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Today we took an all day tour from Puerto Varas over the Chile/Argentine border to the city of Bariloche. This is a famous tourist trip, you travel by bus and by boat in a well arranged sequence of transfers - the tour operators do this journey every day, and they have the details all planned out, from baggage handling to handling customs at the border. Under clear skies, this would be a trip full of memorable views, but we unfortunately had low clouds and overcast weather, though fortunately no rail fell on us. There are a total of three bus rides and three boat trips on this journey. The first bus ride begins at Puerto Varas and carried us out to the dock on Lago Todos Los Santos - but first it stopped for an hour at the Petrohue waterfall. We had already visited these falls (I did not realize that we would stopping here on this trip). The weather at this point was the best it would be all day - the clouds were high enough this time that we could see Volcan Osorno. The water was running clear, without sediment from any recent rainfall, so it was a beautiful blue color. The clouds clamped down when we started our boat ride across Lago Todos Los Santos. Indeed, it looked like it had started to rain behind us. I was disappointed that we couldn't see the tops of the mountains that surrounded us, I especially wanted to see Volcan Puntiaguado and Monte Tronador, but the clouds were relentless all day. There was a long, dull stop at the tiny town of Peulla - we must have waited in the Puella Hotel lobby until about 3 PM. This is the point where the tour organizers were waiting for the tourists traveling from Argentina to Chile. Once they arrived, we took their bus and head west to the customs office at the border. Along the way, they stopped the bus and pointed out a condor feeding on a carcass, surrounded by vultures. The condor was not far from the road, standing in an open stony river bank, so we had fantastic views of that condor, even though we didn't leave the bus. I was delighted to see this rare, iconic bird. I was also pleased that they stopped the bus so we could take photos at the border crossing signs. After customs, we took a short boat ride across Laguna Frias. This small lake has beautiful green colored water, and is surrounded by high mountains (which is why they haven't built a road around it. A very short bus ride followed (just a couple of kilometers), and then we waited at Puerto Blest for the ferry that would take us on our final boat ride down the Brazo Blest arm of Lago Nahuel Huapi. It was late in the evening when we took this final boat ride, but it was still bright enough to see some Andes mountains on both shores of the lake. I wish I could have found a contour map of Nahuel Huapi that would have identified some of these peaks. The final bus ride took us into Bariloche, and dropped us off right at the doorstep of Hotel Tirol. It was a successful crossing. The front desk at Tirol told that we had a call from the tour operator that was going to give us a kayak trip the next day - when we called him, he said that the weather the next day would be too wet and windy to go kayaking. Not a great forecast for tomorrow! Panorama Photos
MapsThe map shows the bus and boat segments that we took to reach Argentina.
This is the official map from Cruce Andino, with some notes added by me.
This is a photograph of a sign that was posted at Puerto Blest. Look at how much area Mount Tronador covers in snow and ice - that must be an enormous mountain.
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Click on any thumbnail to begin the slide show at that photograph Border Crossing Photos
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