David and Julia's Living Book

Valle Nevado, Chile

Skiing in the Andes

Friday, July 20, 2007

It’s not far as the crow flies from Santiago to Valle Nevado, but it’s a long drive.

I got up early, ate breakfast, and headed up the mountain with the help of my transport driver. The road to Valle Nevado is quite an experience—very twisty and not very wide.

The road is so bad that traffic is only allowed to move in one direction at a time during certain hours. Thank goodness for that, because it would be very dangerous with two-way traffic on some parts of this road. The trip up the mountain took about two hours. Occasionally, the gas truck in front of us had to stop and reverse to navigate a hairpin corner—very exciting.

The road to Valle Nevado is quite scary.

We arrived at the Puerta del Sol hotel around 1:00 pm. It didn’t take long for me to settle into my room. I had lunch and dinner with an American guy and his four-year-old son, Jackson. It was nice to have a conversation in English. We all had dinner that night in the French restaurant. I went to bed early and slept like a baby.

Saturday, July 21, 2007

The Andes are incredibly tall mountains.

On my first day of skiing, I discovered just how amazing Valle Nevado is. The Andes surround you, and you find yourself lost in a world of snow and mountains. It was overcast, and in the late afternoon, it started snowing, continuing through the next day.

I started my week of skiing lessons that day and met Chris, Rodriguez, and Marianna, who were all very friendly young Brazilians. We ended up hanging out together for the rest of the trip. It seems Valle Nevado is a popular skiing destination for Brazilians because the currency exchange is favorable. I had never met anyone from Brazil before and found them to be a generally friendly group. We had dinner together that night, and they warned me that Pedro, who had a reputation as a party animal, wouldn’t arrive until Sunday.

The snow was so deep that farmers had to jack up their cows to milk them.

Sunday, July 22, 2007

The snow from Saturday transformed Valle Nevado into a skiing nirvana, made even more spectacular by the sun shining most of the day. We had 4 feet of fresh powder snow and sunshine! I continued my skiing lessons with the Brazilians. Our instructor, Alexandra, was excellent, guiding us both on and off-piste.

Alexandra took us to an area called Valley Olympic, which was off-piste and covered in fresh, un-skied powder snow. She took photos of us as we made our way down the slopes, giving us tips on how to ski through the soft, fluffy snow. Take note of the S-turns behind me in this shot. If you're not a skier, this may not mean much, but my skiing friends are now filled with envy. Sorry!

Pedro was indeed a party animal.

That night, Pedro arrived, so I had dinner with the full Brazilian group. They made me feel very welcome, and we had a great time eating, drinking, and having fun.

The group consisted of Ruth, Chris, Marianna, me, Rodriguez, and Pedro. Their English was excellent, and they even laughed at many of my silly jokes—jokes that are sometimes hard for native English speakers to understand. Thanks, folks, for a great time!

Monday, July 23, 2007

On Monday, there was no skiing because it snowed all day and night, creating a complete whiteout. I spent the day eating and drinking inside the warm resort. I had left San Francisco feeling like I’d forgotten something, and I had—it was the power supply for my laptop. So, I couldn’t even work on my trip site because the battery was flat. A good friend of mine sent my power supply via FedEx, but it didn’t arrive until the Friday when I left Valle Nevado. Thanks, Phil!

The sunsets in the Andes are breathtaking.

I was able to get on the Internet occasionally via the heavily used (mostly by kids) Internet terminals at the hotel. However, most of my connection to the outside world was through my Microsoft Smartphone (a small plug for the evil empire, but the phone was very helpful). In fact, my cell phone worked better on top of the Andes in Chile than it does in the Oakland hills in San Francisco; as Mina would say, "Go figure."

Sunshine and deep, soft snow.

Tuesday, July 24 to Friday, July 27, 2007

The rest of the week was full of sunshine every day. Thanks to the heavy snow on Monday, the skiing was like a dream—we had deep powder, sunshine to keep us warm, and perfect visibility. My days consisted of getting up at 8:00 am, having breakfast, and skiing in the morning until 11:00 am when my ski lessons started.

I skied with the instructor and the Brazilians from 11:00 am to 1:00 pm, then continued skiing with the group until I couldn’t stand up anymore from the pain in my legs and knees. But oh, what fun we had!

A very happy but very tired skier.

By Friday, I didn’t ski because I could hardly walk after so much skiing. Due to the timing of traffic up and down the access road to Valle Nevado, I had to wait until 3:00 pm to leave the mountain.

I would have had to leave at 5:00 pm if it weren’t for Jackson and his dad, the two Americans I met on the first day. They kindly offered me a ride with their transport, which left at 3:00 pm.

I arrived back at the Sheraton Santiago at 6:00 pm that Friday, and low and behold, my power supply was waiting for me at the hotel—thanks again, Phil. I spent the rest of the time at the hotel writing up these trip notes and waiting for my flight to Australia on Monday night. Please note that I used three cameras to take photos, one of which was a first-generation digital camera. Unfortunately, this camera had issues with the cold, resulting in strange horizontal lines on some of my photos. Sorry about that—guess it’s time to buy a new camera.