Hiking & wine in the Cayon del Maipo

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Santiago is located just at the foot of the Andes. So yeah, no surprise that its residents love spending their weekends on the mountains, away from the hustle and bustle. We figured what's good enough for them, is good enough for us, so we'd join them. We rented a car for the day, and headed out to the Cayon del Mapio.


Surprisingly enough, it wasn't very busy on the roads. It may have been the timing - just after the skiing season, but before the summer season. Anyhow, we weren't going to complain obviously. Based on the numerous hotels, restaurants, and activity centers we passed by, I do believe the area sees busier times.

It was indeed the perfect Sunday like this. A beautiful drive through the mountains, some empañadas for lunch, and then a hike through a natural park. Well, almost perfect. As the area is more focused on local rather than foreign tourists, we hadn't been able to find much information online. So we figured we'd just drive to San Jose de Maipo, the biggest town there, and find our way from there to the suggested place for the hike. Which worked out just fine, other than that the last part of the drive turned out to be completely unpaved, and took us over an hour extra.. That would not have been a problem, if it weren't for the fact that we were also supposed to go tour the Concho y Torro winery at 4.30 PM... Ehh.. That left us with a bit over 2 hours to actually hike - so full speed ahead! The park ranger seemed a bit confused when we returned that quickly, but it didn't spoil the fun for us.

We got to the vineyard well in time, and got ourselves in the right mood with a nice glass of chilled white wine and a cheese platter. Sitting in the sun, we agreed that was the Good Life. In our enthusiasm we had however completely missed the place where we were supposed to pay for the tour and meet the group. So when we finally found our tour guide, we were told that we could join the next group, half an hour later. Oh, and our hotel had kindly booked us for the Spanish tour (Chilean-Spanish.. I rest my case) too. So we had the choice to either go and pay for the tour, and wait.. or to spend the money on more tastings and the wine shop instead. Well, we decided to go for the latter 😊. Unfortunately you are not allowed to go anywhere without the tour, so we were confined to the terrace and shops. That is really the downside of visiting large, commercial wineries like this one. Ah well. We had a good time, and returned to our hotel with a fitting wine inventory for our trip to the supposedly expensive Easter Island..

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