chile:san.martín.

we woke up early yesterday and set off to san martin. tracy was in a hurry to drop us off and get back on the road because the border closes at 7 and she needed to make it back to pucón. we drove on the seven lakes road which wound around along…you guessed it, seven lakes! it was such a nice drive, minus the windy part and my poor stomach was not pleased with me. when we got to san martín, tracy had to sell one of her ecofans so we stopped by and did that, then we talked to the tourism people and found out where to stay, rent snow gear, and how to get to the mountain in the morning. we checked into our hostel, took care of our boards/skis and boots and lift tickets and then wandered around town.

san martín is very cute, it kind of looks like pucón in that all the buildings are wood and it has the feel of a little ski town but it was a bit more upscale. we wandered through a tent selling crafts and souvenirs and found a bigger version of rooney.

then we got the best ice cream ever, after sampling about fifty flavors. thankfully the man working there was very nice and wanted to practice his English so it was all good. he said “spanglish is the best way to communicate” and i have to say i agree.

we got back to our hostel and found out it was full of young people looking to spend a day or two on the mountain, just like us.

there was a big common area and people were playing music and singing so we hung out and made some friends names juan and lucia from Buenos aires who were actually our roommates. we were the only ones not from argentina there so we got a lot of attention, but it was fun to just hang out and talk to everyone.

the next morning we woke up and got ready to get to the mountain (chapelco is what it was called). we accidentally missed the bus…but we caught a shuttle and it all worked out. it was such a gorgeous day. it was really crowded near the bottom of the mountain but we went to the top and it was perfect. truckee skied of course, and andy was on the ski team in college but he decided to switch things up and snowboard with me.

we had one mishap where i lost my board and it slid a long long way down the mountain. i hiked down and got lectured and warned that i could have decapitated a little kid. a bit grim but oops. truckee and i went up a t-bar lift together and that was pretty funny because she had to kind of sit on it while i straddled it. but it was a really fun day! and we look pretty cool up there don’t you think?

we got back to the hostel and cleaned up and then had the most delicious mexican food for dinner. we ended up just relaxing and hanging out the rest of the night, we were wiped out.