At Apoquindo there are several soda springs with baths and a swimming pool all of which are kept in a filthy condition. Like at Cacheuta and at Cauquenes but few people come to take the baths and none to drink the water. Most everybody congregates at the bar in the hotel across the street—the baths are but the name of an excuse.
CHAPTER X
BATHS OF CAUQUENES. CHILOÉ ISLAND. LAKE NAHUEL HUAPI
In Lady Anne Brassey's nonpareil book, Around the World in the Yacht Sunbeam, published by Henry Holt and Company, New York, 1882, she describes on pages 159-161 her visit to the Baths of Cauquenes where she sojourned two days, October 23-25, 1876. When I was in Chile in 1913, I never heard of these baths and returned home ignorant of their existence. In the interim I thoroughly read Lady Brassey's book and determined that if the opportunity ever presented itself that I would likewise visit them. Darwin visited them in 1836. While in Santiago in 1915, on looking at a map, I found that there was a city named Cauquenes in the Province of Maule in south-central Chile, it being the provincial capital. I had made up my mind to go to that place, when the bung-eyed girl who managed the Hotel Oddo showed me my error and informed me that the Cauquenes I was seeking, was not a great distance from Santiago and was reached by train from Rancagua.
One morning I left the Alameda Station at 9.30 and two hours later arrived at Rancagua. The ride was through a fertile country, well tilled and with great vineyards. Only two towns of importance were passed, San Bernardo with 8269 inhabitants which also has street-car connection with Santiago and Buin whose population is 2713 inhabitants and is the county seat of the Department of Maipo in the Province of O'Higgins. The Andean and wine-producing province of O'Higgins, named in honor of the father of Chilean independence lies directly south of the rather large Province of Santiago, its boundary line being the Maipo River. Its population is 92,339.
Plaza O'Higgins, Rancagua
Calle Brazil, Rancagua