Siete Tazas National Park – Lircay – Tricahue 

We were really grateful to be home for the holidays. Being travelers at heart and living across the continent from our families, we have had our fair share of missing holidays, birthdays, celebrations and hard times, but this year we felt strongly that we needed to be home for the holidays. We spent several days leading up to Christmas with me family (Nikki here today!), having sleepovers with my parents, Matt and Clarissa and grandparents, celebrating Christmas early and watching movies. We then spent Christmas day and the following few days with Colter’s family – parents, grandparents and Laini and Gabe, eating great food, playing games, and trying new drinks. We then packed up our car (not Taka – she’s safe in Santiago with the same company we left her with when COVID set in) and Naiya and Ollie to drive back to our little home in Pittsburgh, so that we could prepare it for the Fulbrighters who would be renting it out for the coming 6 months. We did a final clean and moved in for the week with Shannon to celebrate New Years and see other friends in Pittsburgh. 

However, just after midnight of New Years, my grandfather, Andy Dickson, passed away really unexpectedly. He passed away, after having rung in the New Years with Gran, as they were reflecting on the many passed New Years they had shared. While losing any family member ever is tough, that is truly a beautiful way to have signed out of this life. I caught the first flight to CO on Jan 1^st and spent several days with my family, grieving and loving on Gran. She is coping and her biggest emotion seems to be gratitude he went so gently, and lots of reflections on the life they shared together for 61 years. I know this is our travel blog, but I want to take a few moments to share some of my favorite memories of Grandpa. The first one isn’t actually one I even remember, but Mom re-tells it. I was born a week early (which my family claims was the last time I’ve ever been early…), so Gran and Gramps hadn’t yet flown in from South Africa. Gran got in 5 or 6 days after I was born and Gramps a week later. And the way Mom explains it, the first thing Gramps did after arriving, before saying hi to Gran or Mom and Dad, was to peak into the back seat to say hi to his first grandkiddo (me). He loved all things mechanical and I will forever associate wooden and toy trains with him. He was an avid reader, easily cranking through a book a week and the toilet was his favorite “reading room”. He often shared articles with each of us that he thought we would enjoy or find interesting. He saved his favorite newspapers and journal articles to share in person, when they reminded him of one of us. For the 2010 Christmas, Mom and Dad gave me and Matt a pair of small dirt bikes, and I will forever remember Grandpa taking a turn, ramping up a dirt mound we had and diving headfirst over the handlebars into the dirt (he was totally uninjured physically, but his ego was definitely bruised). We celebrated Gran and Gramp’s 60^th wedding anniversary in Belize as a family last year where we had a divine meal and reflected on their many beautiful years together. He was a serious man with a true love for history and engineering, but you could fairly easily crack him into a smile or pull him into a hug and he loved his family more than anything else. We ended up extending our stay in the States for a couple days to give me a chance to recover and get back to Pittsburgh, but we ultimately decided that it was a good time to hit the road again. 

Once back in Santiago, we happily reunited with Taka and headed back south. While we are ultimately heading North, there were a couple places we wanted to finish seeing just south of the city. The first on the list was Siete Tazas National Park (or 7 Cups – aptly named for their famous waterfall which cascades down into seven pools). We had actually tried to visit this park right before leaving last time, but the park was closed due to wildfires. We did a long hike in the park, with views over the valley,  giving ourselves a little time to get a little reacclimatized to long hikes, reminding our bodies that we weren’t on Christmas holiday anymore. We then did the iconic Siete Tazas walk which was stunning and well worth the name of the park. The blue, green river falls between white canyon walls, ending in a massive fall called the Lion’s Leap. 

We then went a little further south to the National Park Licray. Here we hoped to do a 5 day backpacking loop, but after talking to the park guards, they told us that the backside of the loop was currently closed because a private landowner wasn’t happy with how past campers had treated the land, which was sad to hear. We resigned ourselves to doing a 3 day out and back, packed up our gear, and left Taka in the safe arms of the park guards. The trek started out intensely, with a 14 mile day over a mountain pass where we saw gauchos who had just come up the other side of the pass, breaking for lunch and rest their weary horses. We hiked down the pass and out onto a cobbly riverbed. Those last couple of miles were a little excruciating as we had to navigate over and around rocks and boulders, and small river crossings, for several miles. We got into the refugio, where we could tell many gouchos overnighted – there was a fully built bunk house, bathrooms and tables. We found a secluded spot, in the otherwise empty campground, and set-up our tent for the night. We went to the stream to soak our tired feet and collect water for the day, and then snuggled into bed for the night. The next morning, we packed up, grabbing handfuls of fresh wild apricots for the road from the grove of trees near our campsite. We walked back out, along the river rocks and pit stopped at a beautiful waterfall, where we took a swim and a lunch break. We then had to climb back up the mountain pass we had cleared through, which was a slow and steady grind. We don’t usually listen to music or podcasts when we hike – we view it as one of our sacred times to talk about the biggest and deepest things in our life. And we love it that way. But this climb required a little pump up music. We did eventually make it and wandered into camp, weary and ready for a relaxing evening. 

This is when the trip got really exciting and gave us a story we will literally retell for the rest of our days. We usually abridge our stories for the blog, but this one is worth telling in full detail, so brace yourself for a story full of heroes (Colter), villains (a Mama cow), intrigue, conflict and resolution. 

