Day 1 - August 15, 2009

Word of the day: nieve = snow

It is now 7:20am and my plane is about to land in Santiago, Chile. I open the window shutter for the first time since takeoff about nine hours earlier – I have slept almost the entire flight – and I start to get really excited. It is pouring rain in town, which means it is dumping snow up on the mountain.

I get off the plane, pay the US international travel fee – $131 yuck!, – make my way through customs, and head to baggage claim. Amberley has already been in Chile for a week, so she arranged for a driver to pick me up from the airport and bring me up the mountain to meet her at our hostel in Farellones. I pick up my bags at baggage claim and head to the exit to find my ride. As soon as I get to the door, I am bombarded by taxi drivers trying to gain my business. It is extremely crowded and very hard to guide my snowboard bag through all the people to find my driver. Luckily, an airport employee sees me struggling and offers to help. He speaks English and we are able to find my driver in just a couple of minutes. The driver’s name is Jorge and he doesn’t speak any English, however, we are still able to communicate a little. He helps me with my bags and we walk outside into the rain and head toward the car.

As soon as I see Jorge’s car a small feeling of anxiety comes over me. It is a small silver Dodge Neon and I immediately realize that my snowboard bag is not going to fit in the car. I ask Jorge what we are going to do with the bag and he points to the roof of the car and shows me two bungee cords. Now, remember that it is pouring rain outside and my snowboard bag not only has my snowboard gear in it, but also most of my clothes. But, what can I do? So, we tie the bag to the top of the car and get on our way.

Driving through Santiago is like driving through any other major US city. Huge advertising billboards, malls, people, and large trucks and SUVs are everywhere. (For some reason, I expected there to be fewer large vehicles here than in the US).

After driving for about 15-minutes, we pull up and stop in front of a business titled SkiVan. Jorge informs me that I will be traveling the rest of the way with this company. So, we get out of the car and transfer my bags into an 8-passenger Honda van. There are four other people in the van. None of them speak any English, but they are very nice and welcoming all the same.

As we get out of the city, we pull onto a very narrow windy road and start our way up the mountain. There are rockslides everywhere that the driver must carefully avoid. It is a two lane road, so avoiding the rock slides in our lane means driving into the opposite lane around blind corners – luckily there are barely any other cars on the road. The narrow windy road quickly turns into the worst switchbacks I have ever seen and I watch the rain turn to sleet and then to snow, as we get higher in altitude. Despite the fact that I am traveling on a horribly dangerous road with few guard rails while it is dumping snow in a van with no 4-wheel drive with four people that I cannot communicate with, I feel completely safe and peaceful staring out the window. I have an overwhelming sense of calmness and satisfaction with the world around me. The mountains are covered in fresh snow and are absolutely beautiful. I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else at this moment in time.

This is the road leading up to my hostel. It was dumping!

After about 1.5 hours of driving – Farellones is 37k outside of Santiago – we pull up to my hostel and start to unload the van. There is already over a foot of new snow on the ground and it is falling straight down and very fast. It is so pretty. I immediately hear Amberley’s voice and start yelling her name. She runs down stairs and we give each other a big hug. We haven’t seen each other in three and a half years. We bring my bags in the hostel and spend the rest of the day catching up.

I meet the other housemates – Derick, Kevin, Mark, Rich, Cliff, and Jack. Derick and Kevin are from Colorado, Mark is from the UK, Rich is from New Zealand, Cliff is from San Francisco, and Jack is from Australia. They are all awesome and stoked that it is snowing out.