Friday 3rd February 2017
Well, I suspect that Chile has very many spectacular walks, long and short, of which the one we were about to do is a very good example. Whether it's the best or not I'm really not qualified to say, but it was very impressive and interesting.
Our lovely cabin is in the Reserva Nacional Radal Siete Tazas - one of many National Parks in Chile. It's very much in the foothills of the Andes and not all that far from the Argentinian border (marked in purple). The coast is just visible on the western side of this view, and our 14 mile drive from the cabin is the orange track.
After driving about 10 miles along fairly rough tracks, Eddy stopped our trusty (and now very dusty) rented Renault near Mauricio's far more appropriate 4X4 pick-up truck.
Getting out of the car there were signs like this .....
Which seemed fairly self explanatory. I guessed that it probably wasn't a good idea to climb over any of the obvious barriers, even though I didn't understand the Spanish.
This sign though I took to mean something like "If you're a thrill seeker, this is a good place to earn yourself a Darwin Award".
So we all walked a few yards to a fence at the edge of a fairly deep ravine and found this:
This is the "Velo de la Novia" (Veins of the Earth) waterfall. It looked pretty impressive from our viewpoint ....
But then reading about it and discovering that the main drop was about 55 metres high (160 feet in old money), it became obvious that we were quite some way away from it and it was pretty big.
After enjoying those views for a while, we drove on to the next stop heading south-east, the second (rightmost) arrow on this view:
Here we parked again and paid a nice young man a small amount of money. He was delighted to find some English tourists to practice his American on, and very good it was too, but definitely American, not English. He warned us quite earnestly that the path was rough and stony and would no doubt have mentioned 'trip hazards' if they'd been in his vocabulary. As we (Barbara & I) were wearing fairly unsuitable open toed sandals we did take his warning seriously.
And off we set, eight plus one dog on a cross-Andes trek to see the Seite Tazas - I had no idea what they were, Eddy just said "wait and see!". Here's our route in more detail, following the river (Rio Claro) in its gorge through the forest.
Eddy mentioned that this was actually a private venture, the official park trail and viewpoints being currently closed as the staff were off elsewhere in Chile helping with the fire-fighting. But it was a good trail with strongly built timber viewing points at intervals along the gorge from where we saw .....
and this .....
and this ......
These are the Siete Tazas or Seven Bowls, a series of interconnected pools, each with small waterfalls leading to the next one. They were very lovely, and probably a lot less dramatic in the Chilean summertime than they would have been in the winter.
A little further on was another significant waterfall, but with only a relative trickle of water going over it, not nearly as dramatic as it should have been.
On the walk back to the cars, we stopped by a particularly impressive tree which Sara knew all about, but sadly I've forgotten its name. I'll edit this entry if you let me know Sara?
And then we drove on a bit further for more adventures .......
Well, I suspect that Chile has very many spectacular walks, long and short, of which the one we were about to do is a very good example. Whether it's the best or not I'm really not qualified to say, but it was very impressive and interesting.
Our lovely cabin is in the Reserva Nacional Radal Siete Tazas - one of many National Parks in Chile. It's very much in the foothills of the Andes and not all that far from the Argentinian border (marked in purple). The coast is just visible on the western side of this view, and our 14 mile drive from the cabin is the orange track.
After driving about 10 miles along fairly rough tracks, Eddy stopped our trusty (and now very dusty) rented Renault near Mauricio's far more appropriate 4X4 pick-up truck.
Getting out of the car there were signs like this .....
Which seemed fairly self explanatory. I guessed that it probably wasn't a good idea to climb over any of the obvious barriers, even though I didn't understand the Spanish.
This sign though I took to mean something like "If you're a thrill seeker, this is a good place to earn yourself a Darwin Award".
So we all walked a few yards to a fence at the edge of a fairly deep ravine and found this:
This is the "Velo de la Novia" (Veins of the Earth) waterfall. It looked pretty impressive from our viewpoint ....
But then reading about it and discovering that the main drop was about 55 metres high (160 feet in old money), it became obvious that we were quite some way away from it and it was pretty big.
After enjoying those views for a while, we drove on to the next stop heading south-east, the second (rightmost) arrow on this view:
Here we parked again and paid a nice young man a small amount of money. He was delighted to find some English tourists to practice his American on, and very good it was too, but definitely American, not English. He warned us quite earnestly that the path was rough and stony and would no doubt have mentioned 'trip hazards' if they'd been in his vocabulary. As we (Barbara & I) were wearing fairly unsuitable open toed sandals we did take his warning seriously.
And off we set, eight plus one dog on a cross-Andes trek to see the Seite Tazas - I had no idea what they were, Eddy just said "wait and see!". Here's our route in more detail, following the river (Rio Claro) in its gorge through the forest.
Eddy mentioned that this was actually a private venture, the official park trail and viewpoints being currently closed as the staff were off elsewhere in Chile helping with the fire-fighting. But it was a good trail with strongly built timber viewing points at intervals along the gorge from where we saw .....
and this .....
and this ......
A little further on was another significant waterfall, but with only a relative trickle of water going over it, not nearly as dramatic as it should have been.
On the walk back to the cars, we stopped by a particularly impressive tree which Sara knew all about, but sadly I've forgotten its name. I'll edit this entry if you let me know Sara?
And then we drove on a bit further for more adventures .......
Charlie,
ReplyDeleteThe tree is Called "Coihue" (Nothofagus dombeyi), a native species. Presumably for the size of the one on the picture, It has been seeding the forest for a couple of hundred years, at least.
Thanks Sara, I know you told us at the time what it was, but of course I forgot.
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