The concert, waiting, Zoe finds a practical way to hold three drinks and a bucket of popcorn, La Mala Rodriguez singing.

Photos of an action packed weekend

More companions at Los Canallas, Mercado Central, a very clear Cerro, Marja, Mattias and Renee eating lunch at Mercado Central, The chiquillas waiting for the doors of the concert to open.

Photos of an action packed weekend

More companions at Los Canallas, Mercado Central, A very clear Cerro, Marja Mattias and Renee eating lunch, The girlies waiting for the doors to open at the concert.

An action packed weekend

It was a weekend packed full of activities. On Friday evening I met Aranka, Marja and lots of other people to eat dinner at a restaurant called los Canallas which used to be the sort of left-wing resistance place during the years of the regime in Chile. It was pretty interesting with lots of notes and pictures on the walls from famous people. We ordered a plate of meat for four and could barely make a dent in it. It was kind of strange looking too and we weren't sure what some of it was. There were a couple of men playing the guitar and songs that all the Chileans knew and were singing along to and then they played a few that we outsiders knew so we could have a sing-along. Great fun and certainly didn't intend getting home at 2 a.m.!

On Saturday I met Marja, Renee and Mattias and we went to Patronato with the intention of going shopping for cheap clothes but in fact we ended up in Mercado Central having lunch. It all started with poor guidmanship or maybe we just couldn't decide who was the guide so we ended up on the wrong side of the road in the wrong place but finally got to Patronato. We walked through Patronato and decided that we were hungry so we took an extremely long detour to Mercado Central where fish and vegetables and stuff is sold. What is best for is its really cheap restaurants with good food. We finally settled on one restaurant and all hat Reinata (I think that's what it's called) which is a really delicious fish. We had to hurry on from there though because us girls had to go to the Sean Paul concert. Oh yes!

We got there at 5.30 ish which ended up far too early as the doors didn't open until 6. After a few spilled drinks and general clumsiness the doors opened and we went in...and straight to the toilets after all that water! Everyone else ran in to get a good place (we were in the standing part but not the front standing part.). We sauntered in and got the last good place without too much effort and proceeded to eat our very large tub of popcorn-yummy!-whilst we waited for the first act to come on. It was a good while before the first act came on but it was fun waiting anyway. We saw the Mala Rogriguez and Sean Paul who were both great. Sean Paul's dancers were the best though, he had some woman doing Jamaican style dance and we were all in awe. The concert finished about midnight and I said bye to Aranka as she was leaving for the North for two weeks and headed to bed.

I had to get up REALLY EARLY on Sunday to meet Marja and Renee to go to the ski hire place. We arrived just as they were opening their doors and just as the sun was showing signs of coming up. We spent a good while getting our skis fitted and trying on ski clothes to hire for the day and then all hopped in the bus for Colorado. We arrived at about nine-thirty and went to get our lift passes for the day. Unfortunately the incompetent ski company had fitted my skis wrong so I had to get them adjusted which was a pain but only a small hindrance.

The snow was great! There were no icy bits and the view was sensational. You couldn't really see Santiago as it was in a cloud of smog as always but I knew it was there. We stopped for hot chocolate (they call it Milo here) a few times because it was simply too cold to stay outside for long and the lifts were slow so we froze until we got to the top. One of my students told me that quite often a lot of people don't go skiing in June because it's too cold which explains why there weren't so many people around.

We decided at 4 that that was enough and we headed down to the bottom for more hot drinks. The bus collected us at 5 and we drove down the mountain in the sunset. Beautiful!

Is this flan?, the road back over the mountains to Chile, Zoe crosses the border back into Chile from Argentina.

The ski resort, doggies, Marja and Renee very excited about the snow, My food at lunch time.

Snow, Puente del Inca (Inca bridge), Marja throwing a snowball-Oi!

The signs for the toilets -feos (uglies) for the men's and lindas (lovelies) for the ladies, Our snow boots, Zoe doing and Argentinian women's pose next to the river of 'miracle water' and Marja and Renee on a bridge which they recon San Marin (who was part of the liberating of Argentina and Chile) crossed over on his was to Mendoza.

Mountains, Marja and Renee.

Mendoza

I decided at the last minute to pop over the mountains to Mendoza. Sometimes in the winter people get stuck at the border because of too much snow but good weather was predicted for the weekend so I thought I'd take a risk.

The journey was amazing. We went right over the Andes and they were all covered in snow and everything. It took about seven hours and I arrived in Mendoza on Saturday evening.

The hostel was basic but really nice with its own bar, a big kitchen, breakfast included (with fruit! Very rare for hostel food) and a nice atmosphere. I think that only two of the dormitories were actually being used so it was relatively empty.

Marja and her friend Renee were also there and I managed to get put in the same dorm as them and we decided to take a trip on Sunday up to the mountains. We went to Puente del Inca and enjoyed the fact that it was snowing. We had a snowball fight although the snow was quite hard so it was a half speed snow fight but still fun.

We went to a ski resort which hadn't quite opened for lunch. There were people walking up the slopes in their ski boots and skiing down even though the lifts hadn't started working.

On Monday I headed back to Chile through the beautiful mountains which never fail to take my breath away and got a new tourist visa stamp in my passport so that I can be here for a bit longer.

I met a father and daughter from Toronto who were great fun to talk to and we compared Argentina and Chile and the different words and grammar that they have. Very geeky I know but enjoyable.