On Sunday I finally got to spend some time in the mountains. A group of 11 of us set out to walk to the Glacier el Morado. The start of the walk was at Bano Morales, a small village at the end of Cajon del Maipo situated 92 km from Santiago at an altitude of 1880 m. Although a public bus does travel up to the village we had hired a Jeep and a minibus to take us up there. The group was a mix of colleagues from the university where I work and a few of their friends. The walk up to the Glacier took around 3 hours up a dead end valley with the glacier at its end that crawls slowly down between the the mountains Morado (4,320 m.), and San Francisco (4,320 m). A relaxing lunch stop at Laguna el Morado (2400 m) was taken before completely ignoring the signs telling us not go any further. We actually walked all the way up to the mouth of the river pouring out of the glacier along with everyone else who simply ignored the sign. As we sat and looked at the glacier I couldn't help wondering how long it would be before the glacier completely disappeared. Some photos of me at the glacier are below.
The walk back down was slightly quicker but oddly seemed longer than the walk up the valley but then it always does for some reason. Anyway, I was pretty glad to get back to the village and even more glad to sit down and have a beer or two.
The drive back was long and uneventful, at least so we thought. We managed to miss a 7.2 earthquake during the drive back. The epicentre was in the Maule region of Chile, some 180 km south of Santiago, it was measured at 6.2 in Santiago I think. This follows the 5.2 tremor in the early hours of Saturday morning.
It was a great trip that I thoroughly enjoyed and good to get out of the craziness that is Santiago for a day. Thanks to Vitalie and Matej for organising the trip!
A
No comments:
Post a Comment