Chile, Day 4

Ski day. We got started about 8:45, and I didn’t think we were ever going to get out of Santiago with the morning traffic. The road up into the Andes is thin and perilous, and I’m glad our driver didn’t have a death wish! I kept wondering how we were going to get up into the snowy part of the mountains, because when we started up the mountain, it was all desert, complete with cacti. We made the ascent far away from the smog of Santiago, and the mountain view was beautiful. We stopped almost all the way up to put chains on our tires. It was a sort of party, what with 10-15 cars stopped on the road doing just that.
When we arrived at Valle Nevado, I was definitely amazed at the ski slopes. They were nothing like they are in the Rockies, for the Rockies have trees. There were no trees here marking the trails and there was a lot of skiable area that wasn’t marked as a trail. We got checked in and started skiing and I was right -- it’s like riding a bike -- you don’t forget how to ski, which is kind of nice, because I hadn’t been snow skiing in 15 years.
We skied until about 4pm with a stop for a light lunch halfway through. We realized right before lunch that we had forgotten to get the key out of our locker, but when we checked, our stuff was fine. It is a place so different than Rio. We arrived back at the hotel sore and tired after a great day.