Cajón del Maipo

On New Year's Eve, we went on a day trip to Cajón del Maipo, a canyon in the Andes, not far outside of Santiago. I had heard about it towards the end of my semester in Chile and had been meaning to go, but never got round to it. Now I'm really glad to have gone there, as it's an amazing place!

As we drove further and further away from the city, the landscape started to change and become much more mountainous and scenic.

Eventually we were driving in the mountains themselves. It was nice to see this waterfall at the side of the road.

The journey was a bit scary at times! There were wild goats and ponies there, who were really cute. 😍 However, at one point when we were driving along the edge of the mountains, we had to stop, because the goats were pushing rocks down onto the road!

Then we finally arrived at Embalse el Yeso, which was the place I wanted to see the most. It's a reservoir, and it was so much bigger and more blue in real life than it looked in photos! The views of the surrounding mountains were amazing too.

Afterwards, we started to go back in the direction of Santiago and made some more stops along the way. The first two stops were some nice scenic spots by the river. We paddled a bit in the second one and made a new canine friend!

Then we stopped at a very intriguing place called La Casa de Chocolate! It's like a house from a fairytale with a gift shop inside. It was inspired by Austria, which made me think of my Year Abroad.

                                       

The last stop we made was in San José de Maipo, the main town in Cajón del Maipo. The Plaza de Armas was very charming and old fashioned.

This was the first time my boyfriend and I took a trip out of the city together, and it was great, because we both love exploring new places. Cajón del Maipo is an amazing place to spend a day or a weekend for anyone who loves seeing incredible nature. It's a really good example of the sort of natural beauty that's so abundant in Chile.