Sleeping Around (3 page)

I looked Miguel up and down to try and figure out where he kept his gun. He looked normal enough. Ah, but that's why he was the perfect choice to lure innocent and naïve couch surfers onto his ‘couch'.

‘So Miguel,' I stammered, ‘. . . are you a good skier?'

‘I'm not Miguel,' he said, staring at the road ahead.

Oh dear.

I was right. I was being kidnapped.

‘We pick up Miguel on way,' the man who wasn't Miguel said cheerfully—almost
too
cheerfully.

I see. In case I tried to put up a fight, there would be two of them to hold me down. Maybe I could jump out of the moving car. There was hardly any traffic, however, and we were moving quite quickly. Still, a few grazes and a broken arm or two would be a darn sight better than getting hung up by my testicles.

When I'd told friends that I was going to be staying with complete strangers in cities I'd never been to before, at least half of them had said, ‘But they might be axe murderers!' (Not just plain old murderers, mind you, always axe murderers.) One friend had been right, though. He'd predicted that I'd be kidnapped by freedom fighters.

Just as I was contemplating jumping out of the car, we pulled up in front of a neat line of apartment blocks and a bald-headed man wearing a bright red fleece skipped out and jumped into the back seat.

‘Hola Brian, welcome to Chile!' the real Miguel said, with a warm handshake and a beaming smile. After ten minutes in Miguel's company, I was pretty sure he wasn't a freedom fighter (although his surly friend Roberto with the evil grin could still have possibly been an axe murderer). Miguel may have been a stranger, but he seemed truly welcoming and genuine.

I was certainly in for a welcoming surprise when I got to the lodge. I wasn't sleeping on a couch. I had a bed. And not just one bed, I had 28 beds to choose from. It was the end of the ski season and the lodge was empty. Miguel's best friend and fellow guide Jorge was the manager of the lodge and Miguel, who cooked at the lodge during peak ski season, was coming back to help clean up the place.

‘I almost didn't make it up to the mountains this winter,' Miguel said.

‘Why is that?' I asked.

‘I almost got eaten by a puma.'

Miguel went on to tell me that at the end of the summer, the guides help lead more than one hundred horses across the breadth of the country to winter pastures, and each night someone has to guard the horses from pumas who like to ‘eat their ears'.

‘A puma tried to get into my tent,' Miguel explained casually.

I'd only just met Miguel, so I didn't think it was appropriate to tell him that maybe it was because his extraordinarily large ears did look rather tasty.

Besides having to keep large felines out of his sleeping bag, Miguel certainly had a fun-packed working life. He spent six months of the year in Patagonia leading and cooking for small groups of cashed-up Americans on twelve-day horse treks. The treks were very la-di-da indeed, with the staff often outnumbering the guests. Six packhorses were needed to carry tents, food and spare chaps. Miguel then worked for three months cooking at the ski lodge. He spent the rest of the time in Valparaíso where he liked ‘sleeping late from time to time'.

‘Would you like to go skiing?' Miguel asked.

‘Yeah, that'd be great!' I said with a huge grin.

‘We can hire some skis here,' Miguel said as we pulled into the car park of a McDonalds. The ski-hire shop was in a tiny shack next to the drive-thru.

Not long after picking up my skis, we were leaving the suburbs and climbing steadily up the edge of a steep gorge past stone and wooden houses balanced precariously on stilts. As we drove higher into the Andes, the trees disappeared and we started to cross the archetypal South American prairie—albeit on a 45-degree angle. Ahead and above us the washed-out brown mountains were covered with patches of orange and yellow desert flowers and dotted with 2-metre high cacti. To make the prairie picture complete, as we rounded a bend, a cowboy on horseback (or a
huaso
as Miguel corrected me) trotted across the road.

I couldn't see much of the village we were staying in. Farellones was shrouded in a swirling fog, while horizontal sleet splattered against the windscreen. It didn't look at all promising. Particularly when the ski run, which dropped down into the backdoor of the village, didn't have a dollop of snow on it. Maybe I should have hired grass skis. In fact the only snow around was the small piles of grey sludge collected at the base of the village buildings and the wet excuse for snow dribbling down the car windows.

