The Lakes Crossing

Why take a simple bus across the border, when you can travel on 4 buses and 3 boats?

My route from Bariloche in Argentina to Puerto Varas in Chile is considered to be a classic when the weather is good … but as you can see from the photos, the day I had booked for turned out to be the during the one brief spell of cold, rainy weather during my entire time in the area – it had even snowed the night before (and this is midsummer down here remember).

On the first crossing over Lago Nahuel Huapi (puma’s island ) the seagulls followed us, or hitched a ride.

Arriving into Puerto Blest we had a brief moment of sunshine

Then it was just a short transfer to the second and smallest lake of the day. During the day, the moving of everyone’s luggage was quite an operation, here they took the bags on a separate smaller boat.

At the other side of the lake it was time to say goodbye to Argentina after 3 and a half weeks, and cross back into Chile.

After a stop for lunch at Puella, the final boat crossing on Lago Todos Los Santos should have given us fantastic views of the Osorno Volcano …

Well, the views did improve … At least half the volcano was visible by the end

And in Petrohue there was a special crane for unloading the luggage

Bienvenido a Chile

Last stop of the day was a quick look at the Petrohue waterfalls