The sun setting on Cajon Del Maipo. 
Two hours later, I made it to the glacier.
On the way to the glacier.
My failed attempt at taking a picture with the mountain...
He is probably one of the only reasons why I made it to Baños Morales...I woke up on time and made it to the metro with time to spare. But when packing I made several large mistakes, which will be revealed as the story goes on. My first mistake was that I forgot to bring the Chile - Lonely Planet guidebook. It had important suggestions on how to get to Cajon del Maipo. Cajon del Maipo is a canyon located in the Cordillera de los Andes, about two hours away from Santiago. There is a string of towns leading up to the National Park (where the glacier and the mountains were), which is an important detail for the story. So it took me three tries to actually get outside of the city. I first ended up at the bus station, but could not for the life of me find where the bus going to San Jose de Maipo (this was the first city in the string of cities leading up to Cajon del Maipo) was. I asked about 5 people, but no one could give me a direct answer. So then I went with plan B- I took the metro to the city center where I thought a colectivo (a taxi type vehicle) was going to take people to Baños Morales (the location of the National Park). Unfortunately I was an hour too late, or so I was told. Thankfully there were quite a few backpackers going somewhere and I was able to ask them how to get to Cajon del Maipo. With their direction, I took the metro to Bellavista de la Florida (close to the outskirts of town) and then was able to hop on a bus going to a town just past San Jose de Maipo.
So before I left I had mentioned something to Beth that went along the lines of this: 'I know how to get to Cajon del Maipo, but I think coming back is going to prove to be a little bit more difficult'... Unfortunately that wasn't the case. I think God was watching over me this past weekend, because I don't know how I would've gotten to the park otherwise. While I was getting on the bus to go to San Jose de Maipo, I struck up a conversation with one guy (Carlos). We began (I say we, it was actually him telling me in Spanish about the mountains , and with me trying to ask questions in my broken Spanish) discussing the mountains outside of Santiago. He was heading the same direction so we decided to take a colectivo together to get from the city outside of San Jose de Maipo. Once we were dropped off, there wasn't a colectivo to be found, so we just started to walk. Well after about 30 minutes we found a bus taking a few others to a town about 20 minutes away. After getting dropped off by that bus, I was forced to do one thing that both my mom and Beth had asked me not to do...hitchhike. (Mom and Beth, you might want to skip ahead a few paragraphs). We hitchhiked the rest of the way to the National Park (which was actually a really good thing because the point that we started walking to the national park ended up being a 45 minute car ride).
Thankfully with Carlos' help, I got to the park and managed to get a ride back with a van that will bring you back to the city's center. I found out that I couldn't camp in the park because there had been an avalanche a few weeks prior to my visit. So Carlos and I walked into the park and started making our way to the lake and the glacier (from the entrance to the glacier it was approximately 8 kms). I ended up speeding up ahead of Carlos and ended up making it to the lake before Carlos and so I had a small lunch there. Thankfully I brought a little bit of food (I thought I might be able to get more in Baños Morales, but that proved to be difficult, as seen later in the story) and brought 1.5L of water, two juice boxes and .5 L of wine (these are important details later in the story). From the lake I walked about 2.2kms up to the glacier, which was an amazing spectacle, well worth the trip up there. The trip was definitely a nice little workout (It was about 2200 meters above sea level, thus I was a little out of breath once I made it up to the glacier). At the glacier I met some students from Germany, Holland and the US. I ended up making my way back to the entrance with them. They made the time pass quickly as were exiting. Once we reached the entrance I had to make my decision whether I wanted to head back to Santiago that night or whether I should head back the next day. I went back and forth with my decision and finally decided to stay in Baños Morales for the night. That is when the party started. I said goodbye to the group and to Carlos and then decided that I would spend the night at a hostel just outside of town (called Refugio Aleman). After asking for directions twice I decided to take a shortcut up a hill back to the main road...big mistake. So I got back up to the main road, but I couldn't find Refugio Aleman. I spent about 20-30 minutes walking around trying to find it, and then gave up. At that point I was frustrated and the sun was going down. I knew I had approximately 20 minutes until it would get dark and so I made my way back into town. By the time I got back into town it was already dark and I honestly had no idea how to get to the campground. Plus I had just downed the rest of my water, and two juice boxes, and was still thirsty. After asking for directions twice, I found the owner who agreed to walk me up to the campground.
After picking a spot, the fun began. So when I was packing, for some odd reason I left my headlamp back at the apartment in Santiago, leaving me without any source of light to put up my tent. As most of you know, I choose not to curse, it just isn't part of my nature, but that night the explicatives were flying. I took out the tent that I had borrowed from the group that I am staying with and could not figure out how to put it together. Dad, at that moment you would've been so disappointed with me (but I redeemed myself 10 minutes later). I went over to a group of people that were camping about 20 meters away from me and asked them if I could borrow a flashlight. I went back with the light and tried to assemble the tent. About two minutes after I went to borrow the light I figured out why I was having such a hard time putting together a tent...it was because I didn't actually have a tent in hand, what I had was the tent cover (for rain or wind). I ended up finding four large rocks and with the help of a couple of the guys from the group that lent me the light I was able to bend the rods into a tent like formation and placed the tent cover over it. What I had was a quadrangular shaped tent without a floor. It was enough space to place my sleep mat down and house my pack, which was all I really needed. Once I got out of the tent, the whole structure collapsed. So dehydrated, hungry and without a true tent, I was frustrated to say the least.
Thankfully putting up the tent was easy enough and so I spent 5 minutes working on that and then I decided that it was time to eat dinner and head to bed (it was probably 8:30 at that point). Since I didn't have anything else to drink, I decided I had to choke down part of the wine (which technically dehydrates you even more). The wine was horrible, to say the least. For dinner, I had part of pack of cookies, a portion of a container of pringles and an apple. As for the night's rest, I was so thankful that I have a pretty good sleeping bag. If not, I might've frozen to death.
Once I woke up, I packed up things and made my way back to town hoping that there would be a place open where I could purchase some water. So I think I might've been born with a sign on my forehead that says 'Ayudame por favor', because someone came up to me as I was wondering around town and asked me if I needed help. Because there weren't any places open at that time, I was planning on just sitting on a rock and reading. Instead, this 75 yr old Chilean gentleman started to talk to me and asked me if I would join him for breakfast at his son's restaurant. Our conversations were purely in Spanish, which were a bit of a struggle for me, but thankfully he was extremely patient (my Spanish is definitely improving, but it still isn't anywhere close to where I would like it to be). I gulped down a cup of coffee and a slice of bread with cheese on it, which turned out to be an extremely expensive breakfast (just about four dollars). After breakfast I asked him if he knew where the Church was and what time Mass was. Thankfully he did, and so we walked up to the Church and we were able to inquire about the Mass schedule. At that point it was around 10 in the morning, and with Mass at noon I had few hours to read. I've been trying to finish a Hundred Years of Solitude... (an interesting read, I highly suggest it). I made my way up to Mass at noon and the congregation could not have been more hospitable. It seemed like they were not used to foreigners coming up to Mass at their Church. They blessed my travels and made sure that I did not leave without giving each of them a hug (there were only about 10 people at the Mass). After Mass, I said my goodbyes and walked back to the National Park.
I spent the rest of Sunday in the park. It was so peaceful; it was what I needed. I wanted to get away from the hustle and bustle and smog of Santiago. At around 5 I left the park and made my way back to the bus stop. Without any problems, thankfully, I arrived in Santiago and eventually made my way back to the apartment.
I will write more soon (about my Spanish class adventures). I hope that y'all are doing well. Take care.
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