Culinary Adventures in Chile: Pan Amasado & Heart of Palm

January 4, 2011 (part V)

After our chilly dip in El Balneario Termal Baños Morales, we quickly got dressed and went to have some tea and coffee at one of the small guest houses in town. As we walked in, we quickly realized that the restaurant-bar advertised on the signage outside was actually the living room/dining room of the owner's house. Unsure of the standard procedure for being served in such an establishment, we inquired if food and drink were available for purchase, and they confirmed that they were.  However, there did not appear to be a menu, so we ordered the basics - tea and bread. The tea was nothing to write home about, but the bread, pan amasado (apparently "world famous" Chilean kneaded bread) was quite interesting. I would liken it to a homemade biscuit in America - very tasty. From our table inside, we observed a group of local men - los vaqueros - finishing of a box of wine and mused at the fact that they seemed to be getting quite drunk. Apparently we had stopped by the local hangout (and the only establishment in town with any patrons). 

The "residencia" where we had tea & pan amasado. Notice they are advertising Mote con Huesillo 

Diligently writing in my journal during our team break in Baños Morales

After our coffee/tea break, we began the longish trek back to Santiago. We again encountered large trucks hauling copper ore down the mountain on the rough gravel roads, which made passing quite the challenge as we contended with the large clouds of dust they were stirring up. As the road transitioned back to pavement, we found ourselves with a new appreciation of the wonders of modern engineering and infrastructure. Along the way, we stopped in the adorable rural town of San Jose de Maipo. We stopped for an ice cream on the lazy central square and took in the local scene. 

View of the road and mountains in El Cajon de Maipo (The Maipo Valley)

Church on the main square in San Jose de Maipo

Soon we were back on the busy streets of Santiago, navigating through La Florida neighborhood in Southern Santiago and then onto our hotel Provedencia, just as the street lights began to come on. By 9:15, we were pulling into our hotel parking garage; exhausted from a solid day of exploring and ready for a quick (and easy) meal. Oh, and a glass of WINE. 


Given that it was already 10:30pm by the time everyone had showered, we settled for dinner in the elegant hotel restaurant. I ordered a Thai salad, which turned out to be MUCH different than the American version and included: heart of palm (very Chilean and SO under-utilized in the American culinary tradition), avocado, tuna, and corn on a small bed of lettuce. We polished off the bottle of wine from Concha y toro winery and I fell asleep reviewing my pictures, camera in hand. /#solid_day. 

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...