¡Adelante, vamos!

"¡Adelante, vamos! ¡Izquierda atrás! ¡Alto!" These yells are still going through my head after river rafting through the Andes last weekend. Our guide, Roberto (nicknamed ‘Pelado’, or the-bald-one) screamed out these orders for three hours as a group of 6 gringos (Sam-chico , Alisa, Kim, Cristal, Terry and me) paddled through the Río Maipo winding through the Andes Mountains, through the city military dictator Augusto Pinochet once lived, and finishing up in the city of San José de Maipo. Overall, the weekend in Cajón del Maipo was one of the best weekends I’ve had in recent memory. We met at the metro station at 7AM Saturday morning, took it an hour south to the town of La Florida, and took a bus for two hours into the canyon. As soon as we got there, we could feel the relaxation start to set in. We were staying at a resort (I think that’s the best word to use for it…although it wasn’t an expensive one) that overlooked the river, was surrounded by mountains, and was overall a great place to stay. The six of us had a cabin to stay in, and Sam and I (the 2 boys) had a loft above one of the bedrooms that was maybe 4 feet tall and 7 feet wide.

 After we arrived Saturday morning we took a short hike up to a few waterfalls that are near the resort along with our guide, Daniel. He took us up to the waterfalls and, while we were at the top taking pictures, showed us pictures on his camera of UFOs. We tried to, as nicely as we could, tell him that we didn’t believe in UFOs, but when that didn’t go over so well, we just nodded and smiled. In his opinion, the area attracted UFOs because of its high mineral content and safe water…So maybe he belongs in Roswell, but he was incredibly nice and made the hike very fun and informative. In fact, all of the staff there were very hospitable people and treated us as friends, not guests. I’ve noticed that a lot in Chile—the people here are incredibly hospitable. They really want to get to know us ‘gringos’ as friends, not tourists. It’s a very welcoming society, in my opinion, and the hospitality of the Chileans was one of the main reasons I decided to come here for the spring and not Madrid, where I felt like I’d be a tourist. Here, I can really feel like I’m becoming a part of the Chilean culture because Chileans are so welcoming, willing to talk to you as a friend, and happy to show you their family, culture, and friends. Anyways, back to Cajon. After the hike, it was on to spend the afternoon river rafting! We suited up in wetsuits and joined Pelado as he taught us the commands, safety measures, and told us a bit about the area. The rafting itself was great—not as big of rapids as I’ve been on in the past—but fun nonetheless. 

The scenery was breathtaking, the water was freezing, and it’s just great being able to say, “Yeah, I went rafting through the Andes. No big deal.” We bonded quite a bit with Pelado throughout our trip. He says he can always pick out the person who’s going to fall out by their face, and he picked a girl from our group, Kim, as that one. After she didn’t fall out for the first hour, he spend the next 2 hours maneuvering the raft to make sure she got the biggest rapids coming right at her, but to no avail. Even though he spent most of the journey trying to get Kim to fall out (all in good fun, of course), it was really fun getting to spend a few hours on the raft talking to him in Spanish. 

He’s actually the lawyer for the resort as well, and his dad owns the place. Actually, it’s very much a family business—the other guide was his cousin, his brother is the manager, and the entire family pretty much works there on weekends and lives in Santiago during the week. He invited us to a club that night (the restaurant at the resort turns into a club on weekends), so we had a good few hours hanging out with him, speaking to him in Spanish, meeting his family, and just talking. We may be going back in a few weeks to a big rafting festival they’re going to have. A lot of them are part of the Chilean rafting team, so I think it’s going to be some sort of fundraiser to help them get money for their upcoming trip to the World Championships in Bosnia.