To get into this refugio, we had to open up a gate and pass over a bridge. We did so easily, but as we were picking out our campsite, we noticed a cow walking through camp, using the path we had just come up. At the time, we didn’t think anything of it, as we had passed by cows all day. We picked our site and pitched our tent. As we were doing so, we commented on the cow, who was now licking off other picnic tables in the refugio. I said to Colter that the cow reminded me a badly behaved, massive dog. We both laughed and then commented on how much we missed our own pups. As we settled into eating our dinner, the cow started to wonder towards us. We figured she was interested by the smells, so we chased her off. But as we started doing dishes and getting into our pajamas, she started to become a little more persistent. I asked Colter “Do you think she’s going to give us hassles all night?” to which we both just laughed. Nah – there was no way a cow would be targeting us. As she returned for the fourth time, we wondered if we were in her path to the stream behind our site, so we let her pass through but she wasn’t interested in the stream and started smelling at all of our gear, so we chased her off again, this time shoo-ing her back down the path she had come up. We hadn’t seen her for ~20 min so we figured we were both safe to go use the bathroom and settle back into bed. I had a weird feeling, so looked back over my shoulder to check on our tent, and low and behold, Mama Cow was in our site!! We were worried she was going to trample our gear, which we really need for the rest of our trip so we sprinted back to the site. She snatched at a pair of my pants which were hanging in a tree to dry out. She missed on the first pass, but stumbled back and grabbed them and proceeded to start eating them. EATING MY PANTS! I cried out “Noooo!” because I had put a bracelet in the pocket while we were hiking that I was very attached to and really didn’t want to lose. We both ran at her, but she kept just out of reach, moving as we got just in reach of her. Colter then tried to prod her with a stick to see if she’d drop the pants for her own health but to also get the bracelet back with no avail and I said “it’s not worth getting kicked love – leave it”. I was sad about the bracelet and angry that this cow was beating us at the game of protection, so I went off along the path to see if we had somehow left the gate open. I found a section of fence that had fallen over and was clearly her path – I could see trampled grass leading up to the gap on both sides. I went back to tell Colter of my finding and found him standing with a triumphant smile on his face and a handful of steaming pants!! In the time I had been gone, he had managed to chase down Mama Cow and startled her into dropping the pants. He said it was just like interacting with a massive naughty dog who had something it knew it shouldn’t. He tried to do a trade, offering her a stick for the pants, and when that didn’t work, he jumped towards her which startled her, and she dropped the pants. I reached a hand into the slobber covered pants, and there was my bracelet, still safe and sound. Colter saved the day!! But our saga was not yet over. 

Up to this point, we hadn’t wanted to chase her back out of the refugio in case the gauchos left her inside on purpose, but at this point we knew she jumped the fence to come in and were getting a little scared for our safety, so we decided we’d chase her back outside of the refugio. We watched as she easily cleared the gap in the fence and then spent the next 30 min building up the gap in the fence with wood and fallen branches. We built it to 6’ tall and walked back to our tent, feeling a little rattled but better for knowing she was on the other side of the fence. We debated if we should move our tent into a little sheltered spot in the refugio, but reasoned that with the fence up and her on the other side of it, we should be fine. We moved all of our gear into the tent, just as a precaution in case she somehow did manage to come back. Everything, apart from the slobber covered pants. Well that was a mistake. 

At 2 am in the morning, we are both startled awake to the sound of hoof clomps running towards us (at our heads!) and towards the tree where my pants are hanging! She snatched them off the tree but dropped them and ran off. At that point, our hearts were both beating and our adrenalin was high. We debated if we wanted to run on shifts for the rest of the night, chasing her off, or if we wanted to move our tent into the sheltered area where we could situate between two picnic tables and be on a wooden deck which we thought would be a clear deterrent for her. We started with the alternating guard watch, but quickly decided it was just worth moving. We moved our entire tent (still fully pitched) along with all our gear, while fending off Mama who kept turning towards us. 

Once situated between the picnic tables, we hung the pants on a high-up rafter of the shelter that we thought was for sure safe from her reach. We finally felt we could settle back into sleep for the night. Boy did we continue to be wrong. Mama circled us for the rest of the night, like an angry bull yearning for a fluttering cape. She sometimes passed very close (we could hear her breathing), and sometimes wondered off into the forest and did a large pass of the area. At 4:30 am, we heard hooves on the wooden deck as she craned her neck up high to grab my freaking pants! At that point, it was so dark and she had terrorized us so much, that we just let the pants be. I had the bracelet back, and we had done our darndest to stop her from eating them for her sake. We lay awake, listening to her chomp on the pants like a piece of cud. We both dozed on and off, but at 7 am we called it quits on our attempt to sleep and got up for the day. We didn’t see her around, so we quickly packed up our gear, ate a breakfast and got ready to hit the trail, short a pair of pants. We went to use the bathroom before hitting the trail again, and Mama came charging out of the forest towards us. To this day, she won the battle, although we did end up finding my torn up pants in the middle of the trail, 400 ft from our second campsite. The bracelet now has a heck of a story with a cow chew mark in the corner piece of the heart pendant, and we have turned the pants into a pair of rather torn up shorts and I used the leg pieces to line our fruit basket. I’m not sure what lesson we were supposed to learn, but we were definitely out gamed by a cow that night. All that being said, the rest of the hike down was beautiful and easy. 

After admitting defeat to a cow, on an otherwise amazing backpacking trip, we moved on to our third park, a new small private park, called Tricahue, where we did a divine 14 mile hike, out to a waterfall and back. We swam along the river in our own private swimming pool, and then enjoyed a beer each brewed locally with the water from the river. We found another local brewery that evening and enjoyed beers with handmade pizzas.