Day 7

Emily and I didn't end up going out with Kelly, Brandon and Cameron last night because we were way too tired. We just read for a bit and then slept instead. We had to get up way early in the morning anyway because today we went to the ANDES! Woot, woot! It was a really awesome day actually. Juan picked the group up bright and early at 8... this was our first outing without Jaime, but I must say it was very successful. A lot of people were very tired because they had been partying a bit the night before, so they fell asleep on the bus ride up. Emily and I were absolutely amazed by everything we saw. It was so crazy to be driving up through the mountains and go from green rolling hills with cacti, rivers and wild horses into snowy mountains. It was gorgeous. Once we got to the top we all piled off the bus, and all the skiers/snowboarders got their gear on. I was super excited to play in the snow and it was not even THAT cold up there, which was nice because I hadn't prepared for super cold weather. Brandon, Kelly, Emily and I waited for Cameron to get his snowboard gear on before we walked over to the lodge. Brandon knows how to snowboard too but he didn't want to re-injure his wrist that was healing and us girls just flat out did not know how to snowboard. There were good times to be had in the lodge, however. After getting settled into a table we got ourselves some hot chocolate and watched a couple episodes of The Office. (I'm sure by now you see that there's a trend in our recreational activities.) Kelly's computer eventually died and we were all pretty tired so we were just kind of hanging out, trying to see if we could see anyone from our group coming, or falling, down the mountain. Brandon and I both fell asleep for a little bit, me not nearly as long as him. When I woke up I found Emily and Kelly playing hangman so I joined in. People from our group came in and out, meeting up with us and asking us to hold their things for them. We eventually found Cameron and he joined us, as well as Jaideep, Alex M, Sam and the other Emily for lunch at a place that Juan reccommended to us. It was just down the road a little from where the bus was parked, and looked like a little house that had been converted in to a restaurant. We all had a choice of either steak or pork and we all got steak. With my steak I ordered potatoes and they were mashed which was great because I love mashed potatoes. The only thing that I didn't like about the meal was that it was a bit salty for my liking. After lunch Brandon, Emily, Kelly and I had snow playing time. We searched out the prefect place to make a snowman. It was so much fun!!! We kept fall knee deep in to the snow because it was really soft in some places, but luckily most of the time we were able to stay on top so we didn't get too wet or cold. Emily and Brandon made the base of the snow man, I made the middle, and Kelly made the head. Then we all contributed to making the snow blob in to a man by using almonds for the eyes, a bottle cap we found for a nose, sticks we found for a mouth and arms, Emily's scarf and my hat to complete it all! We won't lie... it was an awesome looking snowman. Of course playing in the snow would not be complete without snowball fights and those occured on several different occassions throughout the play time, including Brandon and Kelly throwing snowballs at just Emily while she rolled the base of the snowman and I took pictures of it all. ha! We love you Emi! We were also cool enough to make snow angels. We went two at a time, me and Emily, Brandon and Kelly so that the other two could take pictures. It was great fun, except our bums got a bit wet. Lucky for us being smart, Kelly, Emily and I brought extra pants to change in to. We also all had our gloves that we had bought when every one got fitted for their equipment at Juan's shop so our hands stayed warm. After our playing we went back to the lodge for another round of hot chocolate and The Office until it was time to leave. The ride back was just as beautiful as the ride up and once again Brandon, Kelly and Cameron fell asleep. Silly kids. When we got back from the mountains Kelly and Emily worked out and then that night we just made quesadillas and went up to the hot tub, which was really nice. It's on the very top of the building so you can see all the city lights, which was very cool. That night we all went out as a group, which was really fun. The only thing was that everyone goes out really late here so we didn't get back until 3 am! At the first place we went as a group I got a mango sour. It was happy hour (at 11 pm) and so we got 2 for 1 on all our drinks. From there, Brandon, Cameron, Kelly, Emily and I broke off from the group with Taylor and we went to another bar where there was a guy singing and we had another round of drinks. After that we decided to go back to the hotel where we just hung out for a bit. It was a very late night, but we had fun and it was a great ending to a fabulous day!