Travels with Lucas

Thursday February 27, 2020

Santiago and Cajon del Maipo, Chile

Lucas was here to pick us up at 7am.  Santiago is a very big city (population close to 7 million); it took us at least an hour to get to the city limits, and that was without having to cross the middle of the city.  Our destination today was Cajon del Maipo.  Our first stop was the El Yeso Reservoir.  It has a spectacular setting among some beautiful mountains.  The reservoir is huge (a capacity of 250 million cubic metres) but is currently very low.  Rainfall in the area has apparently been almost nil the last few years, and much of the water has been privatized.  The reservoir was completed in 1964 and serves as a major source of drinking water for Santiago.  It doesn't take long in discussions with locals to discover their concerns about their water resources.

Very quickly after we were out of the city it was obvious to see that we were into the canyon of the Maipo River - Cajon del Maipo.  In many ways it was reminiscent of the Grand Canyon in the US.  It is very arid and today was a brilliantly sunny and hot (~30C) day.  As we turned off toward the reservoir the road deteriorated - unpaved, winding, and very narrow with quite a bit of large truck traffic.  The road was cut right into the cliffs - overhanging rocks to our right and a sheer drop-off to our left.  On the way there there was a section where they were only allowing one-way traffic.  But, on the way back those controls didn't seem to be in place.  There's no way 2 vehicles could get by each other, especially if one was a large truck.  Our solution was to send Barb and Jill out on foot to scout one or two turns ahead.  They let Lucas know whether it was safe to drive ahead and where he could pull over safely to let oncoming trucks pass.  Yikes!  Slow, but it worked....  And Barb and Jill got in their exercise for the day.

It took us about 3 hours to get to the reservoir.  We got out for a short walk before heading back.  By then it was time for lunch.  Lucas had a great spot in mind - Casa Bosque.  We had a very good lunch there but they were rather slow in wrapping it up.  I think it was well after two by the time we got out of there.

Next up - hiking.......  We drove in a big loop from San Jose de Maipo looking for a hiking spot that Barb had found on a map.  It was about 20km from lunch, but was behind a locked gate so rather than risk jailtime we got back in the car and drove around the loop to a turnoff just past our lunch spot along the Rio Colorado on Camino Al Alfalfal.  By the time we found a trail to try along that road it was 4:30 and still smokin' hot.  Barb, Jill & I set out for a half hour up and a half hour back down.  As soon as we passed the gate we met 2 mountain bikers who told us the whole trek was 2.5 hours and 900m.  No problem - we just went partway up and back.  Lots of cacti and very steep but with good views down to the Rio Colorado and the road.  I was dripping pretty good by the time I got to our turnaround spot.  Not sure where they were coming from/going to, but we also passed a few horses and riders going down, and one loose horse who I'm sure would have run us over if we hadn't moved off the trail.

We were back to the car by 5:30 and ready for the drive back to the city.  It wasn't very far, but the traffic - oh my!  It took about 3 hours to get home.  Poor Lucas!  But he was a good sport about it.  The reservoir, the lunch, and the hike were all great but 13 hours squished into a little car on such a hot day was a bit trying.  It was such a treat to have a local take us on this outing, though, and he is a terrifically friendly guy.