Termas el Plomo, Laguna de los Patos and a little rafting

It is nice to be able to escape Santiago every now and then, especially at weekends. Cajon de Maipo is near enough for that so a few days ago we planned a rafting, exploring and hot spring trip with a few friends.

This summer has been extremely hot and has coincided with the worst forest fires in the history of Chile (the smoke of some kept us breathing really bad air in Santiago for a couple of weeks). As the Chilean fire brigade is very underfunded (the state only covers a small part, the rest of the budget requires private donations) the fires got a bit out of control and required other countries to help out with personnel and equipment.

The fires on satellite

Things are now better but a weekend away was in order! Cajon de Maipo is the area around the Maipo river and covers several valleys just south-east of Santiago. There are plenty of adventure activities in the area with varying levels of comfort. We opted for some easy rafting with Andes Soul (recommended by a friend and they were pretty good - though as it is usually the case in Chile, they were not too hot in gender stereotypes and explicitly didn't let any of the women row at the front... I guess ladies wouldn't want to get wet, row hard, take some risk or have some fun :op). 

Rafting

Following that, we made a short excursion to Reserva Coyanco where we chilled and bathed in the river.

Reserva Coyanco

We then drove on to Embalse el Yeso and further on onto Termas el Plomo, some natural hot springs in the El Yeso Park (a private nature park) at about 3000m above sea level. Facilities are sparse, i.e. there are some toilets and (cold) showers which is quite a luxury in such a remote area - bear in mind you are very near the border with Argentina!

Termas el Plomo

Hmmm Water Melon... did you know it floats?!

Sunset with a view with friends in hot springs

The water in the hot spring wasn't too hot, to be honest, and we had to do some hydraulic engineering to heat up our side of the pool by redirecting some cold water that was leaking into the pool and walling off the warm area. But once that was sorted, it was lovely to flollop, soak up the heat and watch the sunset.

The next day, we did a short walk to Laguna de los Patos for a cold dip.

A dip in Laguna de Los Patos

Some shots of the trip below (or in higher resolution here).

[As an aside comment, unfortunately in Chile it is rare not to find rubbish all over the place where humans are. It appears that many people have not had adequate environmental education (this may be difficult when more than half of the population earns under 300.000CLP and public education doesn't really exist)... so like on many other similar trips before, we spent quite a bit of time picking up rubbish (plastic bags, cigarette butts, shampoo bottles, wrapping, used nappies, beer cans etc) :o( Needless to say that if not throwing rubbish is not taught, picking up other people's is definitely unheard of over here :o(( (once again, we seem to be the people from Mars - or maybe we just come from the future... who knows!?)].