Me is one happy camper. Contented. Aching. Hungover. Smiling. Stuffed. Christ, so very properly full of Argentinian steak that I cant quite get close enough to the keyboard to type this essay. I mean, I can actually rest my elbows on the distended stomach which stretches out before me like the bonnet of one of those ridiculous American cars.

Anyway, enough of food. (Yeah, I know I´ve drivelled on about it prior to this too, but it´s too good to not mention. Did I tell you about the red wine? Alright, thought so.) In the brilliant San Martin de los Andes still, Tuesday night, leaving for Chile tomorrow early doors on another monster bus odyssey. Almost fancy staying though - much like Wanaka 2 years ago, San Martin feels like the sort of town where you could wake up one day and realise you´ve been there for 5 years. People are dead friendly and welcoming and always remember your name, even if you haven´t got a scooby what theirs is and have about as much language capability as a mute hamster with laryngitis. You know your way around within about a half hour. Everyone says hi to each other all the time, and wants to find out more. And there´s mountains and a beautiful lake, which does that whole shimmery shiny thing in the late afternoon sun. It´s got a real frontier vibe to it - dramatic landscape, knackered old pick-ups driving, read spluttering, along roads conspicuously lacking any kind of traffic lights or road signs in general. Undeveloped, and all the better for it.

It´s been awesome to meet up with the Alliance boys, Ben and Si, and Ben´s mate Robbie from Aberdeen; tis strange seeing dudes from Tignes halfway round the planet. On meeting up, sunk a couple of Lacars (local beer, brewed in San Martin by some guy who also teaches riding up in Chapelco... got a hard life, hasn´t he?), and off we trotted to a party down the road. As I mentioned before, well nice people, the Patagonians here. Some smiley girl was doing the rounds, cake on a tray (you know the format, the sort of cake you think you can osmose through your cheek skin by unknowingly leaving it there as well as your mouth) offering it up. Beers were there for everyone, as was the ubiquitously massive BBQ, and all are curious and open to new faces and hearing new stories. Even though I´d only been there 5 minutes and only knew the UK dudes, was made to feel really welcome.

Sunday morning, after a relatively early one due to the 15 hour coach epic, it was time for a slide up in Chapelco. What a hill - wicked terrain! Trees everywhere, drops, jibby logs and sunshine, and a real fun crew to shred with - that´ll do methinks. 2 days of great riding with the boys. There´s a super good standard down here, and a tangible love for the mountains and snowboarding in everyone, so you ride hard from 10 til 5. With the obvious mahusive steak-break in the middle, but I won´t go into the whole food thing again. At this juncture in the story of the awesome , I´d like to draw your attention to the fact that even pro snowboarders fall off logs, so when the photos go up, you can still ooh and aah at my (in)ability.

So after a couple of days of shredding, it was a unanimous decision to get on it; big barbie, loads of beers and a lethal drinking game involving the picking of a card and the seemingly random task of downing or pouring beer, Fernet Branca (like Marque de Savoie - paint stripper basically) or a combo of both. Alex and Nacho, 2 locals, were utterly annihilated after about 10 minutes, due to their uncanny skill of consistently picking the wrong card over and over again. This effectively results in having to down a truck load of rocket fuel in about 8.3 nanoseconds - not pretty.

So all good in the hood. This part of the world really is beautiful, it{s been a great craic in San Martin and further up, and it does feel like the sort of town that I was born to live in, but it´s time to scoot and check out the neighbour. Argentina has been fantastic, the last 2 weeks has flown by. Met some dead cool people, met back up with some good friends, rode some great mountains, and seen the real deal from the windows of numerous buses. Loads of photies for you to gape at - will whack ém on asap. Tonsa love to you and yours perpetual reader, see you over the border, that´s an order. Over n out x