Easter Dinosaurs

For Easter we decided to visit Termas del Flaco, or Skinny Hot Springs. On Friday we drove south, stopping to buy some wicker chairs on the side of the road before heading out to the road up to the hot springs. After about half an hour on dirt roads we made it to the start of the road up to the springs. The road is thin, so it is a one way road. Usually, during the week it is down in the mornings and up in the afternoons, but because it was a holiday, it takes the weekend schedule of up in the morning and down in the afternoon. Since it was already 5 pm we were stuck until the morning. We found a campground and set up camp.

Saturday morning we drove up to Termas del Flaco. We arrived and found a campground and had a small asado, or cookout. We then walked around town and found out that in order to see the local dinosaur footprints you had to hike two hours up into the hills above the town. We decided that that would wait until morning. Instead we changed into our bathing suits and went down to the springs. The hot springs water was channeled into some concrete pools by the river. The water was then mixed with water from the river to cool it down. The spring water comes out of the ground at 120 degrees Fahrenheit, too hot for people.

After the springs we found a restaurant for dinner. Because the town caters to tourists, most of the restaurants are connected to hotels and only make food with a two-hour warning from the hotel customers, but we were able to find one that had enough extra food for the seven of us.

Sunday morning we got up early and hiked up to the dinosaur footprints. The hike, almost entirely uphill, took a little over an hour. The footprints were pretty obvious and cool to look at. Each foot was bigger than my head. You could even still see the toenail marks in some of them. The sign said that the prints belonged to a Sauropod. There were also smaller prints that were much harder to see from other species. Based on the other fossils, it was clear that the area had been a beach. Shortly after the dinosaurs had walked in the sand along the beach, a volcanic eruption had filled the prints with ash, which had then eroded away over the 150 million years that have passed since. Over those millions of years the beach had turned on its side, so it was now a cliff side on which the prints had been immortalized.

After hiking back down (a much easier feat) we had empanadas and pie de limon for lunch before packing up camp and driving back to Santiago. We hit a traffic jam about an hour south of the city, which we circumvented on back roads, but which took a while, so we didn’t get home until around 9pm even though we had expected to arrive two hours before that.