Skiing in Chile...Portillo

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We finally made it to Portillo and the Andes which I envisioned.

It worked out very nicely that my cousin Sharon married the great Patricio Friere, who has a sister Sylvana who lives in Satiago, Chile. So...after our 26 hour bus ride from Iquique to Santiago, we got a hotel near the bus station the first night and then met up with Sylvana and her husband Felipe the next morning. They are extremely nice and Sylvana is studying to be a chef. So, we have been eating really well and have been able to rest for a change, instead of moving just about everyday.

As soon as we got to Santiago we couldn´t wait to go skiing, so we checked out all the options for buses to Portillo, but they all left 8:00am which would put us at the resort after 10am. So, we looked into renting a car and it turned out to be less expensive than both of us buying tickets on a bus and we would be free to do as we please. We rented the car on Sunday afternoon and drove up to the mountain that night. We found a good spot to camp about 15 miles from the resort and then got up at the crack of dawn to be at the resort before it opened. The resort was about the size of A-basin, and the snow was a little old and sun affected. But, it was still really nice to get back on skis and explore such a famous resort. They had a lot of surface lifts, Pomas, but for four people and they flew up the mountain. It was a little strange because, unlike many resorts where the Pomas are continually going, these Pomas only had one set of seats so you would have to wait until the lift went all the way up and all the way back. We were able to find some dry sugar snow on some of the higher areas, we were really hoping for some new snow...but no such luck.

Our next plan is to go to Las Leñas to ski, but it is looking really difficult and expensive. We got spoiled in Peru because the public transportation is so easy, frequent and cheap. Here it is a little harder. Hopefully it works out. If we don´t go to Las Leñas we are going to stay in Santiago a little while longer and ski at some of the resorts close by. It would be nice to have a car, but I guess that is part of the adventure.

Ciao Ciao. Hasta la proxima vez.

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Photos

80% Sunny Days
That is one of their claims to fame. I have come to realize that I like it cold and snowy. Powder is where it´s at.

Santiago
Sylvana has been extremely nice to us, she even took us to the really touristy things like the gondola which takes you to a look out of the city, and she took us to the Zoo.

Our family in Santiago
Its been so nice to have a home and a family. And we have been speaking a lot of Spanish together. It´s helping a lot to tell them stories and speak in past tense and have them help us out.

Nosotros tomando
Sylvana took us to an Irish pub after the Zoo and we were really excited to drink a Guiness, because all the beer here is so bland and light. However, Guiness in a bottle was $10...needless to say we didn´t get a Guiness.

Tres Hermanos
The three peaks in the back, above the Laguna Del Inca, son los Tres Hermanos. Aconcagua, the tallest peak in South America, is to the right of them out of view.

Tuneles
One of the runs went over the road. The two tunels made for some fun rollovers.

Some of the Gnar
You could´t go to the top of any of the peaks surrounding the resort. They were too gnarly at the top. It looked like there was a lot of good, scarey out-of-bounds stuff

The Poma
We were some of the only two people that were actually taking the Poma lifts. Everybody skiing there were foreigners and they mostly stuck to the Bunny Slopes. It was like our own personal resort.

The sun slowly rising
The morning was really cold and the sun didn´t show over the high mountain walls until about 10am and it went away at 3pm.

Our Rental Car
It was El Jinete´s little cousin. A Toyota Yaris, como un jugete. It was really nice to free and not sit in a bus.