How to get your skis to Patagonia by Miles Clark

In the spring of 2009 I planned a trip to travel through South America en route to Patagonia. My plan was to see our continental neighbor while making my way to the legendary mountains of the far south to ski for the summer. Since I was to spend 2 months traveling across the continent I made the intelligent decision not to bring my skis with me, but to have them shipped down once I reached my final destination.

After snorkeling the Colombian Caribbean, swimming in the Amazon, surfing Northern Brazil, partying in Salvador for Carnival, sunbathing on Rio de Janeiro, being blown away by Iguacu Falls, wine tasting in Mendoza, and climbing in Patagonia, it was time to ski.

I'd figured that the United States Postal Service would come through for me and would charge me the least to ship my skis. It turns out they don't even ship skis to Argentina. I then turned to private shipping companies such as UPS. They wanted $750 to ship my skis. That was clearly too much to pay as I could buy new skis for that price.

Luckily I knew a guy here in Patagonia who had plans to go climbing in Yosemite and return in early July. In May I asked him if he would be kind enough to fly my skis down for me. He immediately obliged and said it wouldn't be a problem. He just needed someone to meet him at the San Francisco Airport with my skis.

So began the long process of getting my skis to Patagonia. The first step was to get my former roommate in Tahoe to mail them to my Mom in Modesto, California. Then she made the hand off to my Dad, who lives in San Francisco. From here my dad was nice enough to take the skis to the airport for me and pass them to my buddy who was flying down.

But at the last second my friend, who I really didn't know that well, got scared. A week before his flight to fly he emailed me and told me that he was freaked out that I'd have drugs packed in with the skis. I assured him that this wouldn't be an issue and that the skis would be entirely drug-free. When he baulked again I told him that the skis would just be taped together without a box giving the skis transparency against any drug smuggling conspiracies that may be out there.

Reluctantly he agreed. So my father ended up meeting him in the airport and they made a smooth exchange. As my friend was checking in turned out the airline sought a $200 baggage fee for the skis. We'd planned on their being a charge, but we had estimated $50 or less. Luckily my dad and friend had exchange cell numbers and my dad was called back to the scene. Dad put up the $200 for me and finally the skis were on their way.

Not long before this flight my friend also informed me that even though he was coming to Patagonia, Buenos Aires was as far as he was willing to tote the skis. I offered him $100 to bring them the whole way but he explained that it would just be too much hassle. Thus, I was to meet him in the Buenos Aires international airport. Ouch. Buenos Aires is a 22 hour bus ride from where I am in Patagonia. But what could I do. I needed those skis and I wasn't gonna pay $750 to have them shipped.

I hesitantly payed $110 for my round trip ticket and climbed onto the bus. After 22 hours of traveling and maybe 3 of sleep I was in downtown Buenos Aires surrounded by 11 million people at 11am. I decided to walk all over the city and see the sights. It's an incredible place with an excess of monuments, an interesting photo gallery of male nudes, and a great Star Wars exhibit at the national museum. 9 hours of walking around left me completely exhausted. Time to settle in for the night. So I grabbed a 60 cent, 1.5 hour, 20 mile bus ride to get from the city to the international airport.

I arrived at the airport at 11pm. I found where I'd be meeting my buddy in the morning and snuggled up on the nearest wire mesh bench. Needless to say not much sleep was had. At 9am my friend, and more importantly my skis, had finally arrived! It felt pretty damn good to have them in my grasp.

Now all I needed to do was get them home and ski them. Nothing but a 60 cent, 1.5 hour, 20 mile bus ride followed by a quick 22 hour bus ride between me and skiing in the southern hemisphere for the first time.

By the time I got home the next day at 11am I was a red eyed zombie. But I had my skis. I slept like a log that night with my skis next to my bed.

The following morning I took my well traveled skis to the hill, clicked in, took my first run under the southern sky and completely forgot about the whole ordeal. Skiing when you should be having a bbq in the summer sun felt good. And having my own skis to do it with felt even better.

// posted by Milo @ 5:19 PM 1 comments