Cajon del Maipo - a hike from Banos Morales

Last weekend we took a trip into Cajon del Maipo, the beautiful river valley which can be reached very quickly from Santiago by bus. This weekend we decided to head back with a group of friends and go hiking. This time we took the bus as far as possible into the canyon to a small village called Banos Morales - named for a couple of tanked pools fed by natural hot springs. East of here there is only mountains and Argentina. We didn't come here to bathe though, about 2200 metres up, we came to trek!

the crew

Anna with a preparatory chocolate caliente

Banos Morales is the last habitation before the entrance to the National Park El Morado. Normally the park isn't open until October because of the weather - primarily the snow renders most of the park impassable. The ranger who we signed in with warned us not to go beyond the first sector, although our original plan had been to go the full distance - 8km to the lake el morado, then on to the base of the San Francisco Glacier.

Rugged, cold, but clear and easy to walk - a small feeder to Rio Maipo

the first sign of things to come

click on it to make it bigger - there's a wild horse!

Anna, blissfully unaware of things to come

In the distance, skiers... skiers?

Definitely skiers.

Feeder river from up high

Struan on the edge of the canyon

The team winds its way along

"Everything is not okay."

About 2km in it became apparent that some team members were possibly underprepared. Despite admirably clear instructions from Struan* Scott for one had turned up ready for a stroll around town and was beginning to suffer from the windchill (see above). After some quick sharing out of spare gear, we cracked on.


* Admittedly based on last weekend's trip to a pueblo for a spot of lunch and to take in the view, in blazing sunshine, at about half the altitude.

After the initial steep hike, the trail began to plateau, and become rather more snowy

the crew trekking through the snow

the river being fed by snow melt streams

a fog begins to descend

A little bridge over the river

the way ahead

the crew in the distance as the fog descends

About 3km up the mountain we came to the end of the first sector: the Aguas Panamavida - apparently a mineral water spring according to a Chilean or Argentinian guy who we passed while he was relentlessly dragging his kids up the mountain.*

*Conversation between Struan and man's son: "How are you?" "Tired" "Do you like this?" "No". End of.  

We don't know quite enough about this to speak with any authority, but all of the water up here (including the tanked springs in Banos Morales see below) has a sort of orangey brown tinge - including also the river. It's either something to do with the type of rock or some mineral/ore colouration. Anyway, the Aguas Panamavidas are a dirty pool this colour (above). Apparently they're better in summer.

The murky baths, back in Banos Morales

Struan as the snow starts to deepen

As the snow gets deeper, one of the crew topples into a snow drift

We were all prepared for a picnic which we had planned to have at the lake in the park, before heading to the glacier. At this point, about 4/5 km in, it had become painfully obvious why a) the park is usually closed in winter, and b) the ranger said don't go beyond the first sector. The snow was in places up to our waists, and the wind was absolutely thrashing us. Anyway we had food so we decided to shelter behind a boulder and have our picnic. Going further was looking unlikely as the snow was now starting to come thickly. The picnic wasn't quite as we'd envisaged, but excellent nevertheless.

The most [memorable] [miserable] picnic ever. You decide.

The crew becomes spread out on the way down as various levels of fatigue, base survival instinct, inability to feel feet, come into play

the wind whips up a storm

Cold but happy we made it back to Banos Morales, and were greeted by these little guys!

oh perritos we love you!

hawwo little baby dog!

The weather up on the mountain was matched at the bottom, but without horizontal wind. It was like Christmas!

Difficult to see the sign: this place is the "Residencial Los Chicos Malos" - "[Hostel] of the Naughty Boys"

Cosy inside the Residencial with more hot chocolates

A winter wonderland!

Last weekend we were in Cajon del Maipo worrying about sunburn - this weekend frostbite! An excellent day. We'll be back in a few weeks once the snow has melted to hike the full distance to the lake and glacier.

Anna on the bus back, with a face on.

Quick, back to those puppies - where did you all go?

chao!

Cajon del Maipo - initial soundings

As of this weekend we've been here in Santiago for a month! We decided it was time to get out of the city. The nearby river valley - Cajon del Maipo - is where the Santaguinos go to get some of the great outdoors. The valley itself is populated with one or two small towns and pueblos y pueblitos - we headed out, very cheaply by bus, to San Alfonso, a village mainly consisting of restaurants and cafes and great mountain views.

The river is fed from Andean snowmelt so you can follow the valley up into the mountains. As previously reported, the river that  flows through Santiago (Rio Mapocho) becomes a sad polluted drain once it has been through the "Big Smog". The river that cut this valley (Rio Maipo) is a different much more more pleasant affair up in the mountains.  

What do you expect for 650 pesos?

Once you leave the high rises of Santiago the scenery and architecture changes very quickly:

Note the Chilean flag: this is probably here all the time, but the national flag is popping up even more than usual because by law every building has to be flying a flag on Chilean Independence Day (Sept 18). As a quick aside, here's the one that's appeared on the huge "mobile phone" that we mentioned in an earlier post:

Back to the journey up the Cajon:

San Alfonso

In the background of the picture directly above you can see a metal frame tower. In this photo directly below you can see better that it's a bell tower for this little red church - we've never seen anything like this before:

While in San Alfonso we had crepe, or panqueque, at a little family-run mountain cafe. We were the only customers, and while we were there the daughter was sitting on facebook occasionally arguing with her little brother who kept trying to sabotage her session, granddad shuffled out for his lunch, and mum cooked.

Anna and two excellent huge crepes!

Brrirroooerp

At some point we picked up the trail of a strange four-toed creature... but didn't manage to spot the beast.

Lucky you didn't get stuck perro

Here's some other pics from our rambling:

San Alfonso is not very high into the Andes, only 1100 metres (about 3,600 feet) above sea level - Ben Nevis is taller than that. We're really still within the foothills of the Andes - by contrast the altiplano (the Andean plateau running through northern Chile and Peru - where Lake Titicaca is - which we'll visit later in our stay) averages 12,000 feet!

After lunch we went looking for ice-cream, and found this mysterious little cafe styled as an almost alpine grotto - great fun! No ice-cream until the summer apparently, but awesome chocolate caliente (hot chocolate) with a special fairy dust secret ingredient...

"Kuchen", and skis - transported to Austria!

The Faraway Tree

Yes, hello, I'm in the land of the fairies

Once upon a time there were two English people looking for ice-cream, but they found hot chocolate instead...

A woodland creature enjoying some hot chocolate

We sat outside as it was so sunny, but we're defo coming back here in the winter as the inside was great and spookily cute:

The bill, not an epic, just a small slip of paper inside a hollow book

Santiago is gearing up for the celebrations for the bicentennial of Chilean Independence Day (as above, Sept 18, 1810) so it's a great time to be here as there are plenty of cultural happenings like street music and performance. When we got back to Bellas Artes there was a band of young guys thrashing out some tunes - not very Chilean admittedly, mainly the Beatles!

While my guitar gently weeps

Galaxy - exotic and fast (Heineken beer, coca cola etc, served with no haste, complete your transaction with a separate cashier in a booth)

Photographed with the night-sight

A great day! We'll be going further up the valley soon!

Chao!