The crossing to Argentina

Today was a very long but exciting day with lots of surprising twists and turns! We finally crossed into Argentina. Hoorah! 😊

The scenery was just amazing – from border crossing in the snowy mountain peeks to a barren desert with mountains rising out of nowhere.

Crossing the borders to Argentina took us less than an hour which was surprisingly faster than we had estimated as our best hope was around an hour and a half. We went through three different checks:

         - Passport and car check
         - Chilean food and customs
     - Argentinian food and customs

It all went smooth except from a rather chumpy stressed Chilean customs officer who insisted that our car was illegal and had to take our papers to his boss. Luckily, it was all resolved rather quickly.

When we crossed into Argentina, the snow topped mountains with busy roads we got to know in Chile became straight roads winding down through huge horizons with the Andes on the left and the desert low mountains on the right. It felt otherworldly! From the side of the road we stopped to look up to Aconcagua, the highest mountain in the Andes.

We arrived in the first Argentinian small town from the border, Uspallata, and quickly checked through the jobs that we needed to do, and continued our journey to the unexpectedly beautiful Parque Nacional El Leoncito.

With the change of clocks, we luckily had an extra hour to set up camp and enjoy a brilliant sunset and an even more magical starry sky. This is going to be our base for the next few days and I can't wait to explore what's on offer.

Me pitching mine and my sisters tent