Crossing the Border

In search of adventure, I decided to hop on a bus and head over to Argentina for a few days. At first, I wanted to visit Bariloche, which is a popular tourist destination. However, due to recent volcano eruptions, the town has pretty much shut down. (A neighbor told me the city was covered in over a meter of ashes...not sure if this is an exaggeration, but the natural disaster was quite serious, forcing businesses to close and preventing travel via plane and bus.) Some photos and information about the region can be found here:

In turn, I opted for Neuquén, which is northeast of Bariloche and a bit closer to my home base in Temuco. In all it takes about 9 hours to reach Neuquén by bus, which includes about a 2 hours of stops at the Chilean and Argentinean "Aduanas" (border patrol and customs offices). These borders function much like their counterparts in airports, but it was interesting for me to have to board on and off the bus a few times to go through the routine on land.

The view during the trip is also quite gorgeous- it starts off on lower lands and involves driving over the "cordillera" or mountain range so the variety of landscapes is impressive, from dry plains to snowy hills, including a well-known volcano called Lonquimay. See for yourself below!

Snowball Fight!