Day 18, September 1, 2009

Phrase of the day: Adios Chile

After spending the last couple days in Santiago, Chile, Amberley and I decided to leave our fun times in Chile in search of a new adventure in Argentina. So, we got on a bus that took us through the Andes Mountain range to Mendoza, the capital city of the Mendoza Province of Argentina. It is a beautiful little city that sits up against the east side of the Andes and is known for its wine and olive oil production.

After our 8-hour bus adventure on windy roads through the Andes, we finally arrived in mendoza. We were pretty tired from the bus ride and decided to have a BBQ at our hostel with some friends and take it easy for the night.

BBQ, veggies and wine... you just can't go wrong!

Day 13, August 27, 2009

Phrase of the day: fiesta de disfraces (costume party)

There were two separate events that let to a costume party at La Posada, a tiny bar across the street from the Portillo ski resort.

Firstly, it was Ricardo's birthday. This is Ricardo. He is a ski instructor at Portillo and his fellow coworkers decided to throw him a party for his birthday.

Secondly, it was Jamie's last day as a Peace Pedaler. This is Jamie Bianchini. He was a guest at Portillo and he was getting ready to head home to the US after spending 7 years as a Peace Pedaler. Peace Pedalers is a charity organization the Jamie helped start. He has been riding his own tandem mountain bike all over the world over the last 7 years. He rides in the front seat and has picked up "guest riders" from dozens of countries who rode on the back seat anywhere from a few minutes to a few weeks.

Everyone had to be really creative when it came to finding a costume because of two factors; firstly, the decision to have a costume party was very last minute and secondly, since Portillo is in the middle of nowhere, the only way to get a costume was to make one out of the clothes that you already had with you.

Needless to say, everyone really seemed to put the effort in and there were some amazing costumes at the party.

After digging through all of the clothes that we had with us, Amberley and I decided to dress up as the Cristal Police. Cristal is a Peruvian beer that is very popular in Chile and our costume was a big hit at the party.

We partied until all hours of the night and had a great time!

Day 12, August 26, 2009

Phrase of the day: autopista caminando (highway walking)

We got up around 8am, got dressed to go snowboarding, had breakfast, and started our half-kilometer walk down the highway to Portillo. Lucky for us, we didn't have to worry about any passing traffic as long as we got up early enough each morning. The highway closes to all passing traffic at night and doesn't reopen until around 10am each morning.

It was a beautiful bluebird day on our first day at Portillo. The mountains in this area were unlike any I've ever seen. They are so steep and jagged. There was a big storm about 5 days ago and, because the surrounding mountains are so steep, there were daily avalanches.

There was a lake in the middle of the ski resort that was almost frozen over. It had these really beautiful snow swirls throughout the thin layer of ice.

Day 11 - August 25, 2009

Word of the day: Sharpie marcador (Sharpie marker)

Today was one of those days where nothing went according to plan. But, at the same time, everything worked out better than we ever could have hoped. Amberley and I had planned to travel by bus from Los Andes to the Inca Hostel at Portillo ski resort. We called the Inca Hostel yesterday to book a room; however, we were informed that the hostel was booked-out for the next two weeks. We've had great luck with every part of our trip thus far, so we decided to go to Portillo anyway and take our chances with the Inca's lodging.

This is Portillo Ski Center and it is in the middle of nowhere. There is no town, no streets, no businesses, no nothing - just the ski resort, formal hotel, and hostel. Therefore, when we asked the lady at the bus ticket counter in Los Andes for two bus tickets to Portillo, she informed us that there is no bus that stops at Portillo and that we have to hire a private shuttle to take us to the ski resort.

Lucky for us, rules don't mean much in South America - the ticket lady ended up selling Amberley and Istudent-rate tickets from Santiago to Los Andes (even though we were in Los Andes heading to Portillo), wrote "PORTILLO" with a Sharpie marker on our receipts, and told us to get on the bus labeled "Mendoza, Argentina." Basically, Portillo is off of the same highway as the bus that travels to Mendoza, so the bus driver was told to drip us off at the exit for Portillo along the way to Mendoza. The bus tickets only cost us US $4, whereas hiring a private shuttle would've cost over US $100. It was awesome!

Fortunately, we learned of another hostel that was only half a mile up the road near the Chile/Argentina border--Hosteria Cristo Redentor. Porticio, a snowboard instructor that we made friends with earlier in the day, helped Amberley and I find someone to drive us and our luggage up the road to the hostel.

This was our newly discovered accommodations--an old abandoned hotel-turned-hostel. If you look closely, you can see that all the windows on the top three floors are blown out. I have to say, Amberley and I were very worried, to say the least, when we first saw the delapidating building.

But good karma served us well once again because the hostel only consisted of the first floor and our room turned out to be nice. Amberley and I got our own room and our own bathroom, and the owners cooked us breakfast--which consisted of oatmeal, scrambled eggs, toast, hot cheese sandwiches, coffee, and tea--each morning. For those of you who have not stayed in hostels before, having your own room, own bathroom--with hot water all day--and free hot breakfast is pretty rare.

The hostel we stayed at turned out to be awesome! Had we stayed at the Inca Hostel at Portillo, we would have been sharing a tiny 4-bed dorm and shared a bathroom with 6-12 other people. Instead, it was like we had our own hotel room with free breakfast for only USD $30 per night - Sweetness!!

