Departure and Arrival

Everyone, including Mumble the penguin arrived safely, and we got some sleep on the overnight flight. Interestingly, you spend almost the entire flight over the Pacific (!) ocean, even though we are going east and moving forward one time zone.

All bags made it! Cleared customs and found our driver without any issues. On our way up, we stopped to buy some Chilean wine and some water - everyone had been drinking lots of water to prepare for a hotel at 9500 feet.

Stopped for a quick picture of Mount Aconcagua (highest mountain in the Americas). We hope to get a picture of us skiing with that in the background at Ski Arpa...

The drive up to Portillo was fun. Nice to leave the driving to someone else. Somewhere around 29 switchbacks I think with lots of trucks to pass - its the main trucking road to Argentina and even though they had stopped letting trucks up a while ago, they were still making their way up. Plenty of periods where we drove on the opposite side well past any "passing zone". Good thing Renee fell asleep, as she gets a little squeamish.

 As we waited for our room to be ready, we had lunch in the main dining room and met our waiters for the week. We selected the "early" seating - 12:30-1:30 lunch and 8:00-9:00 dinner.

Room was ready - fourth floor lake view with a balcony which affords an incredible view.

I was the only one that went out skiing after lunch - everyone else wanted some more time to adjust to the altitude and chose to go swimming and rest instead. I didn't take the camera, as it was solo and I was only "scoping" out the area so no pictures. I rode the smaller va-et-vient lift without issues. They wouldn't let me ride the Roca Jack lift solo as they claimed it was too likely I would be airborne (a fact assured to me by the story told by the ski instructor from Aspen that rode with me). Portillo has some good runs, but they need some more snow. Based on the forecast, we are going to be "stuck" to the current snow amount and be forced to enjoy bluebird days on more limited terrain. We knew when selecting Portillo as the first destination that the snow would be more iffy, but we opted to have our first week be the truly relaxing variety.

Tea time came next, and was proclaimed by Renee to be her favorite meal of the day. Most options were full of gluten though, so only good for Renee and Sara.

Pool and ping-pong in the rec center and a game of Jenga and Uno in the living area of the hotel was the result of our exploring the hotel. Far more "family time" than we normally spend together. We all made it to dinner, but Anna was starting to feel the effects of not eating substantially. We were all exhausted after dinner. I can attest that the Pisco Sours are quite strong, especially at 9500 feet! The national drink of Chile is quite tasty.

We all retired early. We have no set time to go skiing in the morning - which is a feat in itself for our family. But I did manage to capture a picture from our balcony of the groomers prepping the Plateau run.

Fun start to the vacation.