Mountain Resort!

Yesterday... Saturday, August 23, 2008, the COPA program took all of the students who wanted to go to a Mountain Resort called Hacienda Santa Martina. The resort, about a half hour up the mountains from Santiago, is absolutely amazing. Its a lot like a country club where wealthy Chileans pay 5,000 dollars a season to be a member. The resort has pools, hot tubs, tennis courts, basketball courts, a gym, exercise classes, saunas, massages, etc.

I first went to the locker room, which was interesting because everyone was quite... "free" if you know what I mean. Everyone really treated this place as a sanctuary and donned their birthday suits whenever they could. I got ready to spend the day at the resort by changing into my workout gear. They had a scale at the resort and I got on and I thought it was broken because it said that I was 25 pounds lighter then when I left the United States. I told the guys from my group and they tried the scale and said it was right for them. So in other words in the last (almost) 2 months, I have lost 25 pounds. I was quite pleased, I need to keep up whatever I am doing... I guess. I spent a little bit of time in the gym and then I went to a spinning class (cycling class) with some of the other people from my group. Spinning classes are where you are on a stationary bicycle, there is music, and a trainer who tells you how fast to go, how much tension to put on your bike, and pushes you to work harder and stay on beat with the music. If you know me very well you can assume that the instructor was often telling me to work harder and I was always off beat, so he kept trying to get me on beat... which didn't turn out to well in the long run.

After spinning class, I took a shower in the locker room ---- which was amazing. They had extremely hot water (a luxury I don't have at my host family's home) and really good pressure. It was fantastic. Afterward, I got dressed and went down to the restaurant where COPA had paid for a buffet lunch for us --- that was to die for. I had a plate full of some of the best food I have eaten here in Chile. Then we got to go to the dessert bar, which also had fantastic deserts, I had a little bit of a lot of them because they all looked so good. So much for losing 25 pounds. I am lucky this is the only dessert bar they had had on my trip and probably my last. :)
The best was the tres leches cake. I really want to learn how to make it so I can share it with people at home.

After lunch, I changed into my swim trunks and went with the group to the hot tub. I spent the entire afternoon in the hot tub. It was so relaxing and wonderful. The only bad part was that a dense fog had plagued the mountain side resort all day. So we could not see any of the views. We were lucky though because later on in the afternoon the fog began to break and we could see all of the amazing mountains that surrounded us. It was beautiful and stunning. After the hot tub, I took another shower and got ready to go home. It was a wonderful day and so relaxing!