waiting for the bus... ready to ski!
Erasmo "stoked" on powder.
We made a last minute decision, post discussion with some fellow travelers at our hostel in Mendoza, to ditch our plans to attempt skiing at the nearby Los Penitentes and take an overnight bus to supposedly the biggest ski resort in the western hemisphere, Las Leñas. Nay nor I had packed for cold since the forecast had been pure summer weather. We arrived to Las Leñas early in the morning with nowhere to stay and only to find out the bus to where we had hoped to stay didn't leave till that evening. Nothing was going to open until 9am. I was wearing a summer dress, sweatshirt, leggings and these awful Christmas socks I was so thankful that I brought. We ended up riding the shuttle around, getting lots of stares and asking too many questions at expensive hotel lobbies just hoping not to get kicked out into the cold. There was a blizzard howling outside. We didn't get to ski that first day and the following day Brittany was feeling ill and Nay not entirely dying to hit the slopes. There was at least two feet of fresh powder and it was still snowing. Due to more complications with vouchers I had received from the hostel we didn't get on the hill to midday and our bus left at 4pm. It was some of the best ski conditions I have ever seen. Dry powder up to my knees. Erasmo and I were on the lift when we checked the time and realized we were cutting it too close. Seeing how our luck had been, I wouldn't have been surprised if we had missed the 20 hour bus we had to catch. The chair lift dipped a little lower a ways ahead, so we decided to jump off the lift into a huge mound of uncharted powder. It was well worth the adrenaline rush and we made it back in the knick of time!
