Before leaving for Chile, I did what’s on everyone’s pre-departure checklist: called my bank and told them I would be out of the country for a while. When they asked which countries, I obviously told them Chile and Peru, but I added Argentina to the list just in case I made a trip there. Well, it was quite the headache to make it there, but I finally made it! After our first bus trip was cancelled due to snow and this trip was delayed 12 hours due to even more snow, we finally packed up a bus and headed into the Andes to cross the border into Argentina.
By car, the trip from Santiago to Mendoza hypothetically takes 5-6 hours. Unfortunately, our trip was significantly longer than that… In our slow-moving bus, we made it to the border in about 4 hours. We began to fill out our paperwork and wait in line to go through customs, but everything seemed to be taking a bit longer than it needed to. After a while, we realized we had been sitting on the bus for hours waiting for the Argentinian computers to work, and they still hadn’t even checked our luggage. Thankfully, after 4 hours sitting at the border, they let us go without checking all of our bags. Welcome to Argentina?
It was another 4 hours to Mendoza from the border, so altogether the trip took more than 12 hours. Needless to say, we were all pretty exhausted and cranky when we arrived at the hostel – and we became even crankier when we saw the very dirty bathrooms that we would be using and realized my bunk bed was held together by wires. Welcome to Argentina?…
The next day was a bit of a struggle bus still fun nonetheless. A group of 3 friends from IES and I went on the trip with an organization called Chile Po’, which organizes trips in Chile and the surrounding area for mostly foreigners living in Santiago. After having a bit of an argument with them about them changing the times of the trip and not refunding our money, it was interesting to spend the rest of the weekend with them. Saturday consisted of waiting in the hostel for an extra 2 hours because the bus driver didn’t show up, going to the chocolate factory for a tour only to find out it was closed, and finally setting on going to a buffet for lunch. By 3:00 pm, we were all a bit annoyed that we hadn’t done any of the planned activities, but thankfully the fun finally started! We visited two vineyards and an olive oil factory, sampling lots of wine and olive oil samples along the way. We didn’t get back to the hostel until around 9:00 pm so it was a long day, but definitely worth it to finally see some of Mendoza.
It was another 4 hours to Mendoza from the border, so altogether the trip took more than 12 hours. Needless to say, we were all pretty exhausted and cranky when we arrived at the hostel – and we became even crankier when we saw the very dirty bathrooms that we would be using and realized my bunk bed was held together by wires. Welcome to Argentina?…
The next day was a bit of a struggle bus still fun nonetheless. A group of 3 friends from IES and I went on the trip with an organization called Chile Po’, which organizes trips in Chile and the surrounding area for mostly foreigners living in Santiago. After having a bit of an argument with them about them changing the times of the trip and not refunding our money, it was interesting to spend the rest of the weekend with them. Saturday consisted of waiting in the hostel for an extra 2 hours because the bus driver didn’t show up, going to the chocolate factory for a tour only to find out it was closed, and finally setting on going to a buffet for lunch. By 3:00 pm, we were all a bit annoyed that we hadn’t done any of the planned activities, but thankfully the fun finally started! We visited two vineyards and an olive oil factory, sampling lots of wine and olive oil samples along the way. We didn’t get back to the hostel until around 9:00 pm so it was a long day, but definitely worth it to finally see some of Mendoza.
Day 2 consisted of a tour of Mendoza, which included a short hike up Cerro de la Gloria in the middle of the region. It wasn’t quite as hard as Cerro San Cristobal in Santiago and didn’t have as great of a view, but it was still nice to be able to see the area all around us. The view of the Andes was spectacular, especially because Mendoza doesn’t have nearly as much smog as Santiago does. After the hill, we visited Parque San Martin, Mendoza’s version of Central Park and walked around a bit. We finished the afternoon with a visit to a chocolate factory for some samples and an asado (barbecue) back at the hostel before heading out to return to Santiago.
Thankfully the trip back to the city wasn’t quite as long as the trip to Argentina, but it was a bit more nerve-wracking. We had been told that the Argentinian border closed at 8:00 pm on Sundays, so when it was 7:45 pm and we still hadn’t reached customs we were a bit concerned that we would be spending the night in the Andes. Thankfully, the trip organizers eventually told us that we had already technically passed Argentina’s border and were just making our way to Chilean customs. Cheers to not spending the night in the freezing Andes mountains!
Chilean customs was infinitely more efficient than Argentina’s despite being much more involved. In about an hour, all 35 of us had our passports stamped and our bags checked before getting back on the bus to continue on to Santiago. This is just one of the many reasons why I love Chile…
Overall – a successful weekend! Stressful at times, boring at others, but overall glad I finally made it to Argentina :) My 10th country outside the US!
Chilean customs was infinitely more efficient than Argentina’s despite being much more involved. In about an hour, all 35 of us had our passports stamped and our bags checked before getting back on the bus to continue on to Santiago. This is just one of the many reasons why I love Chile…
Overall – a successful weekend! Stressful at times, boring at others, but overall glad I finally made it to Argentina :) My 10th country outside the US!