Moving between Chile and Argentina means passing over real mountains. It means it’s a stunning bus ride. The coldest passport stamping. Have your cameras charged and don’t sleep through it!

 

 

As the days get colder, Paso de los Libertadores at the border between Santiago, Chile and Mendoza, Argentina is often closed because it’s in the middle of the Andes and snowstorms and things.

It’s a horror story for travelers. Busses show up, hours away from either city, and get sent all the way back. People are forced to take $400 one-way, one-hour flights. Nobody knows conditions ahead of time. All anyone can do is stalk announcements made on the Twitter page.

 

 

Day 29

How lucky I was that the roads for Mendoza opened right when I was ready to go in a season of frequent snowstorms and no night busses. Even better, the skies were cleared and I enjoyed landscape presented outside my window like a breath of fresh air.

Early in the morning I took the metro to University of Santiago, exited left, exited the bus station and went to the international bus station.

The man at the ticket counter evidently did everything he could to give me the cheapest ticket,$26. I was trying to get rid of every peso I had left that wasn’t a giant bill and ended up 750 short. In struggling to understand how to pay this $1 difference by card, an Austrian boy suddenly appeared and paid for me.

As soon as the bus began moving they passed out cups and “breakfast,” or cookies.

Rivers became ski villages and glaciers, which then became streaked rock formations and forests. Eight hours later, I walked from the terminal to Banana Hostel, only $7 per night if paying with booking.com.

By dinner I had met some lovely English travelers and my stress, piled up from finding this place and changing currency and buying food using Mandarin with the minimarket staff because my Spanish wasn’t good enough to figure out which vegetables were the cheapest, subsided.