Santiago Stuff, (no se, algunas cosas que me parecen interesantes)

Breakfast is usually prepared every morning before I wake up. It's a good deal.
Here is a picture of the usual spread.
Granola + Te con leche o cafe. This day was special as our host mom made us banana bread. She used the recipe from my gringa roommates, but added tea. Final product was delicious.

I like this picture. Everyday, the workers for this chain of pharmacies has been striking for better wages/benefits. Most just blow whistles, chant or wave banners. This branch near Tobalaba had a stereo so the workers could swing/salsa/tango.

Torre Gran Costanera Center under construction.
This will be the largest building in South America upon completion. It will also be surrounded by three smaller sky scrapers to complete, the Costanera Center. The building will reach 300 meters in height or, 984 feet.
It is also funny because the new financial/services business district in Santiago is in a neighborhood called 'El Golf". This is east of the old financial district and the original downtown area. The new business area is rarely referred to though as 'El Golf', santiaguinos prefer to call it 'Sanhattan'.

Mendoza, Argentina weekend trip

Last weekend, we took a quick jaunt over the Andes into Mendoza, Argentina. The bus ride was eventful as customs took a while, and the Andes were amazing. Still a fair amount of snow.

This was a bomb shelter. Or customs going into Argentina. They were in no rush that day to move anyone into their country. No worries haha

In Argentina, in the hostel. We decided to sample their beverages.

Calle Aristides Villanueva, Mendoza, Argentina. Best part was that there were trees. Big trees and lots of them. A nice change. Santiago does not really have trees.

Cab rides are amazing. Especially when they are in Peugeot's from 1950, with a chain smoking driver.

See, we were stoked!

Preparing for our bike+winery tour, with some wine. The man who rented us the bikes seemed to be more concerned with serving us wine than his other customers, excellent.

It is pretty in Argentina too!

Aca tambien es lindo.


This is absinthe. 75% alcohol. They make it at one of the wineries. I did not sample it in the tour, instead I tried a grappa style alcohol made from pears. Strong stuff, I think hard liquor is more popular in Argentina than Chile where the wine/beer keep us all happy.


Next stop.

This was a cool winery that we did not enter, but it was pretty with the mountains in the background. Sorry if it did not really come out, all of these pictures taken with a Sony P&S.

Some of us had to wait for the rest of the group and decided to get artsy.

Going home. More Andes action!


I will be coming back to go here one day. Great trip to Mendoza. I loved Argentina in general, people were welcoming and it felt like Italy. Now back in Chile, chillin.

Chilean Bicentennial

September 18th was the 200 year anniversary of Chile. But not really, the actual junta of rich guys who wanted independence from Spain happened on another day. For that reason many Chileans think the date is rather funny. Regardless, this was a huge holiday. The government called for 4 days of no work and much of us santiaguinos went to the beach for the weekend.
Destination: El Quisco.

Bus Station, Santiago.

Sunset at Playa Principal, El Quisco, Chile.

Cabanas. Pretty nice spot.

Playa Principal in the day time.

Sorry that is all I have. I did not take many pictures that weekend. I did go to a rodeo all day though. That was one of the best experiences I have had so far. At first my two gringo friends and I got stared down by everyone there, but the people were eventually nice. They liked that we were eating their special 'anticucho' and drinking 'chicha' while enjoying a rodeo. Pictures to come.

First post in almost a month...discupla, vamopo otra vez!

This group of posts will be kinda random. I have been very busy in the last month. I have been very busy with school. Tonight is one of my first free nights in a while to really chill at home and relax. It's okay though, I have 2 projects and a big quiz next week. Keeping busy!
Picture above is from La Parva. I just wanted to post it, because that weekend of skiing was unreal.


Okay it is spring now.
Cerro San Cristobal in the background. My neighborhood in the foreground.

Flowers and Powder - Not a drug reference

This shall be a quick post as I am really, really busy with school. Life is nuts right now and I thought a soothing blog post would help calm me down/focus me. Or maybe just keep me up later.
Regardless, these are flowers on my street. Spring is in here in Santiago! I wore shorts for the first time to class today. Quite pleased.

There you go: Flowers and Powder. A look at Pontifical Catholic University of Chile, Campus San Joaquin.

I like this picture a lot as well.

.....and now for the real stoke. Last 2 days of skiing for the season. Going to have to wait till December. That should not be a problem as La Parva gave me blower powder. I am happy to say the least.

Sorry no pictures of me skiing it. I was with people that were skiing more groomers and working on technique, thus the off piste shredding was left to me. Here is one from outside the hostel. The sun is melting all the snow on the north slopes and the season is really coming to an end. Sad, but 2 more months and winter again!!


Okay back to work......

My sister came to Chile!...our adventures Part I

Nevados de Chillan was the goal.
Begin long bus ride.

Mountains on the left, we are going south.

Follow the green line.

Special reading material aka best thing my sister brought from home for me. Winter is coming...

This place is beautiful. Unlike the skiing outside of Santiago, there are trees!! and bushes and greenery when you look down the valley. The skiing was really good. So so much snow, thus all the runs were open. Conditions were warm and kinda springy, but very fun the same once the bowls got some sun.

Katie photographing the gnar.

Going up the chair.

Off Las Tres Marias, the longest ski run in Chile, we stumbled across a giant kicker in the nearby backcountry. We sat down to watch some skiers session it.

This was cool.

Unknown skier. Throwing an off axis spin with grab after hitting the jump switch. Really impressive stuff.

The jump and the surrounding wilderness. Beautiful. So much ski-able terrain all at a fairly gentle angle.

Katie, ripping.

...more to come from this trip....

Oh, let's go skiing again- Valle Nevado, Chile

Getting stoked. (and no I did not ski in jeans, we were taking a look at the mountains while our driver threw some chains on).

Oh ya, it snowed a ton before this day. Good thing I knew that before going up hahah. The resorts were reporting 4 cm fresh and it barely sprinkled the night before in Santiago. First time I have ever skied this much powder (8-16 inches) on skis that were ~78 mm underfoot. Someone give me credit for this.

Here is a pic. K2 Apache Chiefs, the last person who used these skied more rocks than snow. No worries.

The best snow was down low. With a base of 9,000 feet, that can happen. Especially because this has been a dry snow year for Chile, with really high winds.

This is a picture of the false summit at Valle Nevado that is to the left of the central (lift-served) peak of the resort. I hiked this to drop in off a lil cornice and get some untouched lines. Good hike and great skiing. Nothing like a drop into high speed powder turns.

This is kinda what I did. Hard to see in the flatish light and from the perspective of where this picture was taken from. But, orange is hiking, green is skiing.

Great Day!! I have a lot more respect for everyone who skiied powder prior to the year 1998 and the reality of fat skis. A lot more work, but still so so worth it. Cannot wait for December, in the Sierra Nevada, to ski pow with the fam and friends.