Inside the Yellow Hotel

There’s a brilliant yellow hotel hidden in the Chilean Andes, shadowed by Aconcagua. A two-hour, 30-switchback ascent from Santiago toward the Argentine border delivers you to Hotel Portillo at 9,500 feet. On Saturday, jet-lagged travelers arrive and goggle-tanned guests depart through the heavy glass front door with all their gear. The chaos in the lobby is overwhelming.
Rooms are clean, but dorm-room sparse. The only television is in the discotheque. A small bar serves local Escudo beer and rocks a South American beat. In the lounge, a roaring fire invites you to relax and enjoy a Pisco Sour. Old ski movies reel in the cinema. The dining room has crisp linens, worn leather chairs and gourmet meals with drinking water supplied from the adjacent lake. Ski technicians tune equipment in the shop for the new guests. Radska, the slobbery Saint Bernard greets everyone on the patio.
We skied for days on powder snow in the sunshine. On one of our last runs, a leathery tan-faced ski patroller pointed out a majestic Andean condor soaring above. “Snow’s coming” he said watching the omen float above the tor. Indeed it did. An epic three-day storm slaughtered us with 100mph wind gusts and trapped us in the golden hotel.
Our August ski adventure in the Southern Hemisphere was turned outside in.
We hunkered inside, suddenly immersed with 450 guests. The murmuring of several different languages could be heard in the lounge. In the gym, the kids started a pick-up game of soccer and their laughter echoed down the hall. We played board games with a French Quebec family. Austrian Olympic medalists lifted weights alongside us and signed autographs. We watched an intense ping pong match between European ski team coaches. One afternoon our game of pool became a mini tournament with a ski racing Polish family. Children giggled and roamed the yellow submarine, busy on an English/Spanish scavenger hunt. Donning clown noses and singing “Feliz Cumpleaños”, the wait staff celebrated our birthdays and proudly shared pictures of their own children. The bronzed pool guy would toss pesos in the swimming pool for the kids to retrieve. We weathered the storm together.
When the skies cleared, we had thigh deep powder and sun. The yellow hotel became our beacon as we traversed one line over to ski freshies all day.
With tan faces, we departed knowing it’s what we found inside this hidden gem that makes it special: New Friends.