‘Where do you, um . . . ski?' I asked.

Miguel pointed up into the clouds. ‘Up there!' he said reassuringly.

Up there somewhere were apparently three ski resorts: La Parva, El Colorado and Valle Nevada. Farellones was
only
2500 metres high (which is still higher than any mountain in Australia), while the main skiing area was up around the 3700-metre mark.

‘There are over one hundred kilometres of ski runs and more than fifty ski lifts,' Miguel added proudly.

The village was mostly made up of small but attractive stone and wood holiday homes and lodges. With no people or cars on the dirt roads, though, the whole place looked deserted and a bit eerie in the smoky clouds. But I did shriek with delight when we pulled up in front of Refugio Alemán. We didn't quite have the lodge to ourselves: In the front garden was a small corral housing three very dopey-looking llamas.

The inside of the lodge was very rustic—which is a polite way of saying a little bit the worse for wear. We found Jorge sprawled out on the couch in front of a blazing fire watching a TV soap on a small worse-for-wear television. The main communal area was a long space with a cramped lounge section, a scattering of pine dining tables and, at the far end of the room, a bar and pool table.

‘You like?' Miguel said with a wink, motioning towards the bar.

Hanging across the top of the bar was a large Australian flag. Australians are like dogs. Wherever venturesome and patriotic Aussies roam on this planet, they have to mark their newly conquered territory.

The lodge may have had 28 beds, but they were all jammed into tiny rooms. Miguel gave me the smallest room with one bunk bed in it because ‘it will be much warmer for you'. The room was so small that there wasn't enough space on the floor to put my backpack. I must have looked a little disappointed because Miguel said, ‘Yes, but you have four bathrooms to choose from'.

Jorge dragged out a cardboard box full of odd bits of skiing apparel that guests had left behind. I grabbed a pair of hot pink women's gloves and a pair of ski pants that were too small around the waist (yes, okay, or my waist was too large). There were no hats in the box, so Jorge shrugged, then tugged the rainbow-coloured knitted hat off his own head and plonked it on mine. Miguel and Jorge weren't joining me for a ski. They mumbled something about ‘cleaning the lodge', but Jorge looked to me as if he was set for some serious TV watching.

The modern ski village of El Colorado—and I'm talking about that French housing-commission-flats-in-the-snow style of modern—was a 15-minute drive up a steep narrow road with 180-degree switchbacks. As we reached the top of one long section I looked back; a car at the bottom of the switchback looked as tiny as cars do when you look at them out of an aeroplane window. The snow had stopped falling by the time we reached the ticket office, but the mountains were still under the clouds' tender embrace. At least I would be warm. I was wearing almost the entire contents of my backpack.

I wasn't quite expecting donkey-drawn rope lifts, but I was pleasantly surprised to jump on a brand-new detachable high-speed triple chairlift. The greatest surprise, however, came near the top of the lift. Well, there were two actually: First of all there was a good cover of snow on the runs under the chair and then, just when I was thinking that I could almost see patches of blue sky through the clouds, we (the chairlift and I) suddenly burst out into bright sunshine across an enormous blue sky.

I stood at the top of the lift for some time. One of my greatest joys when travelling is that on every trip there is something new to see that leaves me totally awed. The mountains that encircled me were dark brutal hulks iced with wisps of cloud wreathed like suspended smoke across their distant summits. I almost crashed on my first few runs because I couldn't keep my eyes off the growing army of majestic peaks that were revealed as higher clouds drifted in and out. At least there wasn't much chance of crashing into anyone. I just about had the mountain to myself.

I had an unforgettable day. I spent the morning on my own personal ski lift, then skiing back down on soft spring snow. I lunched in the sun on a huge terrace with only four other diners, then spent the afternoon weaving through steep fields past gargantuan boulders. Towards the end of the day the extraordinary views got even better as the clouds slid down the mountains to reveal an overpowering vista of brown rocky valleys and still more jagged peaks.

