Close to Santiago? MUST CHECK OUT FARELLONES!!!!!
 

I rhode from Alaska to Chile last year and I can't even begin to tell you how many amazing roades and beautiful places I managed to see. But there is one place in particular I fell that every tour rider must know about. Farellones Chile is a small mountain ski resort town just 35klm outside, (above) Santiago. It was the original ski mountain in Chile but since there are now three huge ski resorts here. Colorado, La Parva, and Valle Nevado. But Farellones is still at the base and literally in the center of it all. During the winter time the place is Crawling with skiers from around the world making it nearly impossible to find housing. But during the summer time it is almost a ghost town as summer tourism is yet to really catch on here making it extreemly easy to find accomodation in this beautiful little town. The road there is one of the funnest most beautiful drives we did on our entire trip. The road begins winding up the bottom of the canyon from Santiago along side the Rio Molena river. Anyone who knows about riding knows roadss that wind along rivers are not only beautiful, but fun. This continues for approx 20-30 min. before you hit the turn to actually head up the mountain towards Farellones. This is where the real fun begins. The 40 horse shoe curves then begin and you start climbing approx 1500 meters from bottom to top. Once you arrive at Farellones and look back you will be absolutely amazed by the view not only of the city of 6 million off in the distance below you, but also at the sight of the road you just came up. We had originally come here for the reason the couple we were riding with needed to do some maintinance on their bikes and needed to go to the city. We on the other hand decided that since we needed nothing from the city we would head into the mountains where storing a bike is usually much easier and less stess full. And in fact it was. Once arriving at Farellones we saw a local store there called ECO ROUTES. The people there not only spoke spanish but english and they had a refuge right there that they rented us for the night. We had no idea what we were in for. The refuge was not only beautiful but it consisted of a modern day jacuzzi out on the deck where we sat and watched one of the most beautiful sunsets of our entire trip. The next day we contacted our friends in Santiago and persuaded them to make the trip up the mountain. What was originally supposed to be a one night in the mountains soon turned into a one month long living in the refuge in the mountains. We did a over night horse back ride tour to the base of a glacier, rented four wheelers and cruised around the mountains, did some rock climbing at the local rock wall and spent countless hours photographing the Condors and sunsets that constantly filled the skies. Another wonderful thing about this place is it is so small that we left our bikes untouched right out front the entire time we stayed here except the occasional trip back down the mountain for groceries. But sometimes we just did it for the ride. This place is absolutely stunning and I think that everyone traveling this way owes it to themselves not to miss this one.

There are several Hotels and people willing to rent our refuges, feel free to e-mail me if you would like more info. Here are a few pics from our stay.

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