How are you all? I hope people have had a good weekend. Mine has been fun although not too relaxing. Yesterday I went with my boss, a coworker, and a lovely volunteer with 6 slightly wild children to the snow. We went to La Parva, a ski resort high up in the Andes. It's not far from Santiago, but the mountains are so steep you have to go up 45 switch back turns to get up there.
My day started when I woke up at 5:45 to get ready. I had to get to Puente Alto by 8am to pick up the kids. As I've mentioned before on my blog, One:One has a project called Saltamontes. The idea of Saltamontes is to provide English classes to low-income children who do not have access to English education. We are currently in the process of expanding Saltamontes which includes taking the kids on trips. None of the kids we took on the trip had ever been skiing and only one had ever been to the snow. It was cool to see how excited the kids were. They seemed to be totally shocked and amazed by every rock we passed. The screeching did get tiring, but it was worth it.
Between picking up the kids, getting clothes for them, renting equipment and all of the various traveling we didn't get onto the mountain until 2pm (when I used to ski as a kid we would be on the lifts as soon as they opened!). The kids took a lesson and we stuck around to help out. I only got in one real run but as you can see from my pics it was spring skiing... the snow was terrible and there wasn't much of it. So I don't really mind that I only got to do one proper run.
Anyways I'll stop blabbering on and on about my day and show you the pictures...
The view out my window just before I left the house at 7:00. It had rained the night before.
Snapped this horse-butt pic out the window of the van (which, BTW, was a terrifyingly tall van that I was sure would topple over on some of the curves). I tired to get a proper pic of the horse but I got my camera out too late. Also side note: there were tons of wild horses up in the mountains!
The view of the mountains as we made our (perilous) ascent up the mountain.
Isiadora. So cute!
A group shot with only some of the kids... that's me on the left.
Look! I skied in the Andes!
As you can see from this picture the snow was seriously dwindling. Despite that the view was still beautiful.
Overall it was a great day. The only problem is it makes me wish I'd actually taken advantage of the awesome mountains here. The runs are pretty great and there's actually powder when it's not spring. *Sigh* I suppose I'll just have to get back to consistent skiing when I'm in the states. The next two weeks should be interesting so I'll keep you guys updated!
XX
A
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