When Miguel came to pick me up, we adjourned for a drink at the El Alambique pub in the main base building. Over large mugs of Crystal beer I found out more about Miguel's life. Miguel and Jorge had been working for Blue Green Adventures in Torres del Paine National Park in Patagonia for ten years. It seems Miguel had spent most of his life on the go. Before being a guide he was a taxi driver in Valparaíso and before that he was in the Chilean navy. ‘The navy was the only way to see the world,' Miguel said. ‘No Chileans were allowed to leave the country when Pinochet was in charge, but with the navy I got to go to Argentina, Peru and Uruguay.'

Miguel has an ex-wife and two teenage children (I didn't ask when he actually found the time to conceive) who still live in Valparaíso. I imagined he caught up with his kids when he wasn't sleeping late from time to time.

When I went to the bar to get us another beer, I noticed a couple of computers set up for internet use. I couldn't help myself. I had to have a quick surf to see if I had a couch to surf for the rest of my stay in Chile.

Triple Bingo. I had three offers, including one from a fellow called José who said: ‘I would like to take you out drinking and dancing.' I now faced a dilemma that was the opposite of not having a couch: too many couches and a bloke asking for a hot date. I emailed them all back accepting all three offers. After my time in the mountains, I had three nights left in Chile—which would now be three one-night stands. I would go out drinking and dancing with 35-year-old engineer José, then I'd head out to the suburbs to stay a night with 28-year-old graphic designer Juan and finally catch a bus to Valparaíso to stay with 24-year-old journalist Mariano.

Miguel offered to buy another round, but I declined. Not that I didn't want another beer, it was just that I didn't fancy being in the same car as Miguel with three large beers in him as he drove down a narrow, steep, icy road in the dark.

On the way out we picked up a tall, gorgeous girl called Claudia. I wasn't the only bunk-bed surfer staying at Refugio Alemán. Miguel and Jorge's friend Claudia, who had been filling in at the tourist information counter at El Colorado, was crashing in one of the dorm rooms. Claudia was a ski instructor, but when her season had ended two weeks earlier so had her tenure in the ski instructor's apartments.

‘I have a ski bum,' Claudia said to me in the car.

I swivelled around and inspected her bottom.

Just as I was about to comment that I wasn't sure what a ski bum actually looked like, but that she had a nice one nevertheless, it clicked . . .

‘Ah, you
are
a ski bum!'

‘Yes. For the past four years I have been moving from South to North America working and skiing.'

I imagine many of Claudia's ski-school students fall hopelessly in love with her. Claudia was in her late twenties with long black hair, smooth sun-kissed skin, huge brown eyes and, I might add, a very nice ski bum.

Back at the lodge Jorge was slouched in exactly the same place we left him, still watching TV. The place didn't look any cleaner to me. I had a very long shower then grabbed a beer from the bar. Miguel and Jorge were busy watching Chilean
Big Brother
on the box, so I stood at the large window behind the bar in the dark and watched the sun creep down through the clouds into the valley. The colour soon drained from the sky and then, in a matter of minutes, went from yellow to orange to deep red to purple while the surrounding mountains showed off every shade of blue.

‘What are you thinking about?'

I jumped.

‘I'm sorry.' It was Claudia.

‘I was thinking how lucky I am to be here,' I said, ‘and trying to decide if this is the most amazing sunset I've ever seen.'

Claudia moved closer to me. ‘Do you believe in God?'

‘Um . . . no,' I said awkwardly. Claudia suddenly looked sad. ‘Well, sort of, but not really . . . um, sometimes,' I back-pedalled rather pathetically.

‘God has done something,' Claudia said lowering her voice.

‘Oh, really,' I asked uneasily.

Claudia leant in closer and whispered, ‘I'm pregnant.'

Although I was pretty sure that God wasn't the father, I hesitated for a second. ‘Um . . . congratulations.'

‘I don't think it's congratulations,' Claudia said warily. ‘Oh, I'm not sure.'

Claudia then went on to tell me that she had only found out five days before and that the father was a coach on the Canadian ski team who had since gone back to Canada after spending three months in El Colorado.

‘I don't know what to do,' Claudia sniffed.

‘Does the father know?'

‘I rang him this afternoon and he was very happy and told me that he loves me and that I should come to Canada, but . . . I don't know if he is the one. I'm twenty-nine, but I don't think I'm ready for a kid and I don't know if I want to be with Bob forever.'