The Other Andes

I have been in the habit of renting cars in my travels. The automobile has always been my prefered mode of transportation. Renting a car and driving it myself, or soliciting random cab drivers on arrival to said location to employ them for their services for the duration of my stay.

This worked like a charm in India, up in Sikkim, and later in Delhi.

I tried the tour bus once, long ago, in Edinburgh, on a trip through the Scottish highlands, and I found myself frustrated that I couldn't dictate where and when we turn, or when we stop, or how long we stop for. I don't care to be shepherded around. 

With the gigantic range of the Andes literally knocking on our doorstep, it was hard to decide where exactly we ought to go. Friends of ours had used the services of a private guide here in Chile, and spent days back in Toronto raving about the experience, and about Juan. 

We must have driven the poor man mad. One day we asked that we go on a trip to the Cajon de Maipo, a stones throw away from Santiago. The next, it was to go on a trip to Portillo, a renowned ski town close to Chile's border with Argentina. 

We had, in the original plans wanted to go to Mendoza in Argentina, and decided against it at the last minute. What, after all, did we want to do in Mendoza at all? It's the same mountain range, and just more wineries. There are wineries, excellent wineries no less in Chile. Did we really have to go through yet another round of packing and unpacking? 

The advantage of Mendoza however was that it was a short drive to Aconcagua National Park, from which one could have excellent views of the highest peak in the Andes. 

From Portillo, if one were to measure the x-y co-rdinates to the peak of Aconcagua, it was some 15-20km. Shouldn't we at least see the mountain? When one's gaze is locked onto the tree trunk, he can't very well be expected to see the forest from the tree. 

We'd gotten into some colorful debates on how best to spend the 6 days we had here in Santiago. Mark wanted to unwind and relax. And I feigned partial interest in relaxing. But Peru was taxing, and I was tired, and on drugs [the prescription kind]. 

Poor Juan got sucked into the whole debate. Maipo, Portillo. Then one day we threw in Tiltil and  Cerro el Roble, a national park north west of Santiago from whose peak one could apparently see a wider view of the majestic Andes to the East. Don't we want to be there? 

It seemed only a stone's throw away from Valparaiso, another trip we had on the itinerary. 

In the end, we settled on driving to Portillo ourselves, and calling Juan to help with the Valparaiso trip. We could both drink without resevation, and Juan is the resident expert on all things Chile. 

And so it was to be.

It was, I suppose some rather good thinking on the part of Mark to carry our passports with us on the trip. Perhaps he thought that any incident on the road would make carrying the passports worthwhile.

As it were, we were so enamored by the drive in the Andes that I guess neither of us paid attention to the Welcome to Chile sign we inadvertently passed, landing in the No-Man zone between  Argentina and Chile. "We better turn back!", but in so doing, we found ourselves with Chilean border control.

"You must fill your immigration papers!"

I should say that between Duo Lingo, weeks of Advanced Spanish lessons at the Spanish center, etc, I have been (for the most part) been able to manage quite well in the travels. Mark has been able to keep up with his Frespanol. But against the border police, with their Chilean brand of Spanish, we couldn't really muster much more than, "Estamos Estupidos, Manejamos mucho".

An hour into the long car pile up, we finally figured out how to get the PAX papers that were needed.

And Mark, well he had the brains to actually bring (for what ungodly reason who knows) our passports with us.