Off to Chile - Paso Cristo Redentor

We had an early morning start for the 3 hour drive to the border in order to beat the crowds and lengthy lines for immigration and customs clearance. As is the case for most border crossings between Argentina and Chile, they are at the top of a pass in the middle of the Andes. This is the main pass between the two countries, normally open 24 hours, and called Paso Cristo Redentor. At over 3,300m, it provided us with a good South American lesson - drizzle at 1,000m (Mendoza), is snow at 3,300m, even this early in the season. We were turned around at a road block 50km short of the border and waited for 2 days for the pass to be cleared. Second lesson - Argentina and Chile do have web sites that provide the status of border crossings. They’re just very hard to find, and they don’t get updated very often. We now know how to navigate them! When we were finally allowed to cross, a lot of the snow had disappeared, but we still experienced snow flurries and the temps were close to zero. More importantly, the scenery up to the pass was stunning and we got to see an armadillo.Read more