Southern Cross to the Right: Hiking in Cajon de Maipo

My first Sunday back in Chile I went hiking in the Andes for the first time. The views were beautiful and I look forward to more trips into the Andes when I am not jetlagged.

To get the trail head we had to drive for three hours down two lane paved roads, which gave way to two lane gravel roads which eventually became this road.

(NOTE: If you are my mother, grandmother or aunt skip the next paragraph, actually just skip to the pictures at the end.)

Note this road, now imagine a sheer, 100 meter drop on one side with only a pile of rubble between the passenger side of the car and obilvion and a cliff on the other. Now place yourself in a minibus with no seatbelts with bounces every time you hit a rock and steers from one side of the road to another to avoid puddles and the bigger rocks, for about an hour. So help me, I will never complain about Highway 1 in California again.

Once you get to the trail head you need to head overland for a bit to avoid the hot springs at Banjos de Colima which are on private land. They are not supposed to charge hikers to walk through the area, but they try to anyway. If they see you trying to walk around they will yell at you, so we avoided the gate entirely.

Cairn up on top of a "small" hill with sheep. Note that said hill
was covered in gravel and short prickly plants and we did not
end up needing to climb it in the end. Though there were sheep.

Over the next five hours I learned several things, first that trails in the Chile, at least in this part of the Chile, are not maintained or marked really at all. There were plenty of moments when the only reason I knew I was still on the trail was the large amount of horse dung. Without the river to follow back to the hotsprings, it would not have been hard to get turned around. Second, there is never such a thing as too much sunblock.

Lastly, the Andes are HUGE and absolutely gorgious. I could try to describe the scale, the beauty and the odd, peaceful feeling of being completely isolated among the looming, giant mountains, but no words seen to quite work. I will try to let the photos explain it for me.