¡Super Fantastico!

Me and the Andes!!
















How to explain how great it was to go snowboarding this weekend ... well as you can see by these pictures the view was absolutely amazing. It was the first time I'd ever snowboarded above timberline and having all that open space was a completely different experience.
















I left with a group of four other extranjeras to Santiago thursday night. We stayed in a hostal for about $9 each and in the morning we had a pretty nice sized breakfast with hot nescafé (pretend Chilean coffee). We made it to the ski shop, SkiTotal, and managed to rent all of our equipment and hop on the charter for the hour and a half ride up to the mountain. The ride up the mountain was an experience in itself ... It was literally a road wide enough for one-way traffic as it tightly wound us back and forth.

Finally getting to the mountain was a relief ... getting out of the van was a relief : )
I was lucky enough to buy a lift ticket off someone who had an extra for only 10.000 pesos which is about $20 usd. We spent about 15 seconds checking out the map and then decided to just go for it. I was amazed with how fast it all came back to me, I hadn't been snowboarding for more than two years and right away I was carving down the mountain!
















It was interesting trying to figure out how the slopes were set up and navigating from one to the other. The mountain has three summits and you can basically go from one to the next if you wanted to, the only problem is as you come down you have to take lifts back up to get you to the summits closer to the lodge ... confusing, even after being there all day.

















After a quick lunch of avocado and turkey sandwiches I headed up with another friend from the program who I knew was a much better snowboarder than I am ... anyways, we headed up for the second summit which is at about 10,750 feet - yikes! - and getting there was definitely tough. My least favorite part of the day was trying to ride the "t-bar" ... basically a bar that comes down vertically from where a chair lift would be ... with a small round disk at the bottom that goes between your legs. This is no big deal for skiiers because they can put there legs as close together as they'd like ... not the case when your feet are strapped in 14 inches apart! Needless to say, I fell the first few times I had to get on one ... and then as I'm approaching the second summit on the t-bar I catch the edge of my board, fall onto my knees - still holding the t-bar for dear life of course - and have to continue the rest of the way (200 feet) on my knees.

Yes, I'm still sore.

After two run downs the face of the second summit and two relatively painful trips up the t-bar I decided it was time to head down. It was a combination of altitude and exhaustion that made the trip down my slowest of the day but as I edged my way towards the lodge I realized that visibility was getting worse and worse. I ran into two girls from my program who were brand new to snowboarding, watched them for a bit and encouraged them to make their way back asap because visibility was worsening, and by that point all I could do was follow others who looked like they knew they were headed in the right direction. There was barely 15 ft. of visibility, and after I finally found the lift that I knew would take me to the lodge I still wasn't sure because I couldn't see the lodge! It wasn't until I got off the lift and heard the music that I knew the lodge was somewhere in the haze.

Turns out one of the girls that I saw on my way down between the time I talked to her and her finding her way down broke her wrist! She's doing ok and was able to make it down but she won't be able to go back this season.

Everyone made it in safely and we all held our breath as we descended the mountain ... making it back safely to Santiago was a relief : )

I got home around 10:00pm and had no trouble at all falling asleep, with the promise of waking up as sore as I've ever been I wanted to sleep as long as possible!