Crossing the Chilean-Argentine Border on Foot
Sun, 27 May 2007 06:00:14 +0200
There are two ways to get from Puerto Montt, Chile to Bariloche, Argentina. You can take a bus (8 hrs) or you can take a series of buses and boats through the Lakes District to cross the border (10 hrs). Obviously the second option sounds more interesting and scenic, but is a bit pricey. Mike did some research and discovered we could experience the bus/boat combo and cut the price considerably if we hiked across the Andes, over the Chilean-Argentine border.
We broke the trip up a bit and took a bus from Puerto Montt to Puerto Varas, a cute little town a lake. Enjoyed some lunch and also took note of the large population of honey bees in the area. Hint: Don´t eat your lunch outside, even if it is a nice day. We then took another bus to Petrohue, not even a town it is so small. On the bus we ran into a guy, John from England, who was also on the NAVIMAG boat. Turns out we were both heading to the same hospedaje. A hospedaje is sorta like a hotel, but it is the home of someone who has a couple of extra bedrooms. I ended up naming this place Old McDonald´s farm because there were tons of farm animals just wandering around the yard. No fence for the horses, cattle, pigs, chickens, turkeys, etc. It was quite amusing. The views from here were amazing though and the place very peaceful as there were only 4 of staying there and nothing much around but the animals.
The next morning we took a boat across Lagos Todos Los Santos to Puella, another almost non-existent town (only reached by boat). This was the point where we were going to hike the 27km over the border (which eliminated the overpriced bus portion, ). Because of the timing of the boat we broke it into two days. The first day was a nice walk through the valley and past ranches. The only problem was this is the first time we had to carry absolutely everything we have with us. In the past we´d leave two daypacks at the hostel when we head on these backpacking trips. Needless to say our packs were extremely heavy. This made the journey a bit hard on the body.
Mike really enjoyed it since we were the only ones out there, which was nice after being in Torres del Paine with lots of tourists, then on the NAVIMAG for 4 days. We found a great camp spot for the evening and took in an amazing night sky. The next day was 8km all uphill to the border and then another 4km down to the next lake, Laguna Frias, with a boat crossing. Originally we thought we´d keep hiking for 2-3 days in the Lakes District, but we didn´t think it best with the weight of the packs.
We were able to buy a partial ticket for the next boat-bus-boat combo and headed into Bariloche. We ended up saving by walking 27km, crazy.
