Big day today..took off from Bariloche this morning and went down to the Docks..Today we pass over the Andes Mountains..First leg Bus to the Boat where we sailed for about 75 minutes,The boat staff were giving people dry biscuits to hold in the air and the seagulls were flying down and plucking them out of your hands, it make for some terrific photos unfortunately I was a bit slow on the camera and managed to get a lot of seagull feet ! We then got off and got onto a bus for a 15 minute drive to another lake. So everyone was on the boat for about 30 minutes then off the boat again and into Customs Argentina to get our passports stamped !! Mini nightmare as they had one bloke working and he took forever, which put us behind for our lunch stop..Next leg was a bus to the Chilean Customs & lunch..This took around 45 minutes. Chilean customs had us open all our bags to check for contraband, even though they did this they were certainly more entusiastic about doing it and we ended up having time to do lunch in the Hotel..So Dont cry for me Argentina !! and Hello Chile...Nice lunch of fresh fish & Veggies. After lunch we were off on the bus to the dock where we got on a boat for a 2 hour ride...Spectacular scenery with the snow capped mountains and Volcanos and the water comes from a glacier so its a lovely greenish tinge. The sand is all dark grey from the Volcanos and I forgot to mention Bariloche was near where the volcano erupted in 2011 and it covered the whole area in ash and the town which revolves around the tourist industry had no planes come for 7 months, imagine what that would do for your economy !!!After our third boat ride we hooked up with our Chilean guide "Alex" and we were off passing some beautiful green countryside with a massive lake on the right . We stopped by some rapids in the river which were really fantastic as the water colour was that bright blue...almost made me wish to boat down those rapids..Not !
Our stop for the night is Puerto Vares and we are staying at the Hotel Cumbres which overlooks the lake and the snow capped mountains ..stunning. The foyer area has a lounge with plush sofas and chairs and a huge open fire..lovely.
Peter and I took a walk into town to get some Chilean Pesos and after a couple of attempts by me I managed to take out $200 instead of $100, Oh well I will just have to spend it I guess.   The downtown area was terrific, I wish we had more time here as its a safe place to wander and had a lot of little pokey shops and not very big, they also had a massive Casino..back to the Hotel for dinner. The South American all eat dinner at around 2000 to 2100, Argentinians are worse they eat around 2200 to 2300 !!! So most nights I have to sit upright till dinner goes down..
This morning we have a city tour before flying to Santiago after lunch..