Skiing in Los Andes and Chilean Miners Alive!

Here's our next post!

We went skiing in Los Andes on sunday with a group of people from our programme. Only Scott came along from the group that we started with, but we also met some new Americans who have arrived about a month before us and are great fun and, some of whom, also live in the building opposite us. So a minibus picked us up at about 8am from our meeting point and took us up to the resort - it's only just over an hour and a half drive!

The way up - spring is on the way so it's very green in the foothills

The resort we visited was El Colorado, one of three connected resorts all very close to Santiago - only 39km from the city.

Looks like something from Yogi Bear, with added "wife-beater"

We both chose to ski, Anna has skiied before, Struan has both skiied and snowboarded fairly regularly a few years ago but recalls ski-lifts being considerably more challenging for the gentleman 'boarder. He was though soon reminded of one of the advantages of boarding - soft boots - (rented) ski boots are sooo uncomfortable.

Looking away from the slopes - not much snow down here, but a good view of los Andes in the background

Full frontal

Looking towards the slopes

We've posted some of our photos on here, we didn't get as many as we'd have liked - various reasons, being ill, worried about falling on the camera, remembering how to stuff your feet into tight hard plastic prisons etc - but the thing that struck us is the colour of the sky. Up here we were well out of the Santiago smog so there's some fantastic blue tones here. We'll get more when the season starts up again.

Apres-ski

The Chilean hole in the ozone layer?!

Awesome view up on the slopes under the chair lifts

Anna on skis - censorship has been imposed on pics described as Anna lying next to skis

It was incredible to get up into the mountains, Chile has some amazing landscapes. We heard recently that Peter Jackson originally wanted to film Lord of the Rings in Chile but apparently couldn't agree commercial terms with the government (New Zealand spotted the likely tourism boost, allegedly Chile didn't and wanted cash up front...).

To end a great day, a couple of pics of the sky on the way down:

Los Andes as the sun starts to set

You may have seen in the news that a group of Chilean miners trapped underground have been found alive, and rescue efforts are underway to get them back to the surface: 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/aug/23/trapped-miners-alive-chile

This news (that they were trapped) broke originally the day after we arrived in Chile - and the contact was made with them when we were skiing, so on the way back through Santiago our bus drove past hundreds of Chileans out celebrating. It wasn't easy to get photos as it was almost dark and we were in a moving bus, but here's a happy guy wearing his Chile flag superhero stylee:

Dark but kind of a cool picture anyway

After all that excitement here's Struan on the way home at Emporio La Rosa a block away from our apartment enjoying Dulce de Leche and pistachio ice cream:

Apres-ski ice-cream

We've been to this ice-cream parlour a few times now - really good stuff - if you visit you have to try chocolate and pepper - yum! On this occasion we had our first Chilena thinks she's French* moment - okay it's not pronounced "dulchay" here, it's "dulsay", we get it, but seriously what else in your fridge could we be referring to? 


* No more than the usual amount of genial offence intended to the French - it is of course well known that French people in France refuse to entertain pidgin french and insist on adopting a stance of furious correction or feigned ignorance. The vast majority of Chileans aren't like this at all, and are willing to have a go even when faced with the most rudimentary attempts at Spanish**.

** Resulting in moments like last night when Struan, discussing with a janitor why his classroom wasn't unlocked, was told this was because he had to go to the teacher's "reunion" instead - to which he replied that he had only been working at the school for a week so had no-one to be reunited with. After a series of further misunderstandings dictionary was checked and "reunion" means meeting in spanish. Still, everyone laughed it off.

Finally, a pic of a Santiago police car, why? Why not more like, they're always outside our building and they're a good solid british racing green.