Truly winter... in August

Yesterday it snowed in Santiago which apparently is a BIG DEAL. For those of you who know the city, it was snowing as far west as Tobalaba, which I'm told very rarely happens. Sadly, the weather wasn't freakish enough to be snowing downtown at La Moneda, but it was nonetheless pouring with rain; unusual enough, in that I had to root around in the back of the wardrobe for my umbrella while Carlos dusted off his waterproofs.

So as today dawned with the sun shining brightly, clear blue skies and the snow-covered Andes strikingly visible thanks to an absence of smog, what better day to enjoy our final sojourn into the mountains, with another trip to Cajon del Maipo.

The Andes, as seen from metro line 4

Attentive readers will remember we last went to the Cajon at the start of autumn. The first snows had just fallen and the leaves were beginning to turn gold. This time around, we arrived in San Jose de Maipo to a backdrop of blanketed hills and dripping water.

San Jose de Maipo

San Jose is the main village in the valley - a cute place to hang out but not loads to do. So after an empanada and an amble, we jumped back on the micro to go a little further into the valley to San Alfonso and the resort of Cascadas de las Animas (cascades of the spirits).

Cascadas de las Animas is a really pretty complex of campsites, cabañas (cabins) and land to explore. We paid the 4000 pesos fee for a two hour-ish walk to the waterfalls and back and set-off accompanied by one of the local dogs, who we nicknamed Ginger once we realised she was in it for the long-haul and we weren't going to shake her off, despite forcibly leaving her outside the gate.

The walk took us along the river and up through the forest to the site of two waterfalls. It was the closest we'd ever been to a waterfall and made us feel like we were in a Robin Hood film. The view looking back at the snow-covered Andes was also, of course, spectacular.

It was a perfectly romantic end to our last chance at sightseeing in Chile before we return to the UK. Well it was, until the slight drama of me taking a rather heavy tumble on our way back down the mountain from the waterfalls. Despite bashing my elbow badly on a rock (which hurts a lots - I wouldn't recommend it), somehow I managed not to break my arm. And so in true Jayne-style, we ending our final day of sightseeing. At least it was memorable!

The Maipo river

Cascadas de las animas

First snows

The seasons seems to be racing along now as on Saturday the aforementioned deluge broke loose and it rained all day and was really cold (around 12 degrees centigrade - how quickly we forget).

So that meant only one thing yesterday for our planned walk in the mountains... there was snow!

In fact we were treated to three seasons in one; imagine, clear blue sky, hot beaming sun, yellow and golden leaves and snowcapped mountains. Simply breathtaking.

Our destination was Cajon del Maipo, a gorge or canyon up in the Andes around an hour south-east of the city. It's a favourite weekend haunt of Santiaguinos, and as you would expect on Easter weekend, there were a lot of cars.

Funnily enough, we were the only ones walking and on a couple of occasions, drivers stopped to ask us directions. We were a little surprised, as we don't exactly look like outdoorsy types, but I guess the fact that we were exploring the valley on the power of two legs (and without the guide which seems to be mandatory here) suggested otherwise.

We barely scratched the surface of the cajon, covering around 10 miles in total, but the views were amazing and it will be interesting to go back in the winter to see how it changes.