September 6, 2024
Contrasting resorts near Santiago: beach and… skiing!
Unlike Colombia, the latest business trip to Chile turned out to be very rich in tourism: we climbed the Sollipulli volcano, got acquainted with some other sights of Araucania, and had a peek at Lake El Yeso. So far – so good! But there’s also a “bonus track” – our visit to a ski resort near Santiago.
It’s real close, so off we popped. Not to ski; just to breathe in the mountain air and enjoy the views…
The next morning, however, began with a little surprise. I woke up to a gloomy, overcast Santiago. And that seemed to be the end of our alpine plans ->
I was just about ready to give up on the idea of going anywhere – I prefer to stay indoors in this sort of weather, or sit in a coffee shop somewhere (even though I’m not the biggest coffee lover), or walk around town in a raincoat. But then I suddenly remembered there are webcams at ski resorts! I searched the internet – and lo and behold, the sun was shining and the sky was blue there! Here in the valley it was cloudy, but a few kilometers up it was just the opposite. About 70km on a serpentine road for an hour-and-a-half or so, and we were there ->
Here we are at an altitude of 3000 meters ->
Not bad up here!
And the views are undeniably mountainous:
The hotels look pretty good. But I don’t know what they’re like inside as we didn’t venture into any.
The skiing infrastructure all looks good. The equipment’s more basic than in Europe, but then there are much fewer folks…
Actually, they’ve got it pretty good here near Santiago. Under two hours one way and you’re at an ocean resort (though the water’s pretty cold), and the other way you can go full-on skiing. Heck, I’m even a little jealous…
That morning the webcams showed bright sunshine and blue skies. Unfortunately, by the time we got there the skies were a bit cloudy…
Santiago is somewhere over there under the lower clouds.
And on the way back, during a short stop, we had three condors flying overhead! Beautiful bird. Pity it’s a scavenger…
Back in Santiago, it was still gloomy and drizzly.
But never mind – we had to be off on our way anyway for our next spot of business…
