Horizontal sand and squeaky snow...

As the title implies it has been a contrasting week. Most of it was spent up near Antofagasta in Chile, the dry north, add to that some altitude and it becomes the harsh dry north. A frontal system swept its way through Chile during the week bringing winds and freezing conditions to the otherwise dry desert. Needless to say I have ingested more than my RDA of dust these last days.

There is not a lot to see in Antofagasta, so this ranks amongst the must sees - La Portada













About halfway to Argentina, lots of nothingness. It has its own kind of beauty.

Won't complain about the front though, the cold fingers were worth the snow that awaited in Santiago. Even Manquehue, a comparitively low hill in the suburbs had a light dusting... nice! Needless to say skiing called once again, but being the last weekend of school holidays we decided against the trip up the hill to Farellones (Friday saw a 3 hour traffic jam to get up there) and opted for the more exclusive Portillo again. Squeaky cold snow, magic.

The view looking out over the lake, in two weeks it has done quite a bit of freezing. Will soon be able to skate.

















View from Tio Bob's lunch spot (hmmm a bit of a gramatical mix of Spanish and English, can I do that? You know what I mean though...)






















That burried thing is Tio Bob's, we had to venture inside when the wind picked up, a forecast maximum of 1 ˚C was plenty optimistic
















So optimistic the 10 minutes outside saw our tomoatoes freeze, how about we finish this inside.

















The view from snowed in Tio Bob's, quite festive inside, awesome spot for a party! By the way, the wine really helps the skiing ;)






















One of the longer runs at Portillo actually passes over the national road to Argentina, the lift back up is quite hairy... quite weird passing over all the poor sods that have been stuck on the wrong side of the mountain the past week. The pass had just been opened again, hence all the trucks crawling their freight across the border. On the way home we passed at least 30 km of trucks queued up at the carabineros check point.

















At least the slow drive home gave us the oportunity to take in the beautiful light that the sunset brought with it.





















A spray of soft powder snow while you recover from your tumble... that's what I wish you this week.