We headed from Valpo to hit up the hotchot ski resort Portillo. Its the place where all the richies go when the seasons in, though since it is summer, it isn't at all. We had seen on their websit there might be some hiking and kyaking opportunities so we figured it was worth checking out, especially since it sits smack dab in the middle of the highest mountains in the americas.
After a long fairly heavy traffic drive we started up the last strech into the mountains. I had said earlier I wanted to drive some serious mountain roads, and let me tell you, drive them we did. I've never been, and probably won't ever be on more twisty mountain side roads again. It was incredibly cool, et fairly unnearving at the same time. There are no guardrails anywhere, and the corners are a full 180 degrees. Anyone with any real fear of hights would be having panic attacks the whole time for sure.
We finally got to portillo, expecting a Whistler or maybe Tremblant type atmosphere. What we got was less impressive then Chicopee quite honestly. I imagine covered in snow and ice the place would be gorgeous, but a barren dessert with a subpar hotel thats basically not even open, just wasn{t doing it for us so we decided we wouldn't stay for the night. We did however get some amazing photos, of a glacial lake right nearby and the snow caps of the massive mountains, so the drive was definately worth it.
We headed back down and into Los Andes, and found the "thermas" which are basically the Chilean verrsion of onsens. Natural springs used in a quite luxurious, mulit bath with multi temperature resort. It was expensive as balls compared to what we were used to, but afte calculations, it was about half what it would cost at home. Basically everything here is exactly half as expensive as in canada.
We hung out in the baths and got ultra relaxed for an hour, let the water from the massaging manmade waterfalls massage our necks and rid us of the mountainroad tension. We also got awsome mexican wrestling masks (aka lycra bathing caps) that we were allowed to keep, and will be bringing home for video making purposes.
We had a filet mignon dinner, a bottle of wine, and went to bed and had a glorious rest. Then headed for some more Thermas, halfway between Los Andes and Santiago. We'll be home Friday in the early morning, So I expect something going on Friday night, ya{ll better recognise.
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