Puente del Inca

We finally crossed the Andes into Argentina on Sunday! You would think we’d summited Mt. Aconcagua* on foot by how excited we were.

You may recall that we initially tried to cross this border two weeks ago, before experiencing vehicle issues that lead us back to Santiago.

I’m not exactly sure where those two weeks went, but we were all set to try again last Friday, having left the garage with a rebuilt fuel pump the day before. Unfortunately, our pre-departure checks revealed some fluid leaks (diesel and coolant), so it was back to the garage for us on Friday afternoon to get those taken care of.

In the midst of all this, we learned that the border would be closing on Friday due to weather conditions in the mountains, and could possibly stay closed through the weekend.

We agonized about what to do, but ultimately decided to head north on Saturday to position ourselves closer to the border, should it open sometime on Sunday.

We’d hoped to make it to one of several riverside camping spots we read about located 20 km from the border, and we got close, but we ran into a blockade in the road about 12 km before our planned stopping place. As we stood considering our next steps, we saw a car bypass the blockade and decided to follow (don’t judge us – we figured the blockade was meant for the trucks we saw lining up off to the side up ahead).

We proceeded another couple of km and found another blockade, this time with a short line of stopped cars leading up to it, and several bunches of people sitting and standing around over on the opposite shoulder of the road.

We pulled up and we jumped out to survey the situation. The first group we encountered was a Chilean family traveling together and we learned from them that the border might open in early evening, but if it wasn’t open by 6 or 7, it wouldn’t open until 9 the next morning. We also learned that the folks in line were planning to spend the night right there, and be first in line to cross in the morning.

Khalilah and I looked at each other and exchanged a few words to seal the deal: “Looks like as good a camping spot as any…,” and “Looks like fun!.” We’d be spending the evening in the middle of the road in the Andes.

A bit later in the evening we met Daniel and Jacqueline, who were a few vehicles ahead of us and first behind the barricade. They were traveling in an instant conversation starter—a Ghostbusters themed camper. Though they spoke no English, we managed to have a great conversation with them, first on the roadside, and then in their camper over coffee and cookies. They pulled out a deck of cards and we tried to identify a game we had in common, settling on them teaching us Carioca, which we learned is a Chilean game similar to Rummy.

We offered to move the party over to our camper which was a bit more spacious and were walking over together when I noticed a puddle of liquid on the ground coming from the front of our vehicle. This was another coolant leak, this time even more significant than the last.

I opened the hood and started to investigate and Daniel jumped in to help me. Before I pulled out my own, he ran to his camper and grabbed a mat and flashlight, and was on the ground trying to help find the source of the leak. I got down there and eventually found it—the coolant was leaking due to an apparently loose hose clamp, but I couldn’t access the screw to tighten it from the bottom, nor could I see it from the top.

Removing the heat shield didn’t do the trick but I figured it was under the big hose that turned out to be the turbo intercooler hose. After removing that one, the culprit was in plain view.

The clamp on the radiator pipe, I believe was replaced the day before at the garage, was indeed loose. I started to tighten it but Daniel had the good idea to turn the clamp so that I’d have easier access if I ever needed it, but I couldn’t turn it so I loosened it a bit more to make that easier.

Bad move. Coolant started streaming out at a much higher volume while I tried to turn the clamp, until I gave up and just tightened it up where it was. After tightening everything back up and adding water to the radiator fill line. Khalilah turned the key and she started right up. We didn’t see any fluid leaking, so we shut it down and started cleaning up and putting away tools.

We briefly discussed continuing with the original plan but unanimously joked that perhaps that was our game for the night, and said buenas noches to Daniel and Jacqueline.

After a decent but cold rest, my 7 am alarm went off. We were told the road would open at 9 at the earliest but for whatever reason I thought I wanted to make sure to be ready and set my alarm a ridiculous two hours early. Rather than jumping up, I reset the alarm to 8 and tried to go back to sleep but I just couldn’t, and so I was up and dressed by a quarter after 7.

At about 7:20 we started to hear some commotion outside and less than 5 minutes later the police are driving down the long row of cars with horns and loudspeakers blaring, yelling “Andale! Andale!”

We shoved everything we could into a cabinet and a few minutes later were once again headed up Ruta 60 towards Argentina.

The morning and the pass were absolutely beautiful, and we arrived at the joint Chilean-Argentine border control complex, located about 20 minutes on the Argentine side of the frontier, at around 9, pulling in right behind Daniel and Jacqueline, who we caught up to and trailed about halfway through the journey.

The paperwork part of the crossing, while complex due to our vehicle situation**, was pretty painless thanks in large part to an excellent prep session that Mike and Geneva did with us. After about 30 minutes, most of it spent waiting, we exited the complex with our first bureaucratic win in-hand–the all important TIP, or temporary import permit, allowing us to bring the vehicle into the country. The sun shone bright on the mountaintop that morning.

After completing our paperwork, we waited for Mike and Geneva, who pulled in shortly after. Once they completed their crossing, we ventured on to explore a bit of Argentina together.

* At 6,961 meters or 22,838 feet, Aconcagua is the tallest peak in the Americas, and lies just north of the Los Libertadores border crossing, on the Argentina side.

** We’re traveling under the previous owner’s registration until ours is finalized, requiring a document called a “poder” that’s essentially a power of attorney, that was notarized and apostilled (notarizing the notarization)Read more