Turbio Trip day 1

(en español)

Today was the first day of our trip to Río Turbio, a small mining town in Argentina, about 30 Kms northeast from Puerto Natales and 17 Kms from the Chile-Argentina border. Robinson, Jan, Julia, Maribel, Courtenay and I are spending the long weekend skiing and enjoying the incredibly convenient exchange rate there. (Lost? check out this map. Río Turbio = El Turbio).

Things didn't start so well, as our bus to Puerto Natales was supposed to leave at 13:00, but due to bad weather conditions, we left with a 2 hour delay. Due to this, we lost our connection to Turbio so we had to find another way to get there. We spent two hours waiting at the bus terminal until Maribel got us a minivan to the chilean border and two taxis would take us from there to Turbio. The reason for this is that chilean rentals are not allowed with tourists into Argentina unless they come back with same people.

So we arrived in Turbio at about 22:00, but since we changed timezones, it was 23:00 local time. Quite late.
We had reservations for a cabin for 6 run by a very nice guy called Oscar, and given the price it exceeded our expectations by far. It's big and cozy, with room enough for at least 10 people (although only beds for 6).
We are now settled in and off we go for some direly needed dinner.

Sandra's Birthday

(en español)

Yesterday's was our friend Sandra's [undisclosed]th birthday, so Court, Fifi and I went to her house to celebrate with her. She was already accompanied by her friend colleague Ángela María, also from Colombia, also very beautiful ;)
We were inmersed in a game of Kings with the unusual twist of playing with "challenges", which varied from dirty dancing to kissing and making love proposals (!). As the night progressed, we were joined by several other friends, namely Ian, Maribel, Robinson and this strange fellow Rodrigou (who during the day is better known as "Christian").

A little while before sunrise the party was coming to an end as the hostess was quite exhausted, but some of us were still with some energy to keep on going. We continued with the afterhours at Alexis' place but that was just overdoing it. I went home at around 10:30 and the guys went to have breakfast at Lider...

Courtenay's Surprise B-Day Party (last night)

(en español)

Well... not so surprise :) She knew something was going on, though we managed to surprise her with the decorations (I think).
Also, we had it on Saturday night 'cause her actual birthday lands on a working day, and nobody wants to (or will be able to) get up early the next day, right? ;)

The girls in the kitchen.

Night at Mr. Browns & Club Habana

(en español)

Last night (Friday) we went for a wine and sushi degustation at Mr. Browns Pub.

It was quite nice, except for the fact that I don't like wine, nor sushi :P
Later on and for some reason yet unknown to me (or forgotten) we wanted to go sing Karaoke, so we ended up at his place called "Habana", which someone had heard about having Karaoke nights.
It did, but we got there about 4 hours late, so tough luck. We stayed though, and enjoyed a night of flashes, drinks and old music.

Last night's gang: Robinson, Julia, José, Maribel, Danny, Natalia, Mª Graciela, Jan, Courtenay.

Why? What? When? Who? Where? HOW?

(en español)

So... what's my real inspiration to do this?
Well, some of it is a discipline exercise, to see if I can keep on writing constantly. Also, there's the fun of it and the future fun. Imagine reading something like this in 5, 10 or 20 years!
I'm pretty sure I'll laugh and hide my face in embarrasment at lots of entries, LOL.

What is this? Well, an annotated record of happenings within my social circle of closest friends. Or simply said: a diary :P

Where is Punta Arenas? Heck! Where is CHILE?
Chile is a long, looong country right next to Argentina, in the southern cone of America.
Chile is divided in 13 regions, Magallanes being the southernmost one and also the largest in extension. Some of its famous landmarks include "Torres del Paine" National Park, "Tierra del Fuego" Island (half of it at least, the other half belongs to Argentina), Cape Horn and the Strait of Magellan. It is part of the geographical region known as Patagonia, shared by Chilean and Argentinian territories.
Punta Arenas is the capital city of Magallanes, with around 125.000 inhabitants. It is located in the western shores of the strait of Magellan, in the middle
Some links:
Map of Magallanes in the Chilean Patagonia, Touristic info, Map of Magallanes in Chile, Detailed map, Info on Chile


Moving on...

Who compose this chronicles? Mmm, let's see... a little background:
there's me of course. Danny. I'm currently 28, Computer engineer (still missing my freaking thesis though), very nice, charming, blablabla :)
Then there's Robinson and Maribel. They are boyfriend and girlfriend. They are former classmates of mine from university and very good friends also; I met them in 2001. They are currently extending their engineering studies and one of their current classmates, Christian, a Navy officer, is also in our group of friends thanks to them. They work at Methanex's Cape Horn plant near Punta Arenas, place where they met Alexis, another Comp. Engineer and brought him into the group. Also there, at the beggining of the year, Maribel met this cool student from Canada, Courtenay, who is working on a 6 month internship at the plant.
Ian and María Graciela are friends from childhood of Robinson and Maribel; I met Ian a couple of years ago through another group of friends, and Mª Graciela just this Summer. Very nice people, friends worth keeping as they say.
Jan and Julia are two german students (also friends from before) working in a 2 month internship at the Instituto de la Patagonia (belongs to Universidad de Magallanes) here in Punta Arenas. They are staying at Mª Graciela's house and will be leaving at the beggining of July.
Bessié is and old friend of Ian and Robinson, boyfriend to Connie, and work coleague of Sandra. She is a language therapist from Colombia currently living and working here for over a year.

Where am I currently at? I'm good friends with the guys, and I have a *oh surprise* crush on Courtenay. But that is going nowhere since we agreed to stay friends (good friends btw) and she's leaving in a couple months. I guess in the end it's better this way considering she has a completely different life back home, and did I mention the fact that she doesn't see me as more than a friend? Bummer. She has a special someone waiting for her... lucky bastard :)
Ok, enough wallowing in self-pity, I gotta put some order to the mess in my life before thinking about women.

And so it begins...

(en español)

Well, after waking up this morning with a sore neck, a sore back and a very cranky mood I took a shower, skipped my daily excercises and read my email.
Fantastic news! After several days of trying to arrange a Paddle match with my friends finally we can play today (Paddle Tennis is like tennis but with walls, and a beach-like racket, or paddle).

Then I grabbed some I-net magazine (yes, made of paper... REAL paper) and saw an article about blogs, so I decided to make my own.
Thus, we are HERE.

Welcome
Bienvenido

• Why write in english even if my native language is spanish? duh! Isn't it obvious?

Mmmm, I only know spanish and english (and trying to learn japanese) and I think about 80% of the people on the internet understands english, if not more (and it's much simpler to write in english :P hehehe)