s sending the rest of my stuff to Buenos Aires. That´s how I don´t have to go to Santiago anymore and I can concentrate on storm-ending meditation. Thanks Markus, I owe you one sending of backpack and other stuff to 1500 km away. So if you have that kind of needs, let me know.

Lunta odotellessa

Lumen metsastaminen on nyt alkanut kunnolla. Olemme Kikin kanssa Malarguen pikkukaupungissa Las Leñasin alapuolella. Paatimme asua taalla vaikka matkaa itse keskukseen on 80 kilometria, koska majoitus on niin paljon halvempaa ja kalliin hissilipun saa puoleen hintaan. Lisaksi lunta on talla hetkella niin vahan, ettei olisi jarkea maksaa majoituksesta kallista hintaa ja katsoa miten aurinko sulattaa loput lumet. Saaennusteen mukaan lunta on kuitenkin luvassa perjantaista eteenpain, joten nyt vain odotellaan. Vaikka taalla on kauden alku, muistuttaa hiihtotouhu Euroopan kesahiihtoa lampotilojen ja auringon sulattaman lumen vuoksi.

Yritin siirtaa tenttejani hieman aikaisemmalle ajankohdalle, kun viralliset tenttipaivamaarat osuivat sille ajalle kun pitaisi jo olla Buenos Airesissa. Vaihto-opiskelijoiden erikoiskohtelulinja kuitenkin jatkui koulussamme ja opettaja ilmoitti ettei minun tarvitse osallistua tentteihin ollenkaan. Han lupasi etta arvosanat annetaan aikaisempien valitenttien, esitysten ja ryhmatoiden perusteella. Todella hieno juttu, kaikki koulujutut ovat nyt siis paketissa ja voi keskittya lumisadetansseihin ja tulevan matkustelun suunnitteluun. Olisi tietysti ollut taydelllista jos olisin saanut tietaa taman viela Santiagossa ollessani, silla nyt puolet tavaroistani on siella. Tuntuu hieman typeralta matkustaa taas taalta Argentiinan puolelta sinne hakemaan loppuja tavaroita ja tulla taas heti takaisin toiselle puolelle manteretta. Nyt siis kuumeinen miettiminen paalla, josko saisin jotenkin tavarani sielta tanne.