Bus over the Andes to Mendoza

(Oct 1)

The bus route from Santiago to Mendoza.  The crow would definitely fly a straighter route.

There would be several switchbacks as the road climbs the Andes mountains..

Our trip to the bus station began with our 1.2 mile walk to the subway station and then carrying our bags down several flights of stairs, some of which A tripped and fell down but luckily did not get hurt. We had planned to get more Chilean money from a nearby ATM since we knew it was one that didn't charge us, but for some reason A's card didn't work even though we had used the same card to successfully get money out two days before.

A returns from the failed ATM mission.

Our backpacks wait.

At the bus station it was quite easy to find the Andesmar booth and the correct bus stall and we boarded our bus after purchasing some lunch for the 7 hour ride. The bus we were on was a double-decker bus with big recliner sears in the cave-like lower level and "semi-cama" seats on the upper deck which were basically like comfortable bus seats but with more pitch, more recline, and squishy, soft seats. Definitely an improvement from BoltBus. We had chosen row 2 on the upper deck when we bought the tickets so we had a pretty good view out both the front and the sides.

C in his Semi-Cama bus seat.

Our route would take us over those mountains.

View out the front of the bus.

We headed out of Santiago and quickly began to climb into the mountains. Before too long we got off the highway to head toward the Libertadores Pass on a one lane each way road. Around 11am they passed out ham and cheese sandwiches, which were a surprise to us since at booking it said no food. So,we had 4 sandwiches now to tide us over. The views were quite good along the way and we began to see snow on the peaks. Just before the Chilean border there was a series of switchbacks and then the Portillo ski resort. The skiing had just closed for the season a couple weeks earlier so there was still a lot of snow though also lots of bare rocks on the trails.

Road towards the mountains.

Watch out for falling rock.

Road in the mountains.

Lots of switchbacks on the Chilean side of the pass

The road crossed under a ski lift a few times.  There was no snow on the ground -- only rocks.  We had been told that it was not a good snow year.

Each hairpin switchback in the road was numbered.

The mountains at the top of the pass were covered with snow.

We reached the combined border facility and had to get off the bus inside a sort of large shed with no insulation. At over 11,000 feet it was quite chilly while we waited in line to have our passports examined first by Chile and then by Argentina, whose officials sat side by side in a booth (a surprising level of government efficiency in Latin America). We then all boarded the bus again before having to pile out with our bags for the luggage inspection. The inspectors seemed to be mainly concerned with Argentinians who had bought goods in Chile and the inspection process was fairly quick. we were careful to throw out the rest of our sandwiches that we hadn't eaten since meat and cheese were forbidden but no one really seemed to care and there were lots of sandwich leftovers still on the bus.

Exiting Chile

Combined Chile-Argentina border facility.  Man it was cold inside.

Immigration facility from the outside.  Really just a big drive-through shed.

The whole border crossing took an hour and a half and then we we were on our way again. The Argentinian side avoids the switchbacks by having a few tunnels through the mountains. We passed the turnoff to Aconcagua but could not see even a glimpse of the peak since it looked to be snowing at higher altitude.

We both slept for most of the rest of the bus ride and woke up just as we were entering Mendoza. I was surprised how big a city Mendoza was.

Also snow on the Argentina side of the pass.

Descending the Argentina side.

The descent was much more gradual than the ascent.

We collected our luggage from under the bus and tipped the baggage handler a 500 Chilean peso coin. He did not like that C took a photo, we're not sure if you weren't supposed to take pictures of the bus station operations or if he just didn't want a picture taken of him, but we put the camera away and set out on the 1 mile walk to the Park Hyatt Mendoza.

Unloading the bus.