Day 10 - August 24, 2009

Phrase of the day: heli skiing do hombre pobre (poor man's heli skiing)

Amberley, Mark, and I at SkiArpa!

Today, we go cat skiing at Valle El Arpa! Arpa is a ski resort with no runs or chair lifts--just mountains, powder and two snowcats that allow you to access untouched terrain without a helicopter or hours of hiking. That's right, cat-skiing at Arpa is the poor man's heli skiing, and it was awesome!!

The adventure began in Lo Calvo, about 20-kilometers north of our hostel. There, the pavement ends, giving way to a dirt road that leads to Arpa. We traveled for about an hour on the unpaved road, watching it turn from dirt, to mud, to snow. Because the road to Arpa is so treacherous, you must have a vehicle with high clearance and 4-wheel drive, as well as an experienced driver to get up the mountain safely. There is practically no organized transportation to Arpa and, therefore, it was extremely expensive to hire a driver--it cost us USD $259 to hire someone with an appropriate vehicle to drive us up the mountain.

They are kind of hard to see, but, if you look closely, you can see about 10 switchbacks going through the valley and up the mountain. Look just above the rocks and brush where the snow starts. This is where the switchbacks start.

Some of the switchbacks are so tight that you have to make 3-point turns to get around them.

After traveling about an hour up the mountain, there is a point on the unpaved road where it is impossible to travel any further by car because of deep snow. There is a small turnout just before the road turns to snow where everyone parks and waits for the snowcat to pick them up and take them to the small lodge, which is located about half a mile further up the snowy path.

This is where we parked and waited for the snow cat to come and pick us up.

The staff consisted of 8 people, all of who were extremely professional and welcoming. As soon as we arrived at the lodge, the staff went over all necessary safety procedures and each guest was given an avalanche beacon.

This is the tiny ski lodge built into the side of the mountain.

It was a day filled with amazing views, 900-meter vertical runs, wide-open valleys, and powder-powder-powder!

This is the snow cat track up the mountain to our first run.

The view at the top of our first run was amazing.

We could see Aconcagua in the distance. Aconcagua is the highest peak in all of the Americas--it stands above 22,000 feet.

This is my inside the snow cat waiting to go up the mountain for another run.

Day 9 - August 23, 2009

Phrase of the day: un acto azar de simpatico (a random act of kindness)

I experienced one of the greatest acts of kindness today - I will never forget it! Amberley , Mark and I got on a bus to Los Andes - a small town about 40 miles north of Santiago - and it was quite the excursion.

For some strange reason we decided that we would walk about half a mile to the bus station instead of take a taxi. Now, you must remember that Amberley, Mark and I have three bags each that easily total over 200lbs: our backpacking backpacks, out snowboard bags and our smaller normal-sized backpacks.

A second issue was that I seriously injured my back a few days ago - a paramedic that was staying at my hostel checkout out my back and told me that I broke the spinus process of one of my vertebrate. I was experiencing some major back pain. Not surprisingly, about 5-minutes into the walk, we all realized that the half mile treck was going to be a painful adventure, however, we decided to keep going.

A little while later, when I think my back can't take anymore, the coolest thing happened - a random girl walked up to me and took the handle of my snowboard bag. She was offering to help carry some of the weight of my bags. The girl spoke absolutely no English, but she could see that I was seriously struggling and she decided to help. Due to the language barrier, we walked in silence for about 10-minutes until we were close enough to see the bus station. I will never forget this act of kindness and, when the opportunity arises, I will be sure to pay it forward by offering help to someone else in need.

Day 7 - August 21, 2009

Phrase of the day: La día en Santiago = A day in Santiago

We arrived in Santiago around 9:30pm last night and we all exhausted. We had been in the shuttle for over three hours; there was a lot of traffic coming down the mountain. Luckily, the hostel we booked in Santiago put the four of us – Amberley, Mark, Rich, and I – in a huge six-person room all to ourselves. It was nice to have so much space – If you have ever stayed in shared rooms while traveling before, you know to appreciate it when you have a lot of space because it is often a rare occurrence.

There's so much space :)

The next morning we all took hot showers – this was the best thing ever considering the fact that I haven’t taken a hot shower since I arrived in Chile; the showers at the hostel in Farellones were sometimes luke warm, but mostly freezing. After doing laundry and checking emails, we decided to walk and check out the city of Santiago.

We walked through the main square of town and went to the fish market for lunch.

This part of the square has chess boards built into the tables and people come from all over to play.

Yummy, fresh fish.

There is a ton of art everywhere in Santiago: architecture, monuments, graffiti art, etc. Much of the graffiti art is political and some of it purely asthetic. But the cool thing was, almost all of the graffiti was positive. It seemed to me there was much more art than tagging.

There are monuments everywhere. They are on every corner, in ever square and in front of every building.

This one was my favorite.

A funny thing I noticed about Santiago is they have a lot of Viking bars and restaurants – that’s right, I said Viking J

Due to the fact that we all thought the idea of a Viking establishment was hilarious, we decided to go in one and have a beer. There were shields, swords, axes and fur on every wall, as well as on the ceiling. We ended up getting sloshed and having a really fun night.