A Dip in the "Thermal" Springs at Baños Morales

January 4, 2011 (also known as the most eventful  day ever,  part IV)

Anyone who has taken a bit of Spanish will know that "baños" means "bath" (or in some cases, "bathroom") in Spanish. So you would be correct to assume that there was some type of bathing activity available at this so-called, "Baños Morales".  While most people will tell you that the baths at Baños Morales are "thermal" , I'd personally be hard-pressed to classify them as such. More like "luke-warm" bath. But the location, overlooking the purplish-colored mountains, coupled with a quaint South American small town vibe made it hard to be disappointed.

There were actually three different pools available for bathing in, each terraced alongside one another to allow for overflow into the lower pool. The pool closest to the springs was reserved for "taking the thermal waters", and had a bright orange color, apparently due to the high iron content. It was walled off by concrete and about 4 feet deep with pebbles on the bottom.   The next pool down was designated as the "kids pool",  and the lowest pool was the "sports pool". As was the general trend with our mid-week visit to the mountains, we were the only visitors in the pools during our visit (although we did see other visitors coming and going just before and after us). And given the fact that the pool closest to the spring was still a bit cool, we had no interest in checking out either of the "kids" or "sports" pools.

We swam around in the pools for about 10 minutes before deciding that it was actually freezing and totally not worth swimming in. As hard as we tried to convince ourselves otherwise, the 50 F air temps coupled with the not-so-warm water temps were not as inviting as we hoped.

Thankfully, we were able to find a place to warm up with a cup of hot tea  in the village...

The Village of Baños Morales en el Cajón del Maipo

January 4, 2011 (part III)

After enduring the 45-minute ride on a gravel road riding in the back seat of our 2x4 truck, we finally saw a sign directing us towards our end-destination for the day: Baños Morales and El Morado Natural Monument. Visit either of these websites and you will be given the impression that this area is bursting at the seams with tourist and well-established services. This is not the case. I do imagine this place sees a steady stream of visitors on the weekends, but it still falls well within the definition of a "rustic" destination. And on the particular Tuesday we arrived, we  seemed to be one of only a handful of visitors to make the climb up the steep gravel road to this little mountain hamlet.

The condition of the road deteriorated significantly for the last few kilometers up to Baños Morales. And judging from the rudimentary constructed concrete tire tracks that had been built into the steepest part of the road,  it didn't seem unlikely that this stretch of road would become completely impassable after a heavy rain. Sadly, I don't have any pictures of this impressive road construction - likely due to the fact that myself and everyone else in the car was fairly focused on the ability of our sturdy, manual-shift vehicle to make it to the top of the hill. Somewhat impressively, we made it  up the steep passage without incident.

Once at the top, we encountered a collection of family homes halfway converted to guests houses, which we took to signify that we had arrived at Baños Morales. But it still wasn't entirely clear where the entrance to the National Park was; surely it would be obvious, being that it is a National Park and all. No, not at all. My only guess is that there must be an excess of computer nerds designing websites in Chile, because I have never before encountered so many really nice websites designed for the most back-woods, out-of-the-way, hole-in-the-wall destinations.

After driving through "town" without sighting anything that looked like a ranger station, we asked one of the "locals" for directions (upon further inspection, they turned out to be city folk from Santiago, up for a visit to their mountain property). We were instructed that the entrance El Monumento El Morado was actually smack-dab in the middle of "town", so we headed back down the main dirt road and spotted a hand-written sign pointing the way up to the parking area.

There was little activity to be found in Baños Morales that day; only a few hard-core Chilean hiker-types and a few drunken vaqueros (cowboys). One guy had even ridden in on his horse, which was tied up outside the establishment where he was drinking wine with his other vaquero buddies. Due to the higher elevation (1,800 meters or 5900 feet above sea level), it was quite a bit cooler than it had been back in Santiago (January is the middle of the southern hemisphere's summer after all). I had foolishly anticipated it to be much warmer and decided to wear shorts that day, and the light windbreaker I brought along wasn't really cutting it.

To be continued...

Cajón del Maipo, Chile: La Vaquita Echá

January 4, 2011 (part II)

After spending the morning at Concha y Toro winery, it was time for a lunch break. Lonely Planet recommended the nearby restaurant, La Vaquita Echá, and it turned out to be just the sort of road-side country diner we were looking for (click here to see a YouTube video). Admittedly, the place was targeted towards tourist (evidenced by the two tour buses that were already parked there when we arrived). But there were plenty of non-tourist dining there as well, and because we were there mid-week, the dining room was only about 20% full.




 " La Vaquita Echá" is a little tricky to translate. Closest translation I can render is something like, "take the little cow", but I'm still not 100% confident that that's correct. "La Vaquita" means "little cow" and "echá" is from the verb "echar", which means "to throw", but can mean a variety of different things in different context. If anyone can give me a good guess at the translation, I'd love to hear it! It's very frustrating when even the sum of knowledge on the internet does not appear to have a decent answer to my pondering (sigh).

