Cascadas de las Animas

Cajon del Maipo is a river valley located on the south eastern part of Santiago. It's a region where people can go camping, hiking, rafting, ect. There are many campsites and hostels to choose from and our Chilean friend Daniel told us to go to Cascadas de las Animas, "Waterfalls of the Spirits." We took his recommendation and camped there for a night. It was gorgeous! It felt like we were so far away from the city when it was only a train (40 mins) and a bus (40 mins) ride away.

Our campsite was nestled right between these two large mountains

Rio Maipó

Suspension footbridge that we would cross the next morning

Our campsite ....with my beautiful boyfriend ;)

One of my favorite things about camping

An overnight stay at Cascadas de las Animas comes with a free guided waterfalls hike

I would have gone under the waterfall too if the water wasn't so cold. Mark was the only one out of the 20-ish people in our group... crazy gringo!!

Mark's sword skills at the mirador (overlook)

La Serena

Mark and I went on a six-day vacation with our buddies Alejandro and Hans in Region IV of Chile. We rented out an apartment in La Serena and toured around the area.

There was a hot hair balloon event when we arrived at the beach

puesta del sol

The beach was covered with clams!

A good handful of them where alive. I love this shot!

This kid was so funny with his sand bigote!

The port city of Coquimbo

We rode one of those ferry boats that took us a couple of kilometers out into the city.

Video of Our Captain

Pastel de Jaibas - a delicious Chilean dish in which crab meat is baked in a dish called paila

The moon was really low!

We went to Mamalluca Observatory, which is about an hour away from La Serena. This area of Chile is said to have the cleanest atmosphere in the world, and therefore many observatories are located there.

This is the start of Valle del Elqui is where pisco is made.

This is an instrument that uses the vibration of the wind to make sounds.

Us four at the dam.

So strange- grapes are cultivated on random areas of hills and mountains

A small beach/fisherman town of Tongoy where we stopped to have lunch with Alejandro's brother.