Karolina Wisniewska

Sunday, August 16th: Left home yesterday to fly to Santiago, Chile (through Toronto). We arrived in Santiago today and drove up to Valle Nevado where we'll be training for the next 2 weeks. I'm so excited!!
The drive up wasn't nearly as long as the one we had 2 years ago when we trained at Termas de Chillan, but the increase in elevation was substantial. We drove along a beautiful mountain road with switchback after switchback. First, we saw cacti - which is funny when you're going skiing. Then, we saw cactii with snow on their tops. Then we saw some hearty horses, just standing around knee deep in snow. Our bus driver put on some chains and we made it to the hotel at the bottom of the resort where we'll be staying. We are well above 3000 meters in altitude here and the sun is incredibly bright, and brighter still for reflecting off the snow. Now it's bedtime, but we're still waiting for all of our skis and luggage to arrive as they were on a different vehicle that, apparently, missed the cut off time for access up the mountain road. Still, everything looks great and we're all stoked to be here. Should be a great camp!!