Monday October 09, 2017
Lago Posada, January 7th, 2017
Tuesday or today’s late morning at the border between Argentina and Chile.
The checkpoint to leave Argentina is an isolated place in the middle of the mountains. The process at the Argentinian custom has been easy and straightforward. Apparently, they don’t care so much about the people leaving the country. This feeling has been confirmed by a kind policeman with whom we checked if the road we wanted to do was feasible in one day. We didn’t obtain any useful information, but we understood that the funny part was awaiting us at the Chilean custom.
And he was damn right. At the border to enter Chile, they asked us to open the car. A kind policeman (the exact name is Carabinero) and a pedantic custom’s official checked all our baggage. In the end, all went well, but we experienced a few moments of panic. We also learned a few valuable lessons:
You can’t enter Chile with any dried fruit. It is smuggling, and it didn’t sound good when they told us. We had to eat our reserves on the spot. Funny enough, our bag of dry raisins were allowed (or maybe they did not spot them).
The same for the kernels of the cherries we ate on the way from Los Antiguos. Carrying them through the border is illegal. But we were allowed to bring the cherries with us, with their kernels inside, obviously.
It is forbidden to carry a jerrycan full of gasoline across the border. Again, it’s smuggling. Bad thing. The custom’s official asked us to empty the can into the tank of the truck. But we shared a few jokes, in our mix of Spanish and Italian, with the friendly carabinero. He told us to empty the can as soon as we passed the custom, winking. We did it, 200 km later.
The Chilean police officers seam strict and grumpy, but it’s just the surface. Under that cover, there were friendly and warm people. We stayed calm, polite and cheerful, we smiled, and we shared some jokes. After a few minutes, we were best friends, and everything became smooth and easy.
Our first border