I just had my first (half) day of snowboarding in Valle Nevado, and for the most part, it was fantastic! The scenery is amazing, the resort is friendly and pretty well organized, and both the weather and the snow were great — a beauiful crisp sunny day, with the temperatures warm enough to stay comfortable but cold enough not to mess up the snow. There was a huge storm earlier in the week apparently, which left deep powder off-piste and established the first decent base of the winter, so my timing is pretty good!

Not so good was the trip up here with Ski Total, the trip organizers — we were almost an hour late setting off (and I was sitting on the bus without having had breakfast or coffee, because it was too early when I left my hotel and there was nothing open near the ski shop), the half-hour drive from Santiago took 3.5 hours because of traffic and moronic snow-chain guys, and the rental board & boots I had were sh*t — I sent it all back with the bus this evening, and I´m gonna rent new stuff from the resort tomorrow morning.

Anyway, now I´m off to the bar for a bit of pre-dinner apres ski — I might have my free ¨welcome¨drink, a traditional Chilean concoction called a Pisco Sour. That´s about all I have time for, internet access is expensive here.