I have to tell you a bit more about the day we crossed the Argentine-Chilean border... 🇦🇷 —> 🇨🇱
You know already from the previous posts that we started that day from Villa la Angostura. When we reached the Argentinian 🇦🇷 border post we had already cycled 27 km (+ 660h.m.). The exit was quick and easy 😅
To reache the Chilean border post we would had to cycle a 38 km stretch over the Paso Cardenal Antonio Samoré at an altitude of 1,305 meters 🚵♀️ 🚵 I was uncertain if we could make it to Chile that day, but after lunch in the sun, we continued. The uphill cycling was tiring. As we ascended, the landscape changed; we saw snow alongside the road, and the vegetation became barren.
By 4 PM, I finally reached the pass, where Marc was waiting for me, as I was much slower than he …
I have to tell you a bit more about the day we crossed the Argentine-Chilean border... 🇦🇷 —> 🇨🇱
You know already from the previous posts that we started that day from Villa la Angostura. When we reached the Argentinian 🇦🇷 border post we had already cycled 27 km (+ 660h.m.). The exit was quick and easy 😅
To reache the Chilean border post we would had to cycle a 38 km stretch over the Paso Cardenal Antonio Samoré at an altitude of 1,305 meters 🚵♀️ 🚵 I was uncertain if we could make it to Chile that day, but after lunch in the sun, we continued. The uphill cycling was tiring. As we ascended, the landscape changed; we saw snow alongside the road, and the vegetation became barren.
By 4 PM, I finally reached the pass, where Marc was waiting for me, as I was much slower than he was.
We decided to cover the final 22 km to the Chilean border post before it closed (we thought it closed at 5 PM). As quickly as possible — despite the very bad road conditions that made it challenging to maintain speed — we raced down the mountain and arrived at the border post at 4:56 PM.
To our surprise, we learned that the post would remain open until 6 PM. So we had enough time to eat our leftover fresh food: a carrot, a tomato, and an apple, before crossing. Bringing fresh food like vegetables 🥕 fruits 🍓 dairy 🍶 meat 🍖 eggs 🥚honey 🍯 etc., is absolutely forbidden. We passed through several checkpoints, they issued a document for bringing our bikes into the country, and we had to fill out a declaration stating that we had no prohibited items with us 🫣 After a dog sniffed our bikes, we successfully entered Chile with honey in our bag 😇
Already on the race down from the mountain pass we enjoyed how the landscape changed back to green and vivid nature. Really amazing!
Not far from the border, we found a suitable camp-spot 🏕️
Dinner was simple: pasta with tomato sauce from a tetrapack, as we had no fresh ingredients...
#cycling #bikepacking #patagonia #argentina #chile
