The day after our trip to El Bolsón it was time for us to cross the Andes to a new country for the both of us – Chile! One of the classic ways to cross is the famous “cruce de lagos” which is a full day of switching between buses and boats as you trace your way across the mountain range. Unfortunately, this trip is quite expensive and from what we read the quality of the experience is highly weather dependent. To save some precious pesos we bought a Bariloche to Puerto Montt bus ticket for about 30USD each from the ever-present Via Bariloche.
I had visions in my mind of a harrowing 14,000ft mountain pass on a gravel road but in reality the Cardenal Antonio Samoré Pass is pretty tame: below 1300 meters and beautiful tarmac the whole way. About an hour of the journey is spent on border formalities and most of that was on the Chilean side. Chile is very protective of their agriculture and import bans on fruits, vegetables and animal products are strictly-enforced. At the border they completely unloaded the bus and ran all the bags through the xray. Meanwhile they have a working dog sniffing the ins and outs of the bus. It was impressively thorough, I have to say.
Within thirty minutes of our arrival in Puerto Montt we were already on another bus headed south to Ancud on Chiloé Island. The total journey (8 USD) takes about three hours and maybe 30 minutes of this are spent on a drive-on, drive-off ferry. Cruz del Sur, the bus company, also operates the ferries so the timing is nicely orcestrated and wait times are minimal. The water crossing was smooth and we even managed to spot a few penguins. We pulled into Ancud around 5PM and made our way to an excellent hostel (Hostal Mundo Nuevo) on the waterfront that was to be our home for the next three nights.
2 Responses to “Across the Andes”
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Sweet dude! I’m loving the photos. We just got your postcard. I’m glad your trip seems to be going really well, and I’m quite jealous. Sorry I missed your birthday. I meant to send you a “happy birthday”, but it looks like you had a good one.
Hey Josh, thanks for leaving a comment! I am glad that the postcard made it to you guys. We just flew north to Santiago after a great couple of days way down at the southern tip of the continent and I assure you that more great pictures will be posted soon. Easter Island is next up…our flight is in about 10 hours. Snowy Patagonia to the (hopefully) sunny south Pacific in a day.
PS: Thanks for the B-day wishes.