Feb 5th - Sometimes travelling is hard, and I have moaned a bit about how covid has made everything harder. But sometimes it's just pure fun. Not to say that everything about our day out rafting was plain sailing. To begin with we had to get everyone on board (have you ever noticed how many of our idioms come from nautical activities? Ask me sometime about freezing the balls off a brass monkey...). I enjoyed the water as a kid but I never went white water rafting until I was a fully grown person. I can see how it could be intimidating. We found Natexplora who said they ran kids trips and that was enough to sway the doubters. The fact that we ran the same route as the other six adult-only rafts on our trip was fortunately lost in the joy and thrill of the moment.
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| There is a project to divert water from the Maipo through a hydroelectric tunnel. Apparently, this will reduce the flow of Maipo by 90%. We had heard of this scheme, and we saw these signs, although the rafters didn't mention it. |
We drove about an hour out of Santiago up the Maipo canyon, through which runs the Rio Maipo, a river fed by glaciers that also provide fresh water to the city. Immediately you turn the corner into the valley it is striking how green it becomes. Half an hour up the valley we arrived in San Jose de Maipo, now a bustling tourist town. We signed our papers, put on our wetsuits, helmets and lifejackets, and hopped on the bus with our fellow rafters.
I'm pretty sure we were the only foreigners. I haven't been able to figure out whether this is a covid thing, but we have seen so few foreigners in and around Santiago. Perhaps this will change as we move to more ostensibly touristy areas. But for now, it was us and weekenders from Santiago.
Quick diversion for social commentary: As I mentioned before, Santiago is a pleasant, modern city that often feels like any other developed metropolitan area. If you have your eyes open you will see the pockets of poverty, and while every city from New York to Paris has its homeless and disenfranchised, here this is more pronounced and more extensive. This is notable because Chile has the highest Human Development Index in Latin America, but I have heard a few people bemoaning the inequality. This is borne out in the stats with a Gini coefficient of around 44 (lower = less inequality: Brazil 54; Argentina 41; Germany 32; US 41; Slovenia top of the table 25).
All that being said, plenty of middle-class Santiaguinas and Santiaguinos escape the city and head up the river for some rafting fun on the Maipo, just like those Ottawans filling the rafts of the Ottawa River an hour or two upstream of the city.
We had the pleasure of the company of Eduardo and Matthias in our boat, who were a bit unfortunate as our guide Willie deferred to our lack of Spanish and did the whole trip in English. Willie was awesome, upbeat and positive. "If you fall out (you won't fall out) but if you do, first smile! (then get your feet up and downstream to prevent getting trapped under a rock and drowned in the icy cold torrent). Smile!"
The run was perfect, thrilling enough, wet enough, long enough, but not too thrilling, wet or long. Everytime we looked round, the kids had huge smiles and literally squealed as the rapids broke over the side of the boat. The trip cost about CDN$40 each and included photos from a couple of photographers positioned along the river. Natexplora were excellent, as I'm sure the other companies are. The whole family wants to go rafting again.
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Boy having a lot fun
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Plenty of water
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Smile for the camera
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| Everyone had a good time |
Afterwards we enjoyed Natexplora’s courtyard snack bar for burgers and then headed a little further up the valley to the Casa Chocolate for ice cream. This beautiful wooden building full of carvings, mosaics and curios was surrounded by trees and made for a lovely stop. The drive back to Santiago heading west into the blazing afternoon sun through the inumerable traffic light stops was less enjoyable but at least we have the pool to cool off in!
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Can't get enough of this pina juice
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Ice cream, wood, cobbles, trees... lovely
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Tomorrow we head to the coast. Our time in and around Santiago has been really good. People are a little disparaging of this city, perhaps because there are so many other wonders in this country. But it is a very liveable city with its plentiful parks, bustling streets, diverse neighbourhoods and easy access to the countryside surrounding.
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