Weekend Excursions In Santiago, Chile

December 10: Museo de la Memoria y los Derechos Humanos

On Saturday, December 10, we went to a museum highly recommended by our Frommer's travel guide - Museo de la Memoria y los Derechos Humanos (Museum of Memorial and Human Rights). This museum showcases Pinochet's reign in Chile from 1973 to 1990, something we knew very little about before coming to Chile. Many people were tortured and/or killed during that military dictatorship, and the museum has videos of some of the violence as well as interviews with survivors. The idea behind the museum is to "never forget" so that something like that doesn't happen again here in Chile. It just so happens that the day we visited was International Human Rights Day (go figure!) so there was a concert that night outside in the museum's ampitheater. We returned for that later since the museum is easy to reach by metro, and it was fun to see a Chilean concert with a big audience and many different bands playing.

Nikki liked how they had human rights laws displayed on the wall outside

December 11: Parque Metropolitano & Zoo

On Sunday, December 11, we paid a visit to the Parque Metropolitano. It's a park in the Bella Vista neighborhood of Santiago, which is much quieter and prettier than where we're staying in the center of the city. Inside the park is a zoo. Because Nikki loves zoos, we went! Although it was pretty much your average zoo, it was up high on a foothill of the Andes, so we had a spectacular view of the city. The highlight of the animals were the grizzly and polar bears and the "pudus" (tiny miniature deer - only about a foot tall - that we'll get to see in their natural habitat while we're exploring the rest of Chile!). We also saw beautiful completely snow-white peacocks and some other exotic South American birds, including flamingos and one type of bird that is a brilliant bright orange color.


December 17: Cajon del Maipo & Cascada de las Animas

This past weekend we decided to venture out of the city and to see the nearby mountains. We didn't want to rent a car, so we took public transit and a taxi "collectivo" (shared taxi) to get to our destinations and back.

On Saturday, we took the metro to get to the outskirts of the city and then a collectivo to get to Cajon del Maipo (Maipo Canyon). The collectivos have a route that they follow, which is indicated by a number on the top of the taxi. The canyon is about 60km outside the city. It took an hour to get to our destination. The taxi made stops to pick up and drop off people on the way, and also to get gas. The overall experience of travelling to the canyon was a good one because the metro & taxi were clean and efficient (only about $5 per person including metro, collectivo, and tip).

We were dropped at our hotel, Cascada de las Animas (Waterfall of the Spirits). It's sort of an ecotourism spot with campgrounds, cabins, a main house, and a separate house, the hostal, a few blocks down the road (where we stayed). "Hostal" in Chile seems to generally mean bed and breakfast, with the choice of sharing a room &/or a bathroom. Most of the hotels we booked for our travels next month are hostels (of course we're staying in private rooms with bathrooms!), and we're hoping they'll be like this one, which was SO lovely! We were able to get the room on the top floor of the house, with a huge private balcony overlooking the pretty garden and with a view of the mountains. We relaxed out on the balcony to the sound of the river flowing in the distance and the breeze blowing. We paid about 60USD (US Dollars) for the night. We'd definitely recommend this place!

Our Private Balcony

View from the Balcony

Once we arrived in the canyon, we went on a guided hike to the waterfall that is the hotel's namesake. Although we would have preferred to go alone, there is a gated bridge that they open for those paying for guided tours. The Spanish-speaking guide wasn't that helpful for us, and a big group can ruin some of the silence of nature. We had to cross a couple of very rickety bridges to get to the waterfall (yikes!), but we made it. Along the way we saw signs describing the huge spiders and scorpions that live in the area. Apparently there are "chick spiders" (so called because they are really hairy like chicks), which can have bodies up to 2 inches long!! (We think it was lucky that we didn't see any of those :P) The canyon was very pretty.

In the Canyon

After our hike, we ate dinner at the hotel's restaurant, which is right on the river that runs through the canyon. The food was good (we had salmon and beef stew), the setting wonderful, and the architecture really interesting. There are tree trunks through the middle of the restaurant and there's a large outdoor seating area with a fire pit. All in all, the day was very nice!

December 18: Banos Morales

The next day (Sunday) we decided to go to Banos Morales, which is a Chilean national park and home to a melting glacier. We took a bus for over an hour to get there from the canyon. Most of the road along the way is unpaved, so it was a bumpy ride. The bus was not very clean. For part of the way Greg had to sit next to a man who was drinking a can of beer and was obviously drunk (so it was interesting!). However, we made it to the park with no real problems. There we found nothing but a few small snack huts and one restaurant (& possibly a hotel) basically in the middle of the wilderness. At that point we were really proud of ourselves because we got to such a remote area - it was our first trip on a Chilean bus as well! Our patience was rewarded by truly beautiful scenery.

We began hiking shortly after noon, and our return bus was scheduled to leave  at 6pm. We hiked up to a lagoon, but at that point it was 2:40 and Nikki was feeling tired, so she stayed to rest. Nikki recently read the captivating book Into Thin Air, where many people died trying to climb Mount Everest in part because they kept climbing after their established cut-off time. After Nikki made Greg promise to turn back at a 3pm cut-off time, Greg made his way up to the glacier as quickly as he could!

After an exhausting uphill run, there is nothing like a cold glacier to cool you down!

Greg lying on part of the San Francisco Glacier

Greg knew he was risking perishing like the Himalayan mountain climbers, but he couldn't help but stay on the top for a while to snap photos of the amazing scenery.

The reward for getting to the top is looking back down!

To make up for time spent at the top, Greg ran downhill along the very rocky path until he made it back to where Nikki was waiting. The Vibram Five Finger Trek shoes (that his Mom still doesn't believe you can hike in) were up to the task. When running on loose rocks you mostly need to respect that you can't stop or turn quickly.

We kept taking pictures on the way back down - the scenery was absolutely gorgeous! It is frustrating to attempt to convey such beauty in a photograph.

There were several small lagoons with orange and red colored water.

Purple flowers throughout Baños Morales

Going down was much quicker than up, and we made it back with plenty of time before the bus left. The ride back to Santiago was LONG and the bus was extremely crowded most of the way back - people were standing throughout the entire aisle for about the last half of the trip. We had seats together, but Greg's legs are too long for Chilean bus seats, so he was very cramped. The bus did take us all the way to the metro, so we didn't end up taking another collectivo to get back to Santiago. However, the collectivo was faster, cleaner, and more comfortable then the bus. We'll probably take those whenever we can in the future.

More to come soon!  Hasta luego!