* Updated information from my 2005 trip is available at www.geocities.com/delavenir/update2005.htm
I created this web page because, when I was planning my ski trip to Chile, I couldn't find much detailed information to help guide me.
The bottom line: A terrific ski vacation, more doable and more reasonably-priced than one might think.
The basic trip: A week skiing in Chile in August, 2003 at 3 ski resorts clustered together just outside of Santiago, staying above the clouds at the Hotel Posada de Farellones. The resorts were El Colorado, La Parva, and Valle Nevado.
The details:
Flight: We bought consolidator tickets on Aerolineas Argentinas for $630 per person, round-trip JFK to Santiago. I bought them from Travelhub.com, but discovered later that I could have bought the same tickets for $100 per ticket cheaper from abstravel.com.
Hotel: We loved the Hotel Posada de Farellones, located near the ski resorts up in the Andes. Even my teenage sons loved it. It's an attractive ski lodge with the nicest, most wonderful staff: it was really interesting to see people from a culture that seems very different and a whole lot nicer than our own. The rooms are comfortable, somewhat rustic, but quite pleasant. Walls are thin, and you may want to bring earplugs for sleeping, although the hotel was generally very quiet. If you're looking for nightlife and partying, you and everyone else will be happiest if you go elsewhere. Lodging includes breakfast and dinner. The food ranged from good to truly delicious, and the food at dinner would best be described as Continental. We paid $189/night for the three of us in a triple room, which was an excellent value. (I got a 10% discount for booking before May). The hotel has a terrific view of the setting sun over the mountains, valleys, and clouds below. The other guests were from all over the world and generally a very congenial group. The hotel provides free transportation to El Colorado and La Parva; they can arrange transportation to Valle Nevado through SkiTotal at $10 per person round-trip.
The hotel has Spanish-language television in every room, with a main lounge that gets satellite TV (with both Spanish-language and American programming) and also has a Nintendo 64. The rooms had little lockable strongboxes, which I appreciated.
The only other place I saw up in the mountains that I'd consider staying at would be at Valle Nevado itself, which was definitely an upscale resort, with big outdoor hot tub, restaurants, stores, etc. There were lots of Americans staying there, and it felt to me to be sort of a golden ghetto. If you're looking for the luxury option, this is the place for you. I saw a number of other housekeeping apartments in the little resort villages, which is the kind of place I like to stay, but I can't see how you'd make it work there: I didn't see any grocery stores or food markets at all. Other than the stores at the resorts, and one or two ski equipment rental stores, I didn't see any stores in the mountains at all. Fortunately, each of the three resorts has an ATM machine.
The resorts: While the idea of skiing in the Andes brought up visions of plunging off cliffs, the resorts are actually pretty modest in their difficulty level. Also, don't be deceived by the figures on their acreage, which makes them sound vast; they're not. By US standards, El Colorado is on the small side, and La Parva and Valle Nevado are medium-sized resorts. The resorts are high up in the Andes, but they don't have the big-vertical trails like Snowbird or Alta in the US. From the hotel, it was easy to alternate between the different resorts over the week; if we had skied at only one, it would have quickly gotten boring. Two days at each was just right. Each resort has four chairlifts, and the rest of the lifts are platter lifts (you put a metal tube with a plate on the end between your legs, and sit back on the plate - you get used to it; it's OK).
Lift tickets are downright cheap, compared to the US - about $20 per person per day. The cafeterias typically served hamburgers, grilled chicken sandwiches, churrasco sandwiches (minute steak), barros jarpa (ham and cheese). Prices, by US ski resort standards, are quite reasonable.
Valle Nevado is the resort with the most spectacular setting. It has some snowmaking, and you can do a fair amount of skiing while staying on the chairlifts. Lots of Americans. La Parva has no snowmaking, and use of the platter lifts is more necessary. I read some claim that El Colorado has the largest skiable area in South America or something - I don't know how they measure it, but that is deceptive. El Colorado is a fairly small resort. It has good snowmaking on the easy trails, but it is definitely a smaller, easier place. That said, I had fun there (but I like easy skiing!)
Unfortunately, this winter was a poor snow winter in this part of Chile. They had gone for weeks without fresh snow. Since La Parva has no snowmaking, it ended up with the worst conditions - icy crud.
The road: The road from Santiago up to the resorts has strange directional rules that I couldn't figure out. It seemed like it was up only, from 8 AM to 2 PM and down only from 4 PM to 8 PM, but I don't think I understood it correctly, and I heard that maybe it only applied on weekends and holidays anyway. The importance of this is that if you fly into Santiago in the afternoon, you may not be able to travel up to the hotel until after 8 PM, etc. So check on this when you're planning your trip. I had the hotel arrange airport transfers, $65 each way. I compared this with prices from other companies online and this was a good rate.
Car rental: I always rent my own car, but you'd have to be nuts to rent a car and drive in the Andes here. The road to Farellones from Santiago is narrow and has 40 (numbered!) hairpin turns, with sheer cliffs on one side as one goes higher up. As if to hammer the point home, many of the turns bear a billboard selling life insurance (I'm not kidding). Even though it wasn't snowy, on some of the mornings, there were ice patches on the roads. One morning, we passed a car that had completely flipped over. As if that weren't enough, a woman I met told me that last year, there was so much snow over a few days that avalanches took out sections of the road. I was quite happy to have other people drive me. (I hope this doesn't scare people off. Except for those moments on icy roads, I felt extremely safe here - more safe than I feel in suburban New Jersey.)
Water: Our hotel manager said that the water was safe to drink, but that our systems might not be used to it, so we drank only bottled or purified water. I brought along an extremely handy Exstream water purifier bottle - you just fill it up and it purifies the water as you drink. It was very convenient - much better than having to keep a supply of bottled water in the hotel room. We all managed to avoid serious traveler's intestinal distress.
Safety: I felt completely safe in the mountains. I did not see or experience anything that threatened me. The people are extremely nice, and I didn't even experience any rudeness (wish I could say that about US ski resorts!)
Santiago: We spent a little time in Santiago only because we had a day to kill before our return flight. I'd encourage people to give themselves permission to skip it. It was OK - lots of stores and street vendors, but it is not particularly picturesque or interesting. Our driver had warned us to stay out of downtown because of the pickpockets and, sure enough, I did somehow manage to lose my car keys, and my son's backpack got unzipped.
Language: You have to be adventurous about traveling to a place where many people speak no English. I got my first inkling of this in JFK airport, when Aerolineas Argentinas made all announcements in Spanish only - no English. While the manager at the Hotel Posada de Farellones spoke perfect English, and the occasional person here or there did, most people spoke only Spanish. I enjoyed the adventure of trying to communicate, though, since I never learned Spanish and had to pick a little up as I went along.
Entry and exit: As of August, 2003, Chile charges every US citizen $100 (US) to enter the country, payable in cash or traveler's checks. On exit, each person must pay a $26 airport tax.
