Lakes Crossing to Bariloche

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DAY 19 A lazy 10. 30 am start lead us to believe we going to have a leisurely day mainly sailing across a series of lakes joined by 4wd bus sections where the lakes did not join. At the same time we crossed through customs & immigration procedures from Chile back to Argentina with a 2 night stop at the picture postcard town of Bariloche.

First stop was to ensure our luggage was correctly tagged as it required 6 changes between boats to buses before we would see it again & that needs a lot of faith in South America. Then boarded a catamaran for a 2 hr sail across Todos los Santos. With overcast skies & mist around the hills the emerald lake was not to be seen at its best. We had a long lunch stop for luggage transfers & so other boats & day trippers could be co-ordinated for the next legs.

Next we boarded a 4wd bus and almost immediately had to clear Chilean customs without incident before back on the bus for a 25 km stretch across a neutral border zone. The road was a slow windy uphill ride on a one lane goat track but the surrounding Andean hills formed a natural barrier. Once we reached the top of the peak we knew we had reached the border & the Argentinian immigration office was just down the hill. Some bags were randomly selected for inspection with owners including 1 from our group but then passed without inspection. Just the threat that it may be opened. However this was the easy bit, for some reason all 4 Australian passports were causing problems & were side-tracked to allow all the others to be processed. After a considerable delay they resolved the problem without telling us why with extremely poor control in that the passports were not handed back to their actual owners. Eagle eye Ruth also realised she had both visa entry forms un-stamped nor was her passport stamped which would have caused problems when she tried to leave the country.

Next was another short ferry ride until it narrowed into a river unable to take the ferry. Off the boat & another bus trip before a 2 hr ferry ride across Lake Nahuel Huapi to the port of Bariloche and another 90 min bus ride to drop passengers at their various hotel accommodation. The last lake cruise was quite picturesque with palatial chalets nestled in sheltered coves in the Andean hills the closer we got to port but with fading light & tiredness we did not fully appreciate the scene.

All very tired after another 11.5 hr day. Our guide for the next days activity was on hand to greet us at the hotel and the prospect of another 10 hr day including a 16 km walk did not get an enthusiastic response. Off to bed for us with corn chips for dinner.

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