January 9 - Argentina bound

Woke up, at our breakfast and met Julius at the boat.  a few minutes later, Xavier showed up, and brought along Mauricio and Kristina. We had met these 2 briefly the day before. Mauricio is from Columbia, and has spent a lot of time traveling the world.  He met Kristina when he was traveling in Russia, her homeland.  She went to Columbia with him, and just loves it.  Mauricio works long enough to have enough money to travel, then he goes somewhere.  Currently the 2 of them are motorcycling to the bottom of South America.  Check them out at www.motoadventurist.com

the 7 of us took the boat out to the marble caves.  Everyone on the boat had a good sense of humour, and it again felt that you were hanging with old friends, not new ones.

Marble caves

Our group on shore getting ready to go on the lake

One of my perro friends

After the trip to the caves, Mauricio lent us an adjustable wrench so we could adjust our chains, then we said our goodbyes to all of our friends and went on our way.

  Rio Tranquillo sits on the shore of the largest lake in chile, Lago General  Carrera, which we have to drive around today.  the weather was semi-overcast, but not raining.  the wind, although still very strong, was manageable.  About 50kms down the road, we turned of the Carretera austral (which still continues 500 or so kms) and he headed along the southern shore towards Chile Chico, bordering Argentina.  the ride followed the lake all day, and although the gravel road was for the most part good, we had a cliff on one side or the other of us the entire day.  The scenery was spectacular, in particular as we crossed over the lower part of the Andes.  At one point, we stop at a small waterfall to look over the bridge, and as I walk away from the bike, the side stand slowly starts sinking into the ground.  I rushed back a few steps and tried to catch it, but it was too late and it crashes over.  Seems the rock I placed the side stand on had slipped, and the bike sunk into the sand below.  Picking up the bike, the left mirror was broken, but no other scratches.  I tape the mirror in place as best as I can, and we continue on our way.   I can still see out of it, so all is fine.  

You have to watch for oncoming traffic on these roads

    As we dropped down into Chile Chico, the mountains we had been surrounded by for days were replaced with a missive flatland plain that goes as far as the eye can see. We were now on the Patagonian steps.  Things are also drier looking here, as the rain lessons after the clouds cross over the Andes.  Crossing the Andes here really isn't as as much of a feat as in most of the other crossings, as the lake sits in a valley of sorts that creates a natural pass.  This is probably one of the lowest altitude passes over the entire range, and I doubt we where even over 6000 feet (although I don't actually know).

   In chile Chico we head for the Argentinian border.  We stop at a border office and bring all of our paperwork in, and I go first to the counter.  At one point, the border guard asks me for something, and expresses concern.  I kinda know what she was asking me for, but just played stupid as if I new zero Spanish.  After a few agitated sentences, she stamped my forms and sent me to the next window for part 2.  Now the guy processes all my paperwork for the bike, and he doesn't seem concerned about any flaw in my paperwork.  A few painless minutes later, I am told I can go.  I head outside and wait for Chris and Al, who come out quickly.   At this point, I let them know that the offices we had been in were only the Chilean "exit" office, and we still had to do Argentina's customs.  We drove off and about 5 kms down the road hit the Argentina entry point, again heading in the building.  After a few moments at the counter, we get told that we cant go in to Argentina, because we haven't paid the reciprocity fee, and we cant pay it at the boarder, it must be paid online, so we must go back to chile.  The reciprocity fee, as it turns out, is basically a revenge fee. It seems a few years ago, Canada, The USA and Australia started charging people from only certain countries a processing fee.  So, Argentina, chile and some others started doing it too.  Thanks Canadian government, in the end, it is your own citizens paying this stupid fee.

Already about 6 pm, we turn back to chile, and have to go thru Chilean customs to get back in.  After about 20 minutes pf forms etc,  we re -enter chile and find an internet cafe and fill out the forms, paying $75, we now have our fee, so its back to the boarder.  We fill out all the same forms at the Chilean side, and once again proceed to the Argentinian side. This time all goes well and we are granted access to Argentina, finally entering at about 9pm. 

Once in Argentina, we find a bank machine, since we have absolutely zero Argentine Pesos.  I text Carolyn  quickly to let me know what they are worth, since i had no idea.  Thankfully, she gets the message and replies quickly, so I dont end up taking out $2000 or something foolish.  After getting money, we find a campground to settle down in.  There was a cherry festival going on ( i guess we are in a cherry growing region) so the campground was full, and although we ended up in bed by midnight, the party outside of us went until 5 am.  we joked about how much Lindsay would have hated that.

  Not sure who is following all of this, and hope if you are you find it interesting.  Again though, I need to put in a disclaimer, spelling, grammar and writing may lack due to using an ipad/iphone and typing in a tent sometimes.