| Jan 13, 2006 - Border crossing to San Martin de los Andes
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 | | show all 5 | | Hitchiking to Chilean customs | | Walking through no man's land to Argentina customs | | Back to Argentina | | |
| The following morning kept the excitement level right up there! We woke and packed up camp early to be ready when the first ferry of the day pulled in at 9am. It came, people passed by with no ability or desire to help, and we were still stranded. So the decision had come to walk the necessary distance to customs if we had to, but I wasn't ready to give up. Plus, with my leg the way it still was, I REALLY didn't want to. The house across from Eliana's hostel makes fresh bread every morning, so we went by there to buy some, and I started talking with the people there to see if something could be done. About a half-hour more of talking and meeting some other people and being brought to the husband of someone woman who seemed like she wanted to help us out, we actually had a ride. her husband would take us in his truck to the Chilean border, but then we would be on our own to cover the rest of the distance through no man's land to the Argentina customs, where should be able to find transport to San Martin de los Andes. No problem, perfect. We just had to wait about 30-45 mnutes for him to be ready to drive us, but we didn't care. We hitched our ride, paid the man for his generosity even though he never asked, got our exit stamps from Chile, and then trued to hitch again to get to the Argentina customs. Once again this proved futile as cars just blew passed us. So we had to walk. It was a warm suny day, ok it was hot, but we starpped on all of our possesions and walked a bit over an hour to our destination. My leg did hurt, but who knows in the long run maybe it helped to stretch it back out and give it some excercise.
Once back in Argentina we decided our goal for the night would be to reach Bariloche and not stop in San Martin, since we were pushed for time and San Martin didn't sound so appealing anyway. So we settled on taking 2 taxis for a fixed price into town, who the border patrol guys called for us, and who showed up well over an hour later. Fair enough, San Martin was about a 45 minute drive away on a bumpy and insanely dusty dirt road.
Back into civilization, some of the guys went to the supermarket to get sandwich fixens, while I went straight to the nearest ice cream shop and got a large double-scoop double-flavor cone of deliciousness. San Martin is a very touristy and cliche-type mountain town, like a Vail or Aspen or something, so we weren't so upset we'd be missing it. We killed some time under a shady tree across from the supermarket, and also at the large lake just next to the bus terminal. Finally, in the evening, we all boarded our bus to Bariloche. It happened, we were gonna make it. Mission accomplished. The same trip that could have taken us 5 hours directly from Pucon had taken us two full days. But we still saved money on the deal, especially with a free night of lodging under the stars, and hey, its a good story ain't it?
I end with a passage from my journal on the same topic:
"In the end we paid US $2 less than we would have on transportation to go direct from Pucon, also saved a night on a hostel, but took 28 hours instead of 5. I wouldn't trade it. The drive down to the ferry was amazing, and the experience was a good one." |
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