Border Crossings and North-Central Chile

Our trail up Argentina from Bariloche continued to Mendoza, Argentina and a great view of Mt. Aconcagua as we exited Argentina!

Aconcagua is the highest mountain in the Western hemisphere, and what an incredible sight to see as we exited Argentina and headed back into Chile!  We arrived too late to hike the lower trails in, so a view from below had to suffice this time.  We need to return for this big boy!

The border crossing road between Argentina and Chile is a crazy, winding road.  Crossing the Andes here is rated as one of the best drives in South America.  I have to agree!  The dry desert mountains loom all around and gradually grow into snow covered ranges.  In Argentina, we drove along a nice 4-lane highway, then we suddenly reached a sign that said “zona de curvas peligrosas” - dangerous curves, and we started to go DOWN, straight down. It was mesmerizing watching the cars zigzagging up the hairpin turns, seeing the white and red lights like tiny ants on the mountain below us. There were 28 curves in all and it took us almost 45 minutes to cover the 7km to the bottom.

Big Blue camped at the base of the curvy road.

Our friend, Ernesto, is a pilot who gets to fly the Dreamliner, and shared these aerial views of the Andes.  Beautiful!

WE MADE IT BACK TO SANTIAGO, JUST TO LEAVE FOR ARGENTINA AGAIN!
Buenos Aires seminar - The MEAT seminar at CrossFit EMOM!  Pablo and his partners treated us to a TRUE Argentinian BBQ in their home.  We learned that a true grilling virtuoso scrapes the fat of the meat with his knife, checking for texture and a certain sound that scraping makes, to know if it is done perfectly or not.  Alejandro is a virtuoso!  The man knows his meat and it was ARGENTINIAN BEST!

Puente de la Mujer (Spanish for "Women's Bridge") is a rotating footbridge crossing over the Rio de la Plata to Puerto Madero district. 

A wonderful care package arrived from home!  So many great things here!  We had a WONDERFUL evening tasting treats, reading messages, and feeling the love from home!

Back in Santiago, after a new set of tires and another weld-job to repair the broken back storage box, we waved good bye to Ernesto, our ever-helpful friend who we are eternally grateful to!

From Santiago, we head North to Copiapo and the Pacific Coast, seeing the giant mountains change to the sands of the desert.  The open land was such a change for our eyes, after the last couple of months of rain and jagged peaks slicing the sky!

We thought for sure that all our van troubles must be over after our final repair in Santiago.  But, we forgot to knock on wood! The van is so heavy, not even 4-wheel drive would plow through the sand, and gunning it in reverse served to slam it into a ditch and smash the tail pipe and knock the muffler loose!  Aaaargh!  Thank goodness for those functional leg movements Mike trains all the time - they helped him leg press the muffler back into place and pull the tail pipe away from the tire!

A peaceful night was spent camped out on the Pacific Ocean at Bahia Inglesia, watching the sun set over crashing waves.  And dolphins to welcome us to this beautiful place!

Time to do some work - so back to Santiago we fly!  Great weekend spent with Gabo and Pablo at CrossFit 1810!  Our Latin staff is awesome.  In character and bicep size!

The community that CrossFit is never ceases to warm my heart and get me excited all over again to teach another awesome group of people!

Northward to Antofogasta - Chile's second largest city and capital to the Atacama region.  It is a city full of one-way, gridlocked streets where there is more interesting graffiti and street performers at every light to entertain you while you wait in all that traffic.

Thankfully Antofogasta has muffler repair shops - but also lots or rules.  Sometimes it's hard to know what you CAN do around here!

We flew to Parana, Brazil to teach another seminar and had the pleasant surprise of a unique art installation welcoming us to the Antofogasta airport.

Brazilians helped us experience roasted hearts of palm, gymnastics work with the trainers, and an awesome seminar at CrossFit High Pulse!

To finish off this awesome month, we received exciting news from home!  Congratulations to Tara and Kevin on their engagement!!!!!  And NICE JOB on the ring choice, Kevin!  Couldn't have picked better myself!

See the entire North-Central Chile Photo Album HERE