Climbing in Cajon de Maipo

I went to Cajon de Maipo with a guide called Jesus to do some climbing this Saturday. It's where the Andes begin and is a really breathtaking place. There was a campsite nearby and a river so you could almost make a weekend of it but I didn't have a tent. It was my first time and I suspected I may like it and I was right. It took a while to get used to trusting the person on the other end of the rope (I had a harness and all the safety equipment) and to being vertical and just hanging on to a rock high off the ground but after the fist climb I got a little less nervous.

I did two more similar climbs looking for places to put my hands and feet which there always were and then did a much harder climb. There were very few footholds and places to grip with my hands and at some point, I was hanging on by a couple of fingers and a foot. Each time I got to the top and touched the top of the rope I abseiled down the rock and couldn't quite believe I'd just climbed up there.

We finished at about six-thirty and it started to get dark before we reached the road. We couldn't find the path we'd come on so decided to stick to the main road and hope that the guard at the exit didn't charge us (we had come in another way where we didn't pay as much.). After getting barked at by a few dogs along the way we reached the main road and the guard let us by without paying. We hopped on a bus and I caught a couple of metros home.

My arms were aching by the time I got home although my legs were fine. I went to a wine tasting festival in Vitacura with a friend of one of my LITE students called Monica and my arms were so weak I could barely lift my glass (OK that's a bit of an exaggeration but almost) but managed to enjoy myself nonetheless. Unfortunately I got there so late after climbing that I only had one taste of wine before it finished at midnight more or less. I fell asleep as soon as I got into bed and didn't even manage to turn the light out!