Antarctica to Zimbabwe – Day 11 – Torres del Paine/San Jose de Maipo can be found here.
Sleep in this morning! Though we’re still up not long after 7 am. Old habits die hard, I suppose – and we grew accustomed to early mornings during our time at EcoCamp Patagonia.
First – a quick trip up to reception to drop off laundry, which is being cleaned for us for the princely sum of 5,000 CLP per bag (roughly USD$5). We’re quite grateful for the reprieve, as laundry is often a major expense for us – it tends to add up as a family of four.
We also loathe the alternatives of either paying $8 per sock at a typical 4 or 5 star hotels, or wasting a few hours at a laundromat (and figuring out how to use their equipment while running the risk of detergent allergies because even though we always bring our own the residue can be enough that we need to break out the hydrocortisone creams).
Anyway, Cascada’s laundry services are working quite well for us. And on the way back, a pause to snap a picture of the adjoining farm:
And to admire the scenery at the resort:
Our early wake-up gives us plenty of time to prepare and pack our bags for our respective excursions this morning. We’d originally hoped that we could all do the whitewater rafting trip, but sadly Cascada de las Animas changed their age policies after our initial booking.
Our son is old enough to meet the new 12-year-old (and 30 kg) minimum, but our daughter is not. So she and my wife have opted to do another brief horseback riding trip, while we’re going to carry on as planned. Both tours start at 10 am.
The restaurant doesn’t open until 9 am, so we’re still wondering how we’re going to finish breakfast in time to make said excursions.
We needn’t have worried. Shortly after 9 am, a massive spread arrives at our table:
Delicious! The small little loaves are particularly fantastic – still hot from the oven.
After, we returned to our dome loft to get changed and finish with sunscreen. We still had no trouble getting to the central meeting point 10 minutes early.
Twenty years ago, my wife and I went rafting at this same resort – and our safety briefing contained no English. We had one other guest on our trip who would listen to the guide explain something in great detail – “Spanish Spanish Spanish esta muoy importante Spanish Spanish Spanish mucho peligro Spanish Spanish.” We’d turn and look expectantly at the Spanish-speaking guest, only for him to say, “Oh, yeah. Don’t do that.” Pretty sure there was more to that…
But it’s a different situation at the Cascada de las Animas of 2025. We have several guides with excellent English today – and while I’m usually willing to attempt pretty much anything in a foreign language, I also believe in safety first. So I gratefully accept the bi-lingual briefing.
Nicholas and his Briefing Dog
Then it was time to return to the rafting desk to don our wetsuits, booties, jackets, life jackets, and helmets. This might seem a bit extreme at first blush, but I’ve swum in glacier runoff and I would take any protection possible against the bone-chilling cold.
We then grabbed our paddles and tromped down the hillside until we reached the rafts. It was perhaps a 5 minute walk, but we still needed to keep an eye out for stray rocks as the neoprene booties are quite thin.
Our river guide proceeded to give us a run down on the various words of command we could expect to hear out on the water – adalente to go forward, alto to stop paddling, adentro to go inside, and atrás to paddle backward. And that’s before we get into “High side left” and High side right”…
Our guide also cautioned us that he’d be leading off in Spanish because we were the only English-speakers on the trip. So we’d need to be quick on the uptake. Nothing like a bit of abject terror to help the language lesson sink in, right?
I jest, but at the heart of this jest is a very real seed of concern about my son going down this raging river.
I needn’t have worried. He did brilliantly:
And for those so inclined, an action sequence:
And yes, the water was icy cold. But it was so worth it – more enjoyable even than our last round of rafting in Costa Rica. (Though the lack of a 4 hour car ride certainly helped.)
The rafting itself lasted about an hour, after which we pulled aside at a campground and sloshed the half-kilometer to the waiting bus. Then a quick 15 minute drive back to Cascada.
It cost 35,000 Chilean pesos per person, or just over USD$35. For a further 15,000 CHP we also got the photos above.
We then went to catch up with my wife and daughter – who sadly did not have nearly as enjoyable an excursion.
Their horseback riding group was more than 30 minutes late in leaving, moved at a dead slow place, and had essentially no interaction with the guides. (Apart from being told to stand in one spot, then being chastised for standing in the spot where they were told to stand.)
This would typically not pose a massive problem, except we have a 6 hour horseback riding tour booked for tomorrow, and we’re concerned it’s going to be more of the same.
We went to speak to the information desk about our forthcoming ride. Will we be going faster than a dead-slow walk? Si, claro! Will the guides point out wildlife? Si! Rather than being reassured, we got the sense they were just telling us what we wanted to hear.
The lack of towels at the pool didn’t help matters, nor did the fact that maintenance staff had told her they would bring them over in five minutes – only to be found stacking firewood ten minutes later.
We always knew that coming from EcoCamp to Cascada was going to be something of a come-down – there’s almost a full decimal-point difference in the price. But this has been jarring and frustrating.
Thankfully, matters started to turn around soon thereafter. They did a fantastic job on the laundry, and we had a very tasty (if mildly repetitive) lunch of salmon Napolitano:
Pesto shrimp pasta:
And steak frites, which we photographed yesterday.
Sadly included meals can’t be taken at the nearby bar / cafeteria. Ah well, we might just pay out of pocket at some point simply for the sake of variety.
We then headed back to the dome, and the kids gathered various laptops and books together so that they could make some headway on their schoolwork.
We sat in the far side of the restaurant, which didn’t exist 20 years ago:
It’s a nice spot, but there were also a large number of children running around – so we left after an hour or so, once the kids had dealt with the most pressing assignments.
They then went off for ice cream:
While I did another laundry run.
And by the time we came back, they’d delivered the pool towels.
We also decided that we needed to push horseback riding back by a day, and the front desk helped us connect with the tour provider to make that happen – they were, thankfully, very responsive.
I’ve mentioned this before, but Google Translate continues to be the hero of this trip – we’ve used it constantly to bridge the language barrier. Strongly recommend downloading an offline copy of whatever dictionary you might need before you depart!
Back to the dome to lounge for a bit, and listen to the sound of people whooping and hooting as they fly down the zipline.
Then it was time for dinner – but before we did so, we decided to have a look at planning a trip to the nearby wildlife refugio. It sounded great, so we sent them a WhatsApp message to see whether they might be able to arrange an English-speaking guide for tomorrow.
Off to the restaurant. We’re tiring of the set-piece menu, so we asked whether we could order off the regular menu. Yes – but they would only provide a US$70 credit toward the meal. Seems fair to us.
We started with a pisco sour catedral:
I then had the shrimp risotto:
While my wife had the mushroom risotto:
And the kids got the plain buttered noodles (not pictured).
The wildlife refugio had gotten back to us at this stage, and sadly they had no English guides available for tomorrow (Sunday). They are closed Monday and Tuesday, and we’re leaving Wednesday. It’s not promising, but they’ll look into it.
For dessert, my son had the pancakes:
While the rest of us split the Temptation for Four:
All very tasty, but way too much food. Just as we were about to turn out the light, a message came through from the refugio – they’re able to book us in for a tour in English on Tuesday.
By then it was definitely time to turn in, and so we we bid goodnight to Cascada de las Animas:
Continue reading Antarctica to Zimbabwe – Day 13 – San Jose de Maipo.