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Previous2005-07-26 - Santiago, Chile - South American Snow
We made it to an economic hotel in Santiago and then went to this crazy restaurant that seemed to be an old hotel that was converted into a restaurant without a whole lot of remodeling. I guess we went in the wrong door because it wasn’t until after we had wandered through a few rooms in the place, upstairs and by what looked like a kitchen that I finally asked if there were tables. We were directed down a different set of stairs where we finally found the main dining area. We ate some good seafood, drank wine and beer and then went back to the hotel to rest before having to get up to catch a shuttle to the slopes in the morning.
The shuttle picked us up early in the morning but by the time we picked up a few others around Santiago, rented equipment and met up with the rest of the group, we had lost nearly two hours and still had to make it up the mountain. The worst part was that after renting equipment, Tom and I walked out of the shop and could not find our van. The guys in the shop said it was by the McDonalds in the parking lot next door but all we found was a different van. So we went back to the shop and asked again and finally were told that the other van was part of our group and that the van we were in originally had already taken off. I was worried about all our bags since all our stuff was in the van and they said that they had moved it to the other van. I was pissed off that they did all that without even bothering to tell Tom or I what the f was going on so I did my best to express myself with my limited vocabulary of Spanish expletives.
Anyway, we made it up the mountain and along the way I noticed that everything was green and there was no sign of snow until we were near the very top. It wasn’t cold at all and the conditions, despite being the middle of winter, were much like spring conditions. There were no trees on the mountain – just wide open space – and the snow softened up after noon and we found some pretty good runs.
We had thrown all our stuff into a locker in the morning and we had no place to stay for the night so we eventually found a so-called refuge for some university that offered basic accommodations – just bunk beds and shared baths – but also included breakfast and dinner. The view from the back deck was spectacular at sunset. It looked out toward Santiago to the left and up the mountain to the right but with all the pollution rising up from Santiago, we had a great sunset just about every day.
-Jason
