Blogs from Valle Nevado, Santiago Region, Chile, South America

A great person once said "Not all vaccines are created equally"...or at least I think they said that, I'm not sure, but someone probably said it sometime somewhere. As we've moved through this pandemic, it's certainly become clear that not everyone agrees with the sentiment that the best vaccine is the one that is provided to your first, despite the quotes from medical professionals. Case in point is the country in which I am currently residing...that's right, you guessed it, Chile. We've been somewhat fortunate as Chile has consistently ranked as one of the top 10 in vaccines given since they were first approved and available. Even now, I think it's probably at around 80% of eligible people with first dose, and somewhere around 60% with two based on a quick google search. Which gets me ... read more

Santiago is located just at the foot of the Andes. So yeah, no surprise that its residents love spending their weekends on the mountains, away from the hustle and bustle. We figured what's good enough for them, is good enough for us, so we'd join them. We rented a car for the day, and headed out to the Cayon del Mapio. Surprisingly enough, it wasn't very busy on the roads. It may have been the timing - just after the skiing season, but before the summer season. Anyhow, we weren't going to complain obviously. Based on the numerous hotels, restaurants, and activity centers we passed by, I do believe the area sees busier times. It was indeed the perfect Sunday like this. A beautiful drive through the mountains, some empañadas for lunch, and then a hike ... read more

I totally stole the title and most of the pictures from my friend Ben. All credit is due to him. I am pretty sure my exceedingly dull descriptions of mountains and my effort to get up them will not be missed. Instead, here are some pictures of a Sunday day hike in November to the summit of Pintor (4180m). ... read more

Got picked up early this morning in a people mover, after not getting our wake up call from reception... lucky for us, leigh had set the alarm. Also lucky for us that we had both been wide awake since 2 am with our jetlag. Plus, we had two separate occasions of people bounding into our room. Some geek came in about 4 am calling out "Phoebe? PHOEBE?!".. WRONG ROOM!!!! The joys of staying in a hostel. So, we stopped along the way to rent our ski gear, including pantalons (hehe), gloves, skis, boots, etc. and headed up to Valle Nevado, about a 40 min drive from Santiago. Another horrendous driver, much worse than the last. Now it´s been a few years since i skied but a few minutes into it i had my form back and ... read more

(The location is not actually quite right but not all places are listed - we actually stayed in Farellones but we did ski in Valle Nevado a couple of days...) So, it was pretty cold the morning we arrived at the ski shop around 7.15am to catch a minibus up into the mountains. While waiting for them to start selling tickets the shop next door caught Hugh´s eye and he discovered that their transfers were 2/3 the price and the bus was just leaving so off we went. Despite the fact that I was already wearing much of my ski gear, the driver kept the windows open all the way and it was absolutely freezing. We knew it had rained in the night in Santiago and it was not long before we spotted snow on the ... read more