The flight into a foreign land is frightening. Not knowing what to expect or what you are going to see. The sights are breathtaking. The mountains are tall and steep and nothing like anything I have ever seen in the States. At first it is somewhat offsetting. But after a little bit you start to feel at home in this tough rugged land.
The air in the Maipo Valley is clean. You simply feel healthy living in such an amazing area. The food is all so fresh and the water is so cold and sweet. The people here are very friendly. They make you feel at home instantly. Even the stray dogs are friendly. It is hard to believe that just a 30 minute drive will take you back into a hustling city, crowded with loud cars and people. But here in the Maipo Valley, you don’t think about the city. You are just totally happy to be in location that is as beautiful as this.
The ” daily grind” here is not such a grind. It’s more of a vacation. On the average day here you wake up around 7:20 AM to go do a short workout that gets your blood flowing. Then directly after that you, and the rest of your classmates, head over to Carla’s house. She lives about a half mile away. To get to her house you have to cross two swinging bridges. The first bridge you must cross is about 40 feet above the, brown, fast, and breathtaking, Maipo river. Once you are across the bridge, you walk a short distance and you are at a far sketchier swinging bridge. It is over a small dried up creek, there is not much water in the creek but there are hundreds of beautiful yellow flowers growing on the banks. After walking very carefully across the second bridge, you walk about 100 yards and you are at Carla’s house and you can already smell the delicious breakfast Feilipe, our cook, has made for us.
After a delightful breakfast of fresh fruits, fruit juice, eggs, toast and various jellies and jams, you start your classes. Here in Chile you think it would be hard to concentrate on anything besides the breathtaking sites and the flowing rivers. But that is not the case. Being in an environment such as this it is easy to learn. Learning comes naturally. This makes the class work exciting. Every page of the books leads to something new and exciting, and this makes you eager to learn more! Even going down to the store to buy a snack teaches you something. You pick up on various Spanish words and phrases every time you interact with any of the locals. After your first four periods of school you take a short break for lunch. This involves embarking on an adventure across the two swinging bridges and back to Carla’s house where once again Felipe has prepared another fantastic meal to fuel our ever hungry stomachs. After the lunch we cross the bridges and begin the last 3 class periods of the day. The last three class periods feel like they will never end. Because at the end of our classes, we are able to do some of the best kayaking in the world.
The Maipo river runs fast, cold and brown. It is 100% snowmelt which makes the river somewhat brutal to paddle. You have to roll fast or you will most definitely get an ice-cream headache. Even with the harsh conditions of the Maipo, it is impossible not to fall in love with such a beautiful, strong, and mysterious river. Not knowing what is just inches below you, hidden in that brown muddy water, is part of the beauty of this incredible river. The other part of the Maipo’s beauty comes from the surrounding landscape. The rugged, dusty, rock mountains shoot up thousands of feet from the river’s edge into the great, blue, Chilean sky. It is safe to say that the Maipo Valley is a magical place.
Kincaid Wurl
