After mulling over what to do during the night I decide to head for Puerto Montt and catch the 9am bus. As we pull away from Bariloche an English guy comes over and sits beside me. He tells me I can´t bring bread, fruit, meats etc into Chile. I wasn´t aware of this and brought a bundle of food with me for the journey. I have quite a large breakfast so and will have to dump anything I don´t eat at the border. We´re also given a small breakfast on board so I´m stuffed as we head for the mountains. As we head northwest for the mountain pass which will take us into Chile we travel through high valleys covered by woodland which extend all the way down to the shorelines of sparkling blue lakes. As we head deeper into the Andes we leave the lakes behind and the snow speckled mountains begin to rear up all around.
We stop in a pretty touristy town and I get pangs of guilt as I see a group of cyclists with their panniers and gear all loaded up rolling out of town. We leave the town behind and the road winds higher into the mountains. Trees begin to thin out leaving patches of bare rock and snow scattering across the view. Soon we are at the Argentine border post. We all troop off the bus and present our passports while border officials sign the paperwork, enter our data into computers and, finally stamp the passport. This border post was located in a very pretty dip in the mountains and it was no great chore to sit in the sun and look at the views until we were given the all-clear to progress towards the Chilean border.
A few miles later over the tops of the mountains we repeated the procedure only this time everything took longer. All the luggage was unloaded and passed through an airport style monitor. Our hand luggage was inspected for suspect foodstuffs and meats of mass destruction. Thankfully I had been tipped off earlier and dumped my offending lunch as I ticked off all the boxes of illicit foodstuffs........ contraband salami and, God forbid....... bananas!!!!
The Chilean customs officers were jovial, plump and well-fed looking characters. One guy appeared to be salivating at the thought of all the cheese and hams he was going to confiscate from us gringos but sadly he would be disappointed. I looked so downcast as he failed to locate anything to confiscate for his lunch that I considered offering him a sympathetic square of my chocolate. Then I thought I´d better not in case he decided to take it and my biscuits as well!
Into Chile, we trundled through the mountains for some more miles before beginning our descent to the plains below. We emerged from the mountains into a region of lush green pastures. The colours on this side of the Andes were much more vivid than in Argentina. The fields with cattle grazing, lined with trees. The grass an emerald green resembled the good quality land in the east of Ireland. At times you felt you could be at home on a bright summers day until you looked to the horizon and saw the snowcapped mountains.
A brilliantly white volcano suddenly appeared miles away on the left of the bus. Its cone shape was captivating. My first volcano. Soon a second volcano appeared, then a third neither as tall or as striking as the first, Volcan Osorno. We stopped at the town of Osorno briefly and most of the backpackers on board got off to change buses for Pucon 5hrs north of here. Weaving slowly through a saturday street market the bus left Osorno for the 100km stretch south to Puerto Montt. All the while we had the sight of Volcan Osorno filling the view on one side of the bus. Your eyes were just drawn to it. We stopped briefly in Puerto Varras a small town on a lake which has spectacular views of the volcano towering over the far shore.
20 mins later we were in Puerto Montt. This is a bustling port town sitting on the northern end of the Chilean fjords which extend all the way down to Punta Arenas in southern Patagonia. Most come here to take a three day ferry to Puerto Natales, the gateway to the famous Torres del Paine national park. A short walk up a steep hill took me to Hostal Vista Hermosa where I got a single room. I was looking forward to this after a week in dorms. Hopeful there would be no mosquitoes this time. I lay down for a while and then got up to get some money, food and have a look around town.
First impressions of Puerto Montt weren´t great. It looked pretty rough. There was a lot of hustle and bustle. People looked poorer here. I felt as though finally I had really arrived in South America. I think the anxiety I felt was more to do with a little bit of culture shock than any real danger in the town. There were a good deal of winos in this part of town, close to the bus station. But people just seemed to be hanging around and I didn´t see much of this in Argentina. People looked a lot different on this side of the Andes, with darker skin and a more South American look to them. I had to find an ATM and get some money and I´m never fully relaxed when I have to get csh. I always feel slightly vulnerable at ATM´s so this probably helped me feel on edge.
There were a lot of street vendors among the streets of the business district which led away from the bus terminal. It felt very different to Argentina. Once I got my cash the anxiety I felt began to fade away and I started to enjoy the place. There were a lot of Cafes and fast food joints along one street. A football match was being shown on tv and each place had a posse of people filling up the place to watch the game. Where the TV sat just inside the entrance the doorway filled with onlookers craning their necks to get a glimpse of the action.
Ten to twelve blocks down the street the general shopping area became a bit more upmarket. This must have been the high street of Puerto Montt and led to an open plaza which itself opened onto the seafront running prrallel to the shopping area. I got a bite to eat in a local eaterie which left me feeling unsure if my stomach was going to react (thankfully it didn´t). It was getting dark so I went back to the hostel for the night.
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