So overall, it was great getting to know Pelado, and he gave us some hiking tips for the next day. He said to nix the recommended guide and to just go up the mountain trails ourselves, and he lent us his key that would get us across the bridge. We followed his advice, and made our way up the mountains, hoping to go to a large plateau and then to a place called ‘Tres Nogales’. We hiked, on a very steep trail, for about 45 minutes when it flattened out and we reached the plateau. We didn’t really know what to expect when we got there, but as the trail leveled out we could see a field in the distance. We walked further along the trail and saw that it was a farm with goats, horses, pigs, and sheep. It couldn’t have been a more beautiful setting—a plateau, level with the lower mountains of the Andes, and with a panoramic view of everything. There was a small house and a barn next to it, and we walked around for an hour or so—petting the horses, exploring the farm, and talking to the farmer who lived there. There was something very surreal and special about the farm, probably because any form of civilization up there was completely unexpected. It was a complete surprise to see the field, and the impeccable setting just added to the beauty of it. I’m not exactly sure why it had such a surreal feeling to it, but there was something mysterious and special about that farm on a plateau so high up in the Andes that gave it such a strong feeling.

We spent the next few hours exploring the trails trying to find Tres Nogales from the directions the farmer gave us, but to no avail. We did, however, find a nice creek with some pools to swim in and relax around, where we stayed for an hour or so before heading back down the mountain. So yeah, this weekend, I:  tried to convince my guide that the UFOs in his pictures may not be real, went rafting through the Andes, jumped off a 20 foot cliff into the Maipo river (don’t worry, Mom, the guides said it was deep enough), sang ‘I Believe I Can Fly’ at the resort club karaoke night, got lost in the Andes, befriended Pelado, and had an amazing time. It was a wonderful break from the city that the beach just didn’t compare to. The canyons, the river, the hospitality of the resort, the good food, and the exciting hiking and rafting just had us beaming the entire time. I’m not even sure what was so special about it. Maybe it was the excitement of the rafting, or the beauty of the canyons. Or the fact that it was the first time we had seen starts in 3 and a half weeks and that the sky was clear enough to see the Milky Way. Or maybe it was the fact that we were completely smog and noise free. I’m not sure what it was about Cajón, but all 6 of us were unanimous in saying that it was the best weekend we’ve had in a very long time, and that we’re definitely going back the next free weekend we have.

Although, I wouldn’t be surprised if this next weekend rivals it. I’m leaving in a few hours to take an overnight bus to Pucón, a city in the south of Chile, that is supposed to be an amazing outdoors spot. We’ll go hiking up a volcano, through the Andes, and we may go rafting, biking, and do lots of other stuff. To save some money, we have the standard bus seats (as opposed to the buses with chairs that fully recline) so I’m not expecting to sleep very much tonight. Or on Sunday night, when we have an all-night train back. Well, Stanford’s gotten me used to working on very little sleep, so I’m sure I’ll be fine.

I’m getting to know my language partner, Israel, better, and we met once this week when the Stanford center taught us and the rest of the students to dance salsa. Israel’s in his last year studying journalism at the Universidad de Chile, is engaged, and lives on the outskirts of town. He’s great to talk to, and says he’ll be having people over to his or his girlfriend’s house a few times this term, so that will be really fun. As far as salsa goes, I’m actually better than I thought I’d be, but that really doesn’t say much. Israel, on the other hand, couldn’t stop talking about how much he loves to dance and how good of a dancer he is, and he was just rotating the girls around every few minutes after they would tire out. It was quite fun to watch, and we’ll be getting together with our language partners next week as well.

So ends my fourth week here. It has so far been an incredible experience. I still have so much more I need to accomplish while I’m here, though, but I know I’ll get around to all of it sooner or later. Still to do: become fluent in Spanish (I’m improving a lot, but still not there), become able to understand Chileans when they speak at their normal pace (imagine English, but twice as fast, leaving off the ends of words and with three times the amount of slang), make a lot more Chilean friends, explore the north and the south, surf the sand dunes in the Atacama desert, visit Buenos Aires, go to a fútbol game, and much, much more.

Well, ¡hasta luego, y espero que te vaya todo muy bien!