The restaurant was in a very pastoral setting, with a rushing stream near the entry, outdoor seating and most interestingly, a mama dog laying by the entrance nursing her baby pups! We ordered empanadas de pino (beef turnovers with onions and hard-boiled egg - possibly my next cooking adventure!). There was an amazing charcoal barbecue INSIDE the restaurant (couldn't mind thinking that this would never happen in the U.S.), so I felt it appropriate to order some beef. I ordered my Lomo Tocino de Res "al punto" thinking that meant "medium", but apparently it meant something more like "rare", because that's how it arrived. The meat was undoubtably delicious, but a bit rare for my taste. Unable to finish the entire cut, I fed the scraps to our mama dog friend, who seemed very thankful for the handout.








After lunch we continued along the well-paved country road that curved up the valley among beautiful flowers and plants, occasionally following the path of a stream. The road was surprising void of other cars; we only encountered a few cyclist and pedestrians along the entire route. The sparse amount of cars was likely due to the fact that it was a Tuesday, and not many Santiagoeans made the trip to the mountains mid-week. The scenery eventually changed from lush greenery to rocky boulders and mountain peaks. We saw numerous stands advertising sweets, fruits and handicrafts, but all were closed on the day we were there (clearly, this area sees some major traffic on the weekends). As we drove deeper into the valley, there were more and more little hostels lodges and quaint looking restaurants catering to the weekend crowds that flock to the mountains each weekend from Santiago.

After about an hour of driving, the paved road turned to gravel and our pace slowed considerably. But the views continued to become more extraordinary, so we pressed on, stopping along the way to take photos and admire the towering mountains (tinted purple and green by the mineral content). We passed several heaving duty truck coming from the opposite direction, likely filled with copper ore from the mines located farther up in the valley.



To be continued...

Pirque, Chile: Concha y Toro Vineyard

January 4, 2011 (part I)

Today we rented a truck and explored some of the rural areas outside of Santiago. Our itinerary was action-packed, and included a stop at the Concha y Toro winery, hiking,  and a dip in some mineral springs.

Since my trip to Chile in 2003, the wine tourism industry has grown considerably. Given my family's love of wine, I thought it essential that we make a stop at one of the local wineries during our visit to the countryside. While there were numerous choices of vineyards, we chose to visit the largest and most widely recognized label in the Chilean wine industry: Concha y Toro, in the little town of Pirque.

We had arranged for the rental car company to deliver our 2x4 truck to our hotel at half past nine, and surprisingly, they were actually on-time. The car rental guy walked us through all the necessities (including showing us where the emergency flat tire kit was located; seemingly as a means to indicate that it was not at all out of the realm of likelihood that we might need to use it). We were all set to get out of town, but first we had to navigate our way out of the compact underground parking garage in our not-so-compact truck. And did I mention the car had standard transmission? Let's just say it was a stressful few minutes, with my Dad in the driver's seat, me attempting to provide navigational assistance, and my Mom and Brother in the backseat trying not to have a panic attack. After about 10 backup/pull forward/reverse movements, we made our way up the steep ramp to the main road.

Driveway up from the Parking Garage to the Main Road

Further challenges lay ahead as we attempted to navigate our way out of the city sans GPS (the rental company was all out, and our GPS device wasn't programed for South America - go figure). So we were navigating old-school, with hand-written directions scribbled from Google combined with additional tips and tricks provided by the rental car guy. We hit our first snag when we saw signs indicated that the road we were supposed to follow out of town was closed off due to construction. Fortunately, we were able to find an easy detour that didn't take us too much of of the way. There was a lot of stop-and-go traffic getting out of town, but overall, not too bad.

We arrived in Pirque with only minutes to spare before our scheduled tour time at the Concha y Toro winery. Going on the advice of our guide book, I had made the appointment a couple weeks ahead of time, so it was important that we arrive on time to be able to have the tour in English. We were joined on our tour by English-speaking tourist from all over the world, including Hong Kong, Ireland, South Africa and Australia. Our guide was a young Chilean whose English was good, but still had room for improvement. He seemed very knowledgeable about the vineyard and wine making in general, which was appreciated. The grounds of vineyard were beautiful and the weather very agreeable (chilly in the shade, perfect in the sun).

Entrance to the Concha y Toro Vineyard in Pirque Chile

Grounds of Concha y Toro Vineyard in Pirque, Chile

 The actual wine tasting were few (only 2 wines), but pefectly placed throughout the tour and each wine was undoubtedly delicious (they definitely went for quality over quantity). The first tasting was a a whilte wine from the Trio Collection (a mixture of several grapes and/or several vineyards), which we tasted outside on the veranda. The second wine was a first class red that we tasted after a tour of the Casillero del Diablo (Devil's Cellar), where we were given an interesting show of sorts with lighting effects and a voice over about the legend of the Devil's Cellar. According to local lore, the original owner of the Concha y Toro winery spread a rumor that the devil was in his cellar to keep people from stealing his wines.//

Our tour guide at the Concha y Toro Vineyard getting ready to pour our first tasting glass

Casillero de Diablo (Devil's Cellar)