If you’re thinking about traveling Patagonia, it’s worth it to know Mandy… Cause she’s everywhere. Read PART THREE here before you proceed…
TIME: I don’t know
PLACE: Chalten, Argentina
[WHATSAPP]:
Eyo, whattayou doin today?
Nada, told Mandy I’d paint her a sign.
WHO THE FUCK IS MANDY! SHOW HER TO ME!
Nope 😉
Does she really exist?
Maybe 😉
Come meet me for breakfast.
Where?
Wherever they serve coffee.
Do they serve coffee in this town?
I saw a place on the Main Street, meet me there.
There’s practically only one street in Chalten that runs for a few blocks, so it wasn’t like I needed to tell her where on the street to meet me. So I’m waiting at my hostel for her to text me that she’s en route, since the last time she completely ditched me. That’s when I get a message an hour later:
Made a wrong turn. Not sure where I am. Can you please come find me?
Wrong turn? But there’s only like two turns in town–
I DON’T KNOWWWWWW
Okay okay, where are you?
It has a white porch.
I left the hostel and searched the whole town asking randoms along the way if they knew of a place with the white porch. They all knew of the place, obviously, there were only so many places. But they all gave directions in meters and “right around there’s”.
Where is it?
About 400 meters that way.
Which way?
Over there.
Ugh.
So I find CiCi and she starts telling me about this book, “In Patagonia” and tells me to read it. She takes it out of her hippie bag and says read the first chapter. The first chapter is like thirty fucking pages.
Are you kidding?
I read it anyway cause she was hot and I wanted to fuck her kinda. She’s probably reading this. Anyway, after a bit, I just said:
“Come to this lake with me.”
“How far is it?”
“Close.”
“How close?”
“Like an hour away.”
“Okay but I don’t talk.”
“You’re talking now”
“I mean when I hike.”
Okay freak…
So we hike four hours to this lake cause I lied to her about it only bein an hour away cause I just wanted her to come cause like I said, she was hot and I wanted to fuck her kinda. Then I popped her the BIG question along the hike:
“So what kinda sign do you have to paint Mandy?”
She paused. “For her hotel.”
“She’s got a hotel?”
“Yeah that’s where I’m staying.”
“You’re staying at a fucking hotel??”
“Well, I’m actually in the attic.”
“HUH?!”
“It’s a long story.”
“I wanna meet this chick.”
“Maybe.”
Anyway we get to this lake and it’s crystal blue and clear as fuck and it’s obvious we should go skinny dipping. But we don’t go skinny dipping cause there are so many tourists and backpackers everywhere and well, it just never happened…
The most we did was get in our underwear and jump in and frolic for a bit, her ass is dope by the way, and then we dried off in the sun and tanned for a couple hours or so, eating chips and oranges. Then we hike back.
My bus to Bariloche left in like four hours and I was gettin worried that I might not make it. So we hike a bit faster. We hike so fast that we get back to town too early.
That’s when it struck me: It’s the perfect time for me to meet Mandy.
“TAKE ME TO MANDY!”
But then she said seriously:
“I’m not sure I can.”
“Why not?”
“Well, okay. I can’t remember where the hotel is though.”
“Are you serious?”
So we walked around for literally an hour looking for this FUCKING hotel… Now my bus is REALLY gonna leave soon and I haven’t met FUCKING Mandy.
“I really hafta paint this sign for Mandy.”
“You can’t even find her hotel, how you gonna paint her sign?”
“THAT’S IT!”
It was this small little house. Def not the type of hotel you might be thinkin of in your head right now. But so yeah, we get to the hotel. CiCi walks in and the housekeeper or whatever is doing dishes and laundry. She tells me to wait outside.
I glance over and see this barn lookin thing. CiCi sticks her head back outside and tells me:
“That’s where the sign is going.”
“SIGN FOR WHAT?!?!”
But she doesn’t answer me. She turns to the chick in the kitchen and asks:
“Esta bien si mi amigo entra?” [cool if my friend comes in?]
“Si claro!” [obvi]
“Okay”, she tells me. “Come in.”
So I walked in and there’s a small kitchen and a hole in the ceiling that leads up to the attic. CiCi moves a latter to the hole and says hold on. She goes up the latter and crawls through the hole into the attic and changes into some dry underwear cause we’re both in wet underwear from not goin skinny dipping. She comes back down and asks the woman doing the dishes:
“Donde esta Mandy?”
“No se. Creo que esta regresando pronto.” [not sure. think she’s comin back soon though]
“Porque el quiere conocerle.” [cause my buddy wants to meet her]
“NO CONOCES MANDY?!” [YOU DON’T FUCKING KNOW MANDY?!]
NOOOO I DON’T FUCKING KNOW MANDY!!!!
The woman prepares some yerba mate. You want mate she asks me in Spanish?
“Sure. But my bus leave in forty minutes and I still gotta buy some food at the store.” But I said it in Spanish.
I waited till it got awkward then I finally picked up my bag, super upset that I didn’t meet this fuckin mythical woman, and start to leave… When all of a sudden, a truck pulls up.
MANDY!
Oh my god. It was Mandy. I got nervous. I hadn’t been expecting it to happen like this. I was meeting a legend. This was happening. Okay. Here she comes.
The door opens and:
“HOLA CHICOS!!!!!!!”
And then a blithering tornado of Spanish that I didn’t understand at all. In a raspy voiced don’t-fuck-with-me typa tone, she looked at me and said something super fast that I didn’t comprehend and so I just smiled. Then she looked at me like I was some kinda fuckin tourist.
“What’s wrong? You don’t speak Spanish?” She said in English.
I froze. Mandy was punking me.
“No no, I do. I just…”
Then I switched to Spanish. She smiled, patted me on the back, declined the yerba mate that her friend had been offering her ever since I finished my portion, then stared me down. She told me to get some fucking food before my bus left, so I kissed CiCi on the cheek goodbye and Mandy looked at me with cold eyes and said:
“Ciao.”
Then she looked at Cici with the devil in her pupils and said:
“DONDE ESTA MI FUCKING CARTEL?!” [WHERE’S MY FUCKING SIGN?!]
I saw CiCi shaking with tremors as I exited the hotel. I tried to see what was happening through the window as I left but couldn’t. I didn’t hear about what happened till much later…
The point is, I met Mandy, she was scary as fuck, then I left for Bariloche and I didn’t see or hear from Cici until we made arrangements to meet in Mendoza, Argentina. That’s when I got the deets about Mandy’s sign and exactly what happened after I left.
But before that all happened,
I REALLY fucked up the Chorizo. (COMING SOON)