Another monstrous hangover on Saturday meant that Sunday was a total write-off. Again it starred crisps, with a supporting cast of fizzy water, orange juice and ham. Yeah, Friday night was ace. German Christine and me ventured into the northern suburb of Bella Vista, only intending to have a couple of bevvies before midnight then to chip back to the hostel. 6am rolls around, and due to memory loss I`m told there was lots of booty shaking and some ill-advised fenc...

The phrase "pulling a Melbourne" was coined by me ma when, the day after a ferocious birthday drinking session in Melbourne 2 years ago, Abs, me and mumsy couldn`t move from our respective beds. It was easily the worst hangover in human history. George Best and Oliver Reed would have been proud. I`m in that pit of despair right now, where you can`t focus on anything and need to eat twice your own bodyweight in crisps to have any chance of feeling normal...

What a shred. Got up well early this morning and headed up to Valle Nevado, at 3025m, an hour and a half away from the city centre. I`d heard a mixed bag of reviews from various people and websites etc, so I didn`t really hold much hope for the hill. The runs themselves are pretty straight-forward, and there`s not that much in terms of cliffs or cat tracks to boost off. However, all was right with the world once I`d ridden all the runs (there`s only 9 lifts so al...

Big cities are always pretty grubby - oversized populations sardined in between too many vehicles and multi-storeyed blocks of concrete. Santiago is no exception; busy, frenetic, bustling, but it stands out big time in my humble experience due to the ever-present layer of pollution which sits on top of everything. I´ll get to that later. It took 2 hours to flag down a minibus yesterday outside Portillo. Buses run frequently up to the resort, but due to the fact...

Resort shred number 5 - sorted. Now in Portillo on Monday 15th, just had 2 days wicked riding and about to leave for Santiago. Survived Friday night in the mentalist institute hotel in Las Trancas, but only just. After the oddballs had served me dinner, as I mentioned last time made a sharp exit and went upstairs, falling asleep pretty much straight away. About half 3 in the morning, I woke with a start to a. a chainsaw whirring b. the maniacal giggles and shou...