Donde esta Lopez? La Venta de Garaje Señor!

As we were waking up yesterday morning, Dad and I came to notice a rather strange scene taking place outside the window of our room. About to board the bunny hill Poma lift were roughly 40 soldiers of the Chilean Army. Apparently their mountain division is stationed right down the road from the hotel and they use the resort to practice their winter-oriented tactical maneuvers. What tactical maneuvers you may ask? Well we’re not quite sure.

It seems that the majority of the men have spent more time in the heat of battle than they have on snow. If you haven’t been reading up on your Chilean war history, the last time Las Rojas were engaged in any sort of military campaign was during the War of the Pacific when they took on mighty Peru and Bolivia. Seeing as that took place nearly 130 years ago you can only imagine how deft Private Lopez and Corporal Suarez are on skis. The puzzled faces of the men, who were clearly out of their element (whatever that may be), came to resemble the same look you might expect on the face of a confused Aborigine who had just been hit with a snowball. Watching their trip down the mountain was a lot like being at an orthodox Bar Mitzvah: painful, slow and unintentionally hilarious. The men would slither down the hill in anatomically impossible positions while creating quite a stir amongst the others on the bunny hill, many of whom apparently took great pride in the fact that they were far better skiers than the members of the Chilean Army’s not-so-elite ski division.

What only added to the comedy were the silly outfits the men were wearing. Not the standard-issue Baghdad tan, beige and brown camoflauge or even the logical choice of the Soviet-era white, gray and black ensemble. No, the Chilean Army’s ski division prefers to wear the Vietnam style green, black and brown fatigues which doesn’t exacly mesh with the natural surroundings. While this may connote a more standard millitary presence, it manages to promote the complete antithesis of its job which is to allow its wearer to blend in with its environment. I haven’t seen a tree (let alone a jungle) since we took off from Miami so that either there was a mix up at the uniform supply company or the elite Chilean jungle commandos are parading around the Atacama desert wearing winter boots, white parkas and ski goggles.

The final question I had was the exact nature of their business on the ski mountain. I haven’t seen skis used in battle since the opening scene of the ‘The Spy Who Loved Me’ when James Bond, played by Roger Moore, deftly escaped his enemies on skis by launching himself off of a cliff. But what is the point? Is this some secret weapon the Chileans plan on using to stage a campaign of alpine terror against neighboring Argentina? Perhaps Chile plans on using their army skiers to demonstrate their capabilities as a very skinny and often overlooked country? Perhaps they serve the same purpose as the Blue Angels; constantly performing in front of dumbfounded civilians who think to themselves “Hey, I can look like an idiot and side slip down a mountain too!”? Whatever the case may be both Dad and I find it terribly humorous and have decided that if we were Chilean tax payers there would have to be some explaining to do.