Tuesday, August 9, 2016

Driving through San Jose de Maipo

I guess I should have posted these pictures before I put up the posts about Hong Kong, but when you are trying to play catch-up from 5 - 6 months past you are bound to make mistakes.
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The weekend after our trip to Argentina Darryl and I decided to take a drive south east of Santiago to the town of Rincon de Maipo and the surrounding mountains. 


It was a hot Saturday, close to 100 degrees as we started up into the mountains.

We were just on the outskirts of  San Jose de Maipo the car developed a terrible vibration. It kept getting worse and worse. We decided to pull of and see if we could figure out what the problem was. The front tire on the drivers side was missing 3 of the 5 lug nuts and the 4th one was almost off. ONLY ONE LUG NUT HOLDING THAT TIRE ON! Darryl tightened it up and stole a couple lug nuts off the other tires and we were on our way again.

We stopped in town and walked through the plaza where they were setting up for a festival to be held in the evening. 

The statue of Bernado O'Higgins... the Chilean independence leader who was instrumental in freeing Chile from Spanish rule.

The other side of the plaza. 

After getting something to drink and talking to the locals about what to see, we headed on out of town.

The road we were on followed the Rio Maipo.  There is a Rodeo arena in this photo. 
I wonder why? 

Ahhh.. that's why. Many, many Huaso Chileanos in this area. (That's Chilean for Cowboy)

As we drove around the mountain the road narrowed down to one lane and stayed that way for quite a while.

You would have to pull over and stop to let another vehicle pass...

Which sometimes was tricky...

But it was totally worth it because of the views we were able to see!



Tempting... but we had a different place in mind to have lunch. (Check out tomorrows post!)






Because the weather was so hot and dry, many people had escaped heat of Santiago and would come down here to camp and cool off.






It was a wonderful adventure... but I still have more photos to show you. Until then....


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