One of my Chilean friends invited me to tag along with his hiking group, Los Malayos, to climb Cerro Manquehue. In all, there were about 20 of us, from all walks of life, and I found the structure of the group quite interesting. Each week, Los Malayos chooses a hill to climb (there are quite a few surrounding the outskirts of Santiago) and sends an e-mail out to a public list. In the e-mail, they specify an accessible metro stop to meet at, and from there the group heads out. When talking with members of the group, I found out there are a number of other similar groups in Santiago as well, but they prefer Los Malayos because it is free and consistently organizes weekly hikes.
For Cerro Manquehue, we met at 8:30 am a few metro stops away from my homestay, and I was back by 2, which made for a refreshing morning excursion. (unfortunately, I had to spend the rest of the day writing a final exam essay) Overall, the hill was a lot steeper than I had initially expected, but the scenery was beautiful. Since it is now autumn in Chile, the weather has been a bit chillier lately. In turn, it was extremely foggy for the majority of our climb, which created a neat effect.
Views from Cerro Manquehue
Overlooking Santiago and Cerro San Cristobal
Lots of condensation!
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