Sunday morning I was up at 7am to head to the bus station the other side of downtown. The bus didn’t leave until 10am, but it said boarding was at 9.30am, and I’d heard the station was a bit confusing and also over the last ten years I have been going through a fundamental personality change that means I would prefer to be an hour early to important things than five minutes late (I have to admit that so far that category has pretty much only included “travel departures and job interviews” but baby steps). The mother in my host family offered to come with me on the Metro in case I got confused, which was very nice of her although I like to think I am not too easily confused by public transport! We left at about 8am and she saw me along two buses, a metro train and then onto the final train, where she turned around and headed home.
The station actually was pretty confusing, but I had 45 minutes until boarding so didn’t get too stressed. There were also lots of people around looking official to give directions – some women who told me I was at the wrong station (there’s one directly above the Metro station, then the main one a block along that I wanted), a guy standing next to the information booth directed me to the Andesmar window off to the side of the main concourse, and the Andesmar woman told me the bus would leave at 10, boarding at 9.30, from somewhere in spaces 40-49 (seems like this is the regular area for it, from my online reading). About 9.15 the bus pulled in with a Mendoza sign in the front, and people started lining up. First the driver checked tickets and passports, then you lined up to have your luggage loaded and get a tag for collection at the end. Everything I read said to tip a couple hundred pesos, so I did, looked like everyone else was as well but the guy didn’t ask for it.
A French backpacker couple in the line ahead of me didn’t have the tourist entry paper in their passports, and it wasn’t clear to me if the driver was going to let them on. They told me they’d rented a car and dome a day trip over the border, and didn’t get a new paper on reentry even though it was taken on exit. Talking to them was incredibly hard, I kept using Spanish words or French words conjugated in Spanish.
The bus was quite cold to start – I thought I was just being soft until I noticed I could see my breath in the air! It got warmer as we went, but it probably would have been worth having an extra layer on for that first hour.
About 10 minutes after we left, the bus assistant (technical name given in the introductory video that was played) came by with a small packet of cakes/ cookies and instant tea/coffee options for each passenger, then came back with a Styrofoam cup and poured hot water for us, very nice! They also put a movie on, unfortunately it turned out to be American Sniper which (1) why? (2) ugh.
After drinking most of my coffee and spilling a little over myself, I tried the bathroom. I had to ask where it was because there was no sign on the door. There was no toilet paper, but I try and always have tissues on me for that scenario so it was fine. There was handtowel paper anyway, and soap. There was a sign saying that the toilet took liquids only, separate to the ubiquitous “no toilet paper in toilet” signs. Seemed perfectly clean and usable, overall.
Right near the border, not only was there graffiti on the rocks next to the road (very motivated local kids or dickheads stopping on the way through?), but I saw a guy running down the mountain by the side of the road, wearing a bright yellow running shirt, a balaclava and shorts. What the fuck. Just past him I saw another cross and memorial next to the road, and a spot where the barrier next to the road had been knocked down the cliff. Um.
The switchback section was crazy and only an idiot would drive that. I took a video – you can see it on dropbox, start watching at 45 seconds (PS any recommendations on video editing software? Turns out I think I’ve never done it).
For professional pictures of this, check out Google Images.
We got to the border at noon, not even log enough for the movie (American
Sniper) to have finished. There was a fairly large collection of trucks waiting to go into Chile, presumably slowed up by the customs slowdown?But we drove straight past that and on for a few minutes until we joined the end of a slow moving line of vehicles through a tunnel, then passed them and continued. I saw a hostel and a number of shops advertising sandwiches, artisenal stuff, etc – for workers? For people stuck at the border? We didn’t stop there either I saw a train line which looked abandoned, I had heard that there used to be a train across the pass, such a shame. Destroyed now by avalanches and rockfalls it looks like. By this point the sun had come out and it SAS quite warm. We’d gone past a sign saying Welcome to Argentina, and were clearly heading downhill – where was the border control? I finally saw a sign saying “control integrado 2km”, about half an hour after going past the Chilean side (if thats what it was). We pulled in literally as the movie credits rolled, which I thought was pretty damn smooth. While there wasn’t much of a line at all, there was a small collection of restaurants which presumably get all their business from the people who aren’t so lucky…
Passport control seemed pretty quick to me, but I was at the front of the line and could go to the bathroom and sit on the warm bus while everyone else went through – it may have seemed slower to others! The French couple who didn’t have tourist entry papers were fine, the bus driver talked to the Chilean passport control for them.
About an hour after arriving at the border, the bus drove another few hundred meters and we all got off with all our bags, and waited while they scanned (xrayed?) all the hold luggage then manually checked our hand luggage. Seemed pretty low key, more like looking inside, poking the outside once and done, for me at least. There was one guy who apparently had lost his laptop on board?? So the customs guy asked him if my laptop was his. That would ruin my day, poor guy. Hopefully he had an idiot moment and left it at home? He was still looking sad when everyone collected their bags at the end of the trip so I guess he didn’t find it on the bus at any rate.
I chatted a bit to the girl next to me in line. She said ” I’m from Austria” and I said “oh, I’m from Australia” and she said “No, Austria”. I clarified and she apologised, said she gets a lot of people being confused!
Finally, we pulled away an hour and a half after arriving, could have been worse. It was pretty cold standing around inside the building, which was more like a giant garage than a real building, but with the sun coming through the bus windows it was nice and warm. As we left, they handed out lunch (a sandwich and coke). I had bought a loaf of bread in Santiago in case we were hanging around for hours, but that turned out not to be necessary.
The scenery from the border to Mendoza was just incredible, some of the best landscapes I’ve ever seen. Mountains and lakes and railway tunnels and mountains and mountains. I took a billion pictures, and even with my cameraphone a lot of them turned out pretty nice. Sadly although I was at the front of the bus, the big front window had a polarising film over it so I couldn’t take any pictures through that.
And all the rest are at https://www.flickr.com/photos/jacalata/sets/72157653961237642 – I haven’t really had time/patience to go through and delete the shitty ones so there’s a bit to wade through.
Scenes by the side of the road, which I’m not fast enough to get pictures of: a woman and small boy, looked like they were perhaps hitchhiking towards the border? A ruined building with two fresh Mexican flags on handmade poles. Several storage crates with “Pizarro rafting”. A group of people and cars picnicking next to the river. A couple groups of motorcycles. Shrines – either to the Virgin Mary, or sometimes marking crash locations. An unexpected giant lake, about an hour out of Mendoza. A pair of young men with backpacks trying to hitch towards the border outside Mendoza. Somehow those same motorcycles now ahead of us again? Two police stops on the road in about 2km going through wineries/outskirts of Mendoza.
Once we arrived in Mendoza, I got my bags (tipped in Chilean pesos because ??? was I supposed to have picked up some Argentinean money before going? How does that work? I gave him a note at least so hopefully he can do something with it). I’d looked the map and theoretically it would be a 40 minute walk straight along the main road to my hostel, but in practice it was warm out and nope gonna take that $3 taxi. I had read before arriving that I should try and change my American dollars on the Blue Dollar rate, and there were plenty of guys around offering “Cambio? Cambio?” so after setting my stuff on a bench to unobtrusively pull out my wad of American twenties, I asked one of them his rate. He offered 12.5 pesos/dollar for a US $100 note, or 10.5 for a smaller note – I should have brought 100s! I changed $40, enough to get by on until I learned if I could do better, and walked out the main door of the station to the taxi rank. A short and pleasant taxi ride later, I was at the hostel by about 5pm.