Bariloche to Esquel to Futaleufu to Chaiten to Puerto Montt. The Argentina to Chile border crossing.

As we couldn't find any help for this border crossing in either guide book or intenet, here are the facts for anyone who stumbles across this blog when trying to research their own way of getting into Chile.....

Bariloche - Esquel (Bus Via Bariloche AR$77) 4.25 hrs

Esquel - La Balsa (Jacobsen Bus AR$28) La Balsa - Futaleufu (Local minibus AR$27) 2hrs (Mon & Fri only)

Futaleufu - Chaiten (Local minibus AltaMirano CLP2000) should be 3 hrs, due to snow we did in 5. (only 1 per day 6am)

Chaiten - Puerto Montt (Local minibus Kemel bus CLP14000) 12 hrs

And now on with the story.......

The 7am bus from Bariloche to Esquel takes us through beautiful Patagonian landscapes - ice capped mountains standing high above wild, arid plains. Upon arrival we find out that the bus to the Chilean border is not until Monday - b*****. Unless you're there specifically for the adventure activities on offer in the surrounding hills and rivers, there's not much to do in Esquel. After a night of being kept awake by the noise from the club over the road and the fact that we were staying in a dorm room for the first time, we wake up too late to do any excursions to the nearby national parks, so we wander around Esquel and kill time by walking up a rough mountain trail to find a lake. After an hour of being covered in dust by passing traffic and with tummies rumbling, we turn back - water features have eluded us again.

Monday arrives and we board an 8am Jakobsen bus for our journey to the border. The driver looks like 'Auto' from 'The Simpsons', but fortunately doesn't drive like him. The journey through neighbouring Trevelin followed by a drive along a bumpy road through the dramatic and desolate windswept countryside is quite pleasant. We criss-cross rivers lined with vibrant evergreens huddled beneath the Andes mountain range.

We leave 'Auto' at the Argentine aduane for our exit stamp and join a minibus apparently on an OAPs day out to the border at La Balsa. We get our bags searched for the first time since being in South America. After getting back on the minibus, we notice that we've had our passports stamped for 2010 and hope that that doesn't come back to bite us on the arse.....

After another short minibus ride, we arrive in remote Futaleufu. It's raining. For this section of the journey there was no information in the guidebooks and we couldn't find anything on the web about this particular border crossing, so we'd been winging it since we left Esquel. Consequently, we're not entirely sure of what to do now as there appears to be no bus station which rules out my only plan of action.The bus driver directs us to a small office to pay for the ride and from here we get some maps and find out that the next and only bus out of here is tomorrow. Crap. As it's raining we decide to take the first hostel we see - only later, once we've figured out the currency do we realise that it's way over our budget. However the room is very cosy, with amazingly comfortable beds that have electric blankets! There is a large bathroom with the most luxurious toilet paper we've experienced yet in SA. The room has one of those Calor gas fires, the kind that I'm fairly sure are redundant in the UK. I try not to worry about this and the lack of fire extinguishers too much as we leave our twee abode that is apparently made entirely of wooden kindling.We wander the streets to find the bank to change our emergency US dollars, and to find the tourist office where we get more misinformation about getting away from here. At another travel office we get supplied with info that contradicts the tourist office. Great. We start concocting stories of how we'll never be able to leave, which given the eerily quiet air about the place adds to our general nervousness about the forthcoming days...

It looks like everywhere is shut - where is everybody? We eventually find a "restaurant" that appears to be open and push our drizzle soaked selves through the narrow door. The sparse interior has a welcoming stove fire in the corner, so we gravitate towards that and wonder if there's anybody home. We are greeted by a swarthy looking woman who gestures for us to sit down. She has a ruddy complexion and eyes that look in opposite directions and is sporting an apron filled with holes that struggles to contain her massive wrestlers frame. We huddle around the warm stove, trying to avoid her multi-directional gaze and devour Lomo a la Pobre - the toughest steak we've had for ages served with chips, fried onions and a fried egg on top - yep we've left Argentina!

Trying to find any internet connection in this wilderness proves predictably challenging - the nice little old lady at the hostel kindly allows us to use her computer so that we can at least tell the bank where we are so we can get some cash. After a doze in the amazingly comfy beds I go for a walk around the pretty town whilst Katy stays in reading. Smoke winds from chimneys in the roofs of the single storey wooden cabins and you look up to notice the clouds clinging to the mountains that are so close here. For a moment the rain stops and a rainbow appears to be so near that I could walk to the end of the street and find the pot of gold. I walk past the men (re) building the Plaza de Armas and consider how easily you could retreat a few months here in peaceful seclusion. It starts to snow heavily and I discover the trainers I purchased in Buenos Aires are useless. With feet sodden through, I hurry back to Hospedaje Antiqua and sit by the fire playing cards with Katy wishing that the budget would allow for a brandy.

A 4am alarm the next day prompts us to leave the exaggerated comfort of the warm beds. Downstairs the sweet old lady has prepared for us the nicest breakfast we've had yet. Sadly, there's little time to enjoy the feast of warm bread, pancakes, fresh fruit, cheese on toast, scrambled eggs and coffee as we have to get the 6am bus. We board the mini bus and endure a bumpy ride along a gravel road through the morning darkness. It begins to rain again and as we climb through the mountains, it gets progressively heavier before turning to snow. The morning light reveals a Christmas card perfect setting of snow covered pines and mountains which we enjoy until we reach the red tail lights of other vehicles stuck in the deep drifts further up the road.

We stop behind the line of beleaguered cars, but have to move over when a JCB needs to pass through to help those at the head of the stranded queue. Amazingly, in performing this simple task, our driver manages to get us stuck in the steep drift at the side of the road. What follows would have been funny had we not been perched perilously on the side of a mountain. The driver tries to free us by repeatedly reversing and moving forward, succeeding only in bringing us closer to the edge. As he tries to get chains fitted to the wheels I've decided that the only place the bus will be going is over the edge, so we escape to stand in the comparative safety of the road. After too long spent waiting in the heavy snowfall, watching the drivers blather away at each other, seemingly oblivious to the bus that looks like it'll topple over at any minute; one sensible chap arrives with a sturdy chain which he winches to a heavy goods lorry and slowly pulls our bus free and back onto the road. Our driver sheepishly returns to his seat. The JCB has cleared some of the road ahead so we finally start moving up the slippery slope to freedom with a few tentative wheel-spins and nerve-jangling slips and slides; we make our way in convoy hesitantly through the snowy mountain road.

As suddenly as it had started the snow stops and we are hurtling along the new road being built through lush green woodland to arrive in Chaiten by 11am - 2 hours later than scheduled.

Chaiten was devastated by an apparently inactive volcano in 2008. An eerily quiet air hangs over the once busy town - its streets lined with wooden houses that have all long since been locked up and abandoned.Strangely our next bus is waiting for us amidst the derelict buildings, and we are directed to one of the redundant shacks to find it functioning as an "office" to buy our onward tickets. We notice that there are still a few plucky locals operating in town who won't let a pithy volcano eruption blight their livelihood. In fact one enterprising (morbid) chap had postcards of said eruption available for sale!

The next 12 or more hours were a nightmare of epic proportions being as we were stuck on a freezing minibus full of screeching school kids, and listening to the most horrendous latino music on repeat. This music consisted of a woman of the mature variety wailing some unintelligible lyrics probably with a big grin on her face and occasionally rolling her R's in a "arrrrrrrrriiiibbbaaaaaaa!!" fashion, all the while accompanied by a virtuoso playing the most irritating tune on the accordion. Seriously, I don't think I can ever listen to an accordion ever again. The journey consisted of both land and water travel as we traversed the many lakes and bumpy roads through the Gulf of Ancud. The forested hills and snowy peaked mountains that lined the icy blue lakes were beautiful, but the ferry crossings chilled you to the bone and seemed to take forever.

My plan gets scuppered once again when we arrive at Puerto Montt just after midnight to find that the bus station is closed. There is an army of local women wrapped tightly against the cold sea air waiting for us to get off the bus and we get cajoled into choosing one of their hostels by an authoritative woman with a clipboard. It's conveniently located nearby and appears to be a seedy dive, whose only redeeming feature is the effusive and charming landlady.

We leave as quickly and as politely as possible the very next morning and board a 9am JAC bus bound for Pucon. The route takes us on the first proper roads we have seen for days, flanked by green fields shrouded in a strange low-hanging mist. The bus drives through the pretty Germanic styled town of Valdivia and up to Temuco where trees bursting with bright sunshine yellow flowers make it look like Spring. As we approach Villaricca, we catch our first glimpse of THE volcano. It is a captivating sight - it's near perfect conical form covered in snow and set starkly against a backdrop of brilliant blue sky. We struggle to take our eyes away from it and as we get nearer and nearer it appears more and more majestic.....and inviting.