Viaje pequeño al Cajón del Maipo

Hola Todos!

As you might have read in my last blog post (or if you haven’t, here’s the link), my council/area/suburb/place moved into Phase 2, meaning that we came out of lockdown. With this, we are able to travel more freely, and so my host parents decided to take the family on a mini-adventure to a place called ‘Cajón del Maipo’.

Cajón del Maipo is a valley within the mountain range of the Andes located near the town of San Jose de Maipo. It has the Río Maipo, or the Maipo River in English, running through it, and on either side of the river are the Andes mountains. It’s about an hour and a half drive east of Santiago, towards the Chile/Argentina border.

I live in Puente Alto, which you can see on the map, and then the big red marker is where Cajón del Maipo is, and to the right of it, the black line is the Chile/Argentina border.

In the summer particularly it is a popular tourist spot as there are amazing views of the Andes mountains and hiking trails you can follow, as well as places where you can camp and thermal and sulphur baths you can experience.

My host parents decided to organise this trip the first day that the lockdown lifted, which was on Monday 28/09/2020 (as I’m writing this, it’s currently Wednesday). So Monday morning, once everyone was ready, we hopped in the car and headed over.

The drive was very scenic, as you move further out of the city and the suburbs you begin to see more and more greenery as you head into the mountain ranges of the Andes. I spent the whole time looking out of my window in awe at just how beautiful and diverse nature here can be, a lush green covering large hills which then changes to more orange-y dirt with cacti and these beautiful bright orange and yellow flowers and then just these beautiful rocky mountains towering over everything with the occasional peaks of snow carrying on from winter into the spring.

The view of a volcano from the drive there (I’m not sure what the volcano is called, sorry!)

But if the drive there wasn’t magnificent enough, the views once in the valley were breathtaking. All you could see were the Andes mountains surrounding you, and while you feel so small as they tower over you, you just feel as if you are a part of something bigger, and it’s an exhilarating feeling. I can’t describe it properly, but I hope the pictures help.

We continued on a little bit further within Cajón del Maipo to a place called ‘Baños Morales’ (translated to ‘moral baths’), crossing over the Río Volcán (Volcano River) on this little bridge to get into the main part of the town Baños Morales.

We were planning on having lunch in town in a restaurant, as this area isn’t under lockdown, but the restaurants still weren’t open, so we were a bit unprepared. There was, however, a little convenience supermarket open that was selling bread and drinks, so we bought some bread and pineapple juice to have with the apples and bananas we brought for snacks.

My host mum buying the bread. ‘Almacen’ means ‘store’ as in storage or a shop, a mix of both, and ‘carbón’ refers to the coal you can buy for barbecues

My host dad checking out the map in the bus stop in town

With my host family, Andrés, Monica and Veronica in Baños Morales at a lookout point

We continued on a little bit more past town through to the hiking trails, where we stopped for lunch. We all climbed up onto this big rock and ate our food looking over the valley.

My host mum, Monica, and my host sister, Veronica, enjoying the plain bread and pineapple juice for lunch

The view towards the Volcano from the rock we had lunch on

The view of the other side of the rock, looking out to Baños Morales and the mountains

Me (ew) with the beautiful view in the background

After lunch, we walked up a trail into the mountains. Along the trail, there were little pockets of snow which we stopped at and had an obligatory snowball fight, absolutely freezing out hands in the process as we had no gloves. Even though there was snow, it was fairly warm, and so unless you were in the wind, it was easy to walk around in just a short sleeve t-shirt.

A photo taken a few moments before I slipped on the snow and got my butt wet

The view down as you walked along the trail

As we continued on, the trail began to trail off (badum ts), and so my host dad, my host sister and I decided to start climbing the rocks up the mountain. It was really fun climbing over the rocks, and it went by so quickly as your doing it that you don’t realise how far you’ve gone up until you look back.

A selfie looking up the rocks we were climbing

There were these two wild dogs that followed us along the path and they were very cute and very docile, you could pat them no problems. Any suggestions for names?

A photo my host dad took of me as I rested while climbing up the rocks. Excuse my face

We climbed up about halfway on the rocks and decided that was all we wanted to do for the day, and we headed back down to the trail and down the mountain, then back home, but not without one final pause.

We stopped at a little waterfall called ‘Cascada Velo de la Novia’, translated ‘The Cascades of the Bride’s Veil’. It was so pretty and mesmerizing to be around, as the water fell from the top of the mountain, creating little rainbows all around. We stopped for a few photos but didn’t swim in it because it was too cold and there were other people around as well.

I wanted to swim in it so badly, but alas, for another time

After an entire day of hiking and climbing, we were all thoroughly worn out and ready to go home. And that’s what I call the first day without lockdown very well spent.

Hasta la proxima, linda gente!