Saying goodbye under a blanket of snow and fun

Hello everyone! I think this will be my last - or almost last? - post. I don't want to think about it too much because it feels a bit weird. Weird in a sad kind of way. So I will just crack on and tell you a bit about our last week in Chile.

Throughout the whole of our trip, we've hardly touched snow! So with a week or so left in our trip (yes, I could hardly believe it myself that there was only one week left) that was about to change. We wanted to finish the trip by doing something special, something we haven't done so far, something that will take away the sadness of the trip finishing. And this is exactly what we did...

We went skiing in the south of Chile, in an area called Reserva Nacional Malalcahuello! This is the furthest south in South America we've been and very different to anywhere else in our trip. The reserve includes big forested areas with araucaria trees and big volcanic mountains covered in snow. And of course, snow means skiing, and Ismene and me were very keen to try skiing out again. You see, we've skied once before in Austria, over two and a half years ago (hello Nefeli, Theodora and Alex :)) but, back then, we only learnt the basics. So we were really excited when we heard we were going skiing and really couldn't wait to get on the slope. Other than skiing, we were also really excited for snow because it would be the first time we could snowball each other for a whole year!⛄

Ioanna and Dan made it even more special by choosing somewhere pretty amazing for us to stay: a big, wooden cabin hidden in the woods with a roaring fire which was on all day long. We even had a moonlit swim in the hot tub outside the cabin one night. Cold outside but, oh so warm inside the tub!! There was also a friendly dog around our cabin who we played with every day. One night, we even let him in the cabin for extra cuddles, he enjoyed sleeping by the fire and we enjoyed the cuddles.

But the highlight of the week was to be up in the ski station and skiing again! We were incredibly lucky as on our first night there, it snowed, something that hadn’t happened in the area in a while. That meant we had a fresh piste to ski on! 

On our first day, we had a very nice instructor, called Tom, who really helped revive what we learnt in Austria. By the end of the day, me and Ismene, were both turning well in snowplough, the basic turning position for beginners. Our second day skiing was also great fun as our teacher taught us how to ski backwards! It was something I thought I'd never be able to do! I enjoyed the second day even more because everything we learnt so far had been brought back to us and we felt such a joy in the feeling of the wind whistling past our faces. On our last day on the slopes, I managed to do parallel turns, where instead of turning in snowplough, you turn with your skis parallel. This is of course how most people turn when skiing but it made me really happy as I had been trying since our second day to do it! Ismene also managed to do a parallel turn although not as sharply as I did mine and apparently it was all done by accident.

But apart from the fun of skiing, I loved being in that part of Chile. It was just magical! We went for several walks on the day we didn't ski, and marvelled at how beautiful and exotic the araucanía (monkey puzzle) trees looked in the snow. It honestly looked like a winter wonderland all covered in snow. We played about in the snow, snowballing each other and messing around. We saw some incredibly old araucanía trees, and I wondered if it was called monkey puzzle because the bark was in pieces shaped like octagons or because the leaves were so spiky!

We learnt afterwards that the araucanía is the national tree of Chile and an evergreen tree.  The araucania has a thick cracked trunk and pointy, scaly branches. It has a beautiful silhouette and can reach 50 meters in height. It dates back 240 million years and is an extremely slow growing tree; we read that there are some trees in the area that are older than 1,600 years! Even though it looks similar to the pine tree, it actually belongs to the Araucariaceae family instead. The Pehuenche (indigenous people of Chile) base their diet on its pine nut, an edible seed. The araucanía reaches the ages at which it produces fruit at 100 years, so I guess there is plenty of food for the natives to eat.

We have a few very busy (and boring?) days in Santiago sorting things out before we fly back home, but I want to cherish these last few days and remind myself how lucky we've been. It's been an amazing year, and although I feel ready to go back home, I am going to miss so many things and so many places and so many people.