The South Andean Mountains

Hi

Well, it's been months since I've blogged.  We were in Buenos Aires for three months and just moved to Chile last week.

We were pleasantly surprised, as we'd read all sorts of other blogs about petty crime and watching your back.  We found a pretty good hotel through Trip Advisor, although the room was small and so they offered us a one-bed across the street for $80 US a night.  Nice to have a kitchen and livingroom.

Yesterday we went up to the Chilean equivilent of Whister. This popular ski resort is about an hour's drive from Chile. What's a bit scary are the 60 hairpin curves up and down, each one marked so after a while we started to count them. curva # 24, curva #25, etc.  It's late summer here so there is no snow and the place was mostly deserted. Only one restaurant was open, charging high prices, but the food was good.  There's also a lake- the return trip is over an hour's walk and we didn't have the time. You can either eat or walk, but not both. 

The view is spectacular.  It sorts of reminds me of the Grand Canyon, striated levels of earth, although the colours weren't vivid. We saw an Andean Condor, a huge bird whose wingspan can be three metres, and surprisingly, wild horses. This ski mountain has four ski stations and we went to the top, Valle Nevada, which is about 3,000 metres.  I didn't notice the thin air but Ken did.  Apparently about 300,000 people live up there in the snow season.  We met a couple of women who own a resort there who were contemplating opening year round.

We are off today for a six hour bus ride across the Andes to Mendoza Argentia.  Apparently this bus ride on the top of the world is not to be missed.  We'll just stay overnight and return tomorrow.

Mahara