Sudamerica Aventura: August 2010

Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Farellones. Lunes, 16 de Agosto

From Santiago we travelled 45 km (1.5hr drive) East up to Farellones. We soon learnt that in terms of bus travel, Chilean’s have their own form of “Island time”! We patiently waited 55mins for our shuttle.
Later in the week this was repeated with the skifield shuttles arriving and departing anywhere within a window of 30-45mins from their scheduled time.

View from the deck of Lodge Andes.

We had also heard many stories of luggage falling off buses, but did not expect to witness this on our first bus trip! Thankfully not ours! The advice given to us to watch our luggage being tied onto buses helped us out in this instance. Some 50+ hairpin bends and a queezy tum later we arrived at Farellones, a small village and base of three skifields. All of which are linked by chairlifts, should you be willing to pay!

La Parva summit. Montana El Plomo in distance (5,430m). Famous in Chile
because Inca remains were found near the summit in the 1950's.

Santiago under the smog below, seen from La Parva.

Up here we were at approximately the same latitude as Kaitaia but staying at an altitude of approximately 2500m. The ski-fields extend up to an altitude of 3680m (Mt Cook 3754m).

Neither of us had snowboarded at this altitude before and we certainly noticed a vague feeling of faintness and nausea, alongside headaches and unusual fatigue while on the upper-mountain. This settled immediately by descending to the lower mountain and fully resolved within a few days.

Valle Nevado

Eco Bano's with a view.

We had five and a half days of brilliant snowboarding on what is the driest snow we have encountered so far. Unfortunately no new snow fell for us during the week but we struck perfect weather, with the temperature reaching up to 8 degrees in the latter part of the week! Valle Nevado was our pick of the mountains, with more than 900 hectares of terrain. We encountered no ques throughout the week which was hard to believe.

Catching a ride up to La Parva with the local Chefs.

Farellones was a tiny village with a “festive atmosphere” spurred on by an international free-ski competition on at El Colorado. We soon found out that the Chileans are hardened drinkers compared with us, adding merely a splash of tonic to a near full glass of vodka. We are having to get used to cigarette smoke in bars and restaurants again.

Sunset over Santiago

Our hostel, Lodge Andes was located 200m from the base of El Colorado. We had a great time with fellow travellers. The lodge brewed their own beer and included breakfast and dinner in a communal dining room, which at first seemed like school camp, but created a very relaxed and sociable atmosphere.

Refugio Los Andes

'A' for A-Frame.

Hostel operators George and Gloria, cooking up a BBQ on our last day up at Farellones. Delicious!.
Also George attempting to do a haka.

From Farellones we caught a shuttle, a train, a bus and a taxi to the Port-city of Valparaiso.

Monday, August 30, 2010

Santiago de Chile. Viernes, 13 de Agosto 2010

Bienvenida a nuestra Sudamerica Aventura Blog!

Hola family and friends, over the following 6 months we will be exploring South America.

We endeavour to update the blog fortnightly, so please feel free follow our journey.

No Friday the 13th superstitions interfered with our flight over with Lan Chile so we arrived in Santiago feeling fairly refreshed and rearing to immerse ourselves into the city.

The Andes from Santa Lucia

Both of us were pleasantly surprised by Santiago, especially after the impression we had been given prior to arriving. Flying in, our first glimpse of the Andes was spectacular. True, the city is very smoggy because of the geography but the Andes surrounding the city are beautiful. We spent two and a half days exploring the city with numerous laughs on the first day while getting into the tourist groove.

Dumb tourist act #1. Almost immediately upon leaving our hostel Matt stepped in dog poo (too busy looking around). Dogs roam the streets freely in the absence of owners and their plastic scoop bags close behind them.

Dumb tourist act #2. Felt so proud that we ordered our first coffee in Spanish but soon realised that Clarey was the only female in the place and that we were actually in an old-mans club. The well-endowed waitresses should’ve given this away sooner!

Dumb tourist act #3..……we soon received our so-proudly ordered cappuccino’s, that turned out to be a short-black with about 3” of whipped cream on top (served with a straw). Fortunately very tasty!

Smoggy Santiago - view South from Parque Metropolitana

A walk up Parque Metropolitana revealed statue of the Virgin Mary and 360 degree views of the city, set beneath the Andes. We later found an iconic suberb called Barrio Bellavista, a very colourful bohemian and student area. This quickly became one of our favourite parts of the city.