The boys are currently on winter break from school; they get two weeks off in between the first and second semesters. We wanted to make the most of this time off, so we spent the first week skiing in Nevado de Chillan, which is a ski resort about 6.5 hours south and a bit west of us. It's a 6 hour trip if you're in a car, but the van, now known as Don Diego, goes a bit slower than that. We renamed the van Don Diego after reading and LOVING this kids book which is about a Siamese cat who wants to be a Chihuahua. He has imaginary Chihuahua friends, one of which is Don Diego, "the biggest of the small ones." Another imaginary Chihuahua is Poquito Tito "the smallest of the small ones," so we've named Grandma and Grandpa's van that, since their van is much smaller than ours. Did I mention we now own two vans?? We're starting a collection, it seems. The second, smaller van is for Grandma and Grandpa to travel with us on our summer break camper van extravaganza down to Patagonia this coming Jan and Feb. So if anyone wants to visit us and borrow a van for your own explorations, we have a large and small model to chose from!
The night before we left, the parents of Emerson's class had a party to celebrate the end of the semester. The party started at 7pm, but most people didn't show up til 8pm. Drew and I were the first ones to leave at 12am. The party invitation had an end time of 1am, but who knows how long everyone stayed. I don't think I'll ever get used to these late nights here. A parent party in the US would start at 6pm, and most people would be moderately on time, and it would be over and done by 10pm. Asleep by 10:30pm.
We left Santiago on Saturday, July 12th at 9:30am; not a bad start considering our late night. There are ski resorts closer to us here in Santiago, but since we had the time to make a longer trip, we decided to go a bit further afield. We also were pseudo-traveling with another family who wanted to visit Chillan, so away we went. We basically drove 5 hours straight south on the main North-South highway called Highway 5.
That part of the drive was very lovely. It's mostly flat farmland with the Andes on the left. I loved seeing the farms with all sorts of different things: fruit trees, vineyards, and berry bushes were the most common. We then drove an hour and a half east towards the mountains.
I like seeing the 5 hours we drove south in the grand scheme of all of Chile, and we didn't make it very far. This country is so long.
We got to ski 3 days, Sunday, Monday, and Wednesday. The first day, Avery was a bit rusty, which is understandable as we hadn't skied in 18 months. We missed last winter's ski season in North America due to the move. His survival instincts kicked in, and on his first run he was inching his way down the bunny hill. But after 2 laps with Drew, he got his groove back. By the end of the first day, the boys were back to where they left off. On the second day, we got an all-day private lesson for the boys for $140, not too shabby. The goal was to get them started on parallel turns. Emerson made great strides. Avery has a bit more to go, but he isn't far behind. The resort was about the size of Monarch. Had enough beginner terrain to keep the boys occupied and a couple of blues. But at the top were all sorts of bowls above tree line that were great for advanced skiers. Some of the bowls weren't skiable yet due to not enough snow, as this was still kinda early in the season. They get most of their snow in August. But the views from the top were gorgeous. I got to ski the longest blue run in both North and South America, called Las Tres Marias which was 8 miles long. There were sections where I was completely alone for 10 minutes at a time; it was really nice.
Skiing while camping in a van is a bit interesting. I was worried we would have soaking wet ski clothes that wouldn't dry fast enough. But between the diesel heater and an indoor clothes line, we were able to make it work. It actually never got super cold, so we didn't even need to run the diesel heater at night, only in the mornings when we were getting up. I might have had a mountain of blankets on me, but who's counting. Boys slept ok, so we slept ok-minus. The van doesn't have a black water tank, so instead the pee goes into a jug you can pull out and empty. The poops go into a container with a bag (at least you're sitting down on a normalish toilet seat), that you then seal up and throw away. Which is fine in the daylight, but it's less fun at midnight when your kid has to go. For the most part we parked the van overnight in the driveway of the little cabaña our friends were renting. Which meant we got to take showers halfway through and have dinners at a normal sized table. So, while this was the longest stint we've had in the van so far, it was still camping-light, I'd say, due to the extra amenities we had access to. This summer will be a different story.
Our friends have two little dogs that the boys are in love with. We're definitely going to have to get a dog when this adventure is over.
On the drive back home to Santiago, we stopped at a restaurant for lunch. There are many roadside restaurants along Highway 5, and some are actually quite good. The best dish we had was cazuela, which is a soup with a hunk of roasted meat, corn, potatoes, pumpkin, and cilantro. It's very flavorful and hearty, the perfect winter dish, and something all visitors to Chile should try.
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