Santiago

My first week in Chile has been amazing! I’ve hiked, rode horses, danced at Lalapooloza, salsa danced, white water rafted and drank Chilean wine! The first 3 days I was in Santiago. I stayed at a really fun hostel and met loads of music junkies that came into town for Lalapooloza. The festival was great! I was very impressed with the stage set-up, sound and overall organization that comes with 55,000 attendees. I saw Thievery Corp, Pretty Lights, Skrillex, Above and Beyond, Band of Horses, Foo Fighters, Crystal Method, Arctic Monkeys, Calvin Harris, Friendly Fires. There were people from N. America, S. America, Europe, Israel, Australia and many more...
Santiago is a big city, that doesn’t shut down til 4 or 5 am. It’s relatively safe and there are tons of bars with sidewalk tables everywhere for drinking/eating. It’s a very westernized city but with that comes the prices. It’s not cheap. I found it very comparable, if not more, than SF.

Once the festival was over, I rode up with my friend Nico to the mountains. He lives in a “Tahoe cabin” like house. We are at 3500 ft elevation here, so not too high. It’s still clear, sunny skies and the temp is in the 80s. It’s perfect. The town is the smallest town I’ve ever been in. There’s literally 3 stores, one for booze, one for fruit/veggies and one for canned goods. There’s a tiny park and school and that’s it. There’s a few bed and breakfasts/cabins for weekend dwellers. His family owns a huge resort called “Cascada de las Animas” or “Waterfall of the Spirits”. It’s spectacular! There are activities everyday, including zip line, rafting, horseback riding, waterfall hikes, swimming, hot tub, hot springs, restaurant and beautiful cabins. I’m more than impressed at how lovely it is. The mountains here blow Tahoe away, and I’m in love with Tahoe...

My friend has been really busy and works a ton, so he basically gave me his house and all the activities I want to do and said “Have fun”. So I’ve been enjoying my alone time with nature. I’ve been doing yoga outside, making home cooked meals, as well as eating at the amazing restaurant right on the river. The mountains that jet up from the river are at least 1000ft above. The mountain range goes on forever.

Yesterday, I walked down to the trail to hike all the way up to the vista point. It takes about 75 min to get to the top. Well, it’s extremely dusty and dry here (it’s their autumn season and still hasn’t rained). The weather is a LOT like Northern CA. But the dust is really bad. The trail was steep and rocky. I was having a hard time walking up and thought walking down was even going to be trickier. But once I made it up there, the sights were worth it! I’ve never seen mountains like this before. A man with a horse rode up behind me. I told him, in my broken Spanish, that it must be way easier on a horse. He said that I can ride it back down, if I wanted to. Well, that sounds like fun! So we saddled up another horse, and took 3 more down carrying loads of food for the animals on their backs. I was in the back, and eating dust as now I had 4 horses and a dog walking in front of me. I noticed the horses were even having a hard time with the terrain, as they were slipping too. Great. I thought the horses would be steady as a rock going down. I was wrong. As we got to the very narrow, slippery cliff area, I noticed the ground falling away from the under the horses legs. They were all up in each others’ asses, so I pulled my horse’s rains to stop, but instead he moved even closer to the left edge. His two left side legs were giving out under the ground. I screamed, which of course is the wrong thing do to around horses. The guide shushed me and I had a look of terror on my face. I said “No mas, tengo miedo”. Which means I’m scared shitless! Luckily the horse didn’t want to fall either and made it back up on the trail, I got off and walked him down the rest of the way. It’s way more safe to be on the ground walking down a cliff than to trust a damn horse and be 10 feet higher in the air. No thank you!

After, I made it down, I was completely covered in dust and went straight for the restaurant to order an amazing lunch and glass of wine. Man, I love Chile. Even though I wont’ be riding horses any more, I truly believe that it is an outdoor enthusiast’s paradise! I’m going to keep my feet on the ground today, oh except to try the zip line! ;)