Santa Cruz, Siete Tazas and Tarantulas

We had an awesome weekend. Friday we spent some time in Santa Cruz, a small city a couple of hundred kilometers south from Santiago. It is a traditional town known mainly for its crafts and wines. Saturday morning, we spent our time like proper tourist wandering the handcraft markets.

Then we moved on to Parque Nacional Siete Tazas. A natural reserve where the Claro de Molina river starts. The reserve is beautiful, it has native forests and the river valley is well worth a visit (pictures are often better than descriptions!)

Camino Farellones - by bike

One of the tourist attractions of Santiago are the ski resourts in the Cordillera east of town. At this time of the year, of course, they are pretty dead and ugly, i.e. ski lifts dotting a dusty hillside next to a couple of ghost towns. There isn't a lot of traffic going to and from, which in turn means the road leading there has become a reasonably popular bike challenge.