First run through Chile

I've been here for 3 days, so time for a run.  I decided to go to Parque Metropolitano, which is basically a small mountain/large hill in north central Santiago with a San Cristobal statue at the top.  There are supposed to be a lot of trails, so that has my name on it.  There is a road that leads you in and it doesn't take long to see some trails.  I would soon find these are not your average trails - very steep, rocky, muddy, and nearly impossible to run.  There was a sign that indicated no bikes, but shortly into the trail I met up with 4 mountain bikes. (you can double click the pictures to zoom)

 On my best day at age 16 you wouldn't catch me on these trails with a bike.  Switchbacks, washouts, and cliffs to fall off.  After about 5 minutes it was time to go back down to a paved road...feels like a retreat, but hopefully I'll find trails more conducive to running when I try a different route in a few days. This next picture the trail takes a hard left in the center...it is washed out and basically a switchback downhill.

The reason that I went up the trails was that I wanted to get a picture of Santiago with the Andes in the background.  Today was the clearest day so far, so I wanted to take advantage of the weather and brought a GoPro with me.

Once back on the paved road I soon came across a familiar smell.  Yep, made it to the zoo.  It was time to get back to the apartment and make a Skype with Lauri and Seth.  At the entrance area to the zoo were a bunch of the mountain bike riders.  The thing is that most of them seemed to be roughly 30's and 40's, yet here they were on these crazy trails.  Someone in the States would think they were the best mountain biker in the world yet here they are all nonchalant.

end of post.