National Independence day, Long weekend! We headed to Pucón (www.pucononline.cl 8 hours south from Santiago, yet we had a big traffic jam that lasted more than 3hrs. 53.ooo cars left Santiago towards the south on Saturday) were you can find the Villarrica Volcanoe, beautiful forests of Araucarias and a wonderful lake. Rosario, Canoa, Jose, Pato, Joaquín and I went for 5 days in this beautiful region. We went to Hot Springs twice: 1) Alcamil 2)Termas de Panqui. This year had snowed so much, that the road to the hot springs was cut, so we walked an hour and arrived there. The prize was awesome, a thermal swimming pool just for us. Another day we went to the volcanoe and rented some long boards for the snow. We also went to some Fondas (typical folkloric parties) and danced some “cuecas” (typical folkloric dance)… 

Sunday morning, not easy to wake up at 8:00 on a Sunday morning but we did. We headed by car towards our known Cajón del Maipo (Maipo Valley, 2 hrs from Santiago Center). Raúl Valdés, Ignacio Torretti, Joaquín and I. We got by car next to embalse del yeso (running away from the guards that asked for a permit) we crossed and walked 3 hours through the snow until we arrived to Laguna Negra (2.700 mts over sea level), a beautiful spectacle. I was with rackets, Joaquín in Randoné (skis for walking) and the other guys with plastic boots for walking. This are the first pics of my new camera! The trip was awesome and tiring, last snow before springtime in Santiago.   

El “18″ (dieciocho”) de Septiembre is our national date, so some friends organized “el dieciocho chico” a small party in the cpuntry house of one of them, previous to the real one. There we played some traditional games like: Carrera de sacos (sac race) and a traditional costume competition, (where my sister won) and a “carrera a la Chilena” a Chilean Horse Back Riding Race. Barbecue, drinks, games…

El Roble is 2.222 mts. high. Located in the 5th region, close by to Santiago (Metropolitan Region), near to Rungue and Til Til (where they killed Manuel Rodríguez, historic character from Chile). Normally in this hill there is no snow, but this time it was. The hill is full of American Oaks, which are wondeful in Autumn, yet it was quite a nice spectacle with snow in this time of the year. The picture of the sunset reveals the Aconcagua, which rised upon the Andes Mountains Chord.

It took 2 hours from Santiago by car to get as far as we could into the “Cajón del Maipo” (Maipo Valley), very very close, we took that much because of the traffic jam. Then, as far as the snow let us, we parked the car. We picked up our skis (Randoné), our bagpacks and started trekking through the snow. It had just fell some days ago so it was like more than 1.5 meters deep. I carried the skis but I couldn’t wear them because my feet were to small for the fixations. Buuu, so I had to walk 6 hours (go and 6 back) through this deep snow. We were alone with the Condors up there. Normally this trail gets until some thermal waters in Summer, and people get there by car, but now with the snow was impossible. The good thing was that when we got there (2.400 mts. up in the mountains) we had this HOT SPRINGS just for us both! Incredible. (check www.andeshandbook.cl).

After it snowed in Santiago our capital (weird) we went to climb one of the hills close to my parent’s house. “El Pochoco”, 1.804 mts. It was nice to see the snowed city from high above (Santiago Center is at 550 mts. above the sealevel)!!!! This is just 20 minutes from my place, 5 from my parent´s.

Our first destination was “Parque Nacional Los Cipreses”, VI region (south from Santiago). Cool sites! But as we arrived, the guard told us that they had to do a “censo de guanacos” (census) !!! We had travelled like 3 hours just to realize that the park was close because of counting some animals. So…. we decided not to loose the trip and we went to Termas de Cauquenes, some hotsprings close by.

Yes, chileans look like this! Blonds and brunnettes. Bday de la Pepa, normal girlfriend’s meeting!! Aya, Seb, Chica, Xime, Pili, Magda, Ross and her future husband Scott from Scotland (no kidding). Dani came in late so I got no picture of her and Esther was in before with Andrea.

Here we went with Cristian (alias “canoa”), Raúl, and Joaquín near to Los Andes (the town) close to the frontier with Argentina to ski for the day. Portillo was great. It has a lagoon (Del Inca) and so many out of track to make. Just awesome.

Here the girl team “chimichurri” where I play with my sister Bernardita, my cousin Javiera and my friend designer Isidora. The team is cool and we’ve been doing a great job this semester. There are pictures of our coach, the great Ramon.