Santiago de Chile (Part II)
Day 2 after a cold night, in hostal Rio Amazonas (we only had a little gas heater, and the room had very high ceilings, including in the bathroom where you could've grown mushrooms as it was so damp!). Also a short night, as the pick up for the skiing day was at 7.15 am. Well, not that short, because, for those of you who've read and who remember yesterday's post, we'd gone to bed at 8.00 pm. The hostal was nice enough to give us some cheese, butter and jam, (we provided the bread), and some warm water for tea/coffee as we were leaving before breakfast was served.
At 7.15 am sharp, the SkiTotal minibus was there, already carrying 2 Britons touring the world (it's always Brits who tour the world, seems like they have the best round the world travel agents). We drove to SkiTotal's office in Las Condes, picking up another couple on the way, and got in the various lines to get snowboards, ski trousers, pay the day trip and the transport etc... The place was absolutely packed, especially since it was a Saturday and Monday was a national holiday in Chile: everyone was hitting the slopes. Finally at 9.15 am, we sat down in bus 22, full of Brasileños, one peruvian with a japanese girl and us two europeanos.
The 1h30 road trip up the Andes to the station El Colorado was cloudy and winding. Just to tease the parents: we saw an overturned car in a bend, and we knew it was freshly overturned because there were lots of carless (unhurt) people around. The road to the snowed summits are full of people who will install chains on your tyres for you (obviously, for a fee! The real question is: do you have to return the chains when you get down the mountain?). We didn't see lamas as I'd seen on the way to Toromocho, but we did see some mules.
We picked the ski station El Colorado because there was a free lesson included and as it was my first time and Yannick's second time snowboarding, I figured we'd better learn the basics. What a good idea that was! Macarena, from the school Los Zorros, took us to the shallow slopes to learn us how to stand, advance, break and turn. It turns out that to advance on a snowboard, you have to lean towards the direction you want to go, as that gives you the ability to break and turn (otherwise the board isn't really responsive). Well, when all you want to do is slow down and not
advance, it's pretty hard to lean forward, as it's completely counter-intuitive! Let me tell you that I was falling down a lot and very scared of any slope increase however small it was! But Macarena was very patient and after we'd learnt (at least the theory of) braking and turning, she took us on the easiest green slope there was. Did I point out it was a 55 min lesson? Well it's a good thing they're not very strict about it because it took me over 1h15 to get to the bottom of that 1km long slope! I got stuck in powder for ages and I was really tired of falling over - getting up all the time. But I had style: imagine me arms streched out, knees bend, going exactly where I want to do at the incredible speed of...... 1 km/h. On the other hand Yannick was managing fairly well, at a slightly higher speed. After 2 hours, we finally made it back to the school and sat on a terrace for a well deserved (and well expensive CLP 7000) pizza. Luckily the sun came out and the rest of the day was bright and sunny. Good thing we'd hired tinted googles! 
We continued to snowboard after our late lunch until the bus to go back down the mountain picked us up at 5.00 pm. Aching all over and very tired, we return to the cold hotel room for our last night in Santiago...
More new photos in the album Santiago de Chile.
En Français:
Deuxième journée au Chili, après une nuit froide à l'hostal Rio Amazonas du barrio Brasil (ben oui on n'avait qu'un poêle à gaz, et avec les hauts plafonds de la chambre, ça chauffait pas des masses, surtout dans la salled e bain oú il faisait si humide qu'on aurait pu y cultiver des champignons!). À 7h15 le minibus de SkiTotal est venu nous chercher pour nous amener à leurs magasin/bureaux, oú nous avons payé notre journée, pris nos snowboards (et oui, on a opté pour plus aventureux que des skis!) et nos pantalons de neige / gants / lunettes, etc. Partis à 9h15, on est arrivés à la station de ski vers 11h après une ascension sinueuse de la cordillère des Andes (on a même vu une voiture retournée! Heureusement, pas de blessé).
Il y avait une leçon d'1h inclue dans notre pack-journée et heureusement, parce que je n'avais jamais fait de snowboard et Yannick avait testé mais une seule journée. C'est lentement qu'on a appris à avancer, tourner et freiner et moi j'étais assez peu sûre de moi, j'avançais plus lentement que le plus lent des escargot! C'est pour ça qe nore leçon a en fait duré 2 heures (éprouvantes! C'est fatiguant à la longue de se relever tout le temps!) et la partie finale, oú on remonte la pente (de plus d'1km de long) avec un tire-fesses était la plus compliquée! Après tous ces efforts, une petite pizza sur une terrasse fût la bienvenue, surtout que le soleil avait décidé de pointer le bout de son nez!
Finalement On a bien profité de la journée, descendant encore 2 pistes (ben oui, je suis vraiment pas rapide!) avant de repartir avec le bus à 17h. On s'est endormis bien fatigués après un autre dîner-supermarché, dans notre chambre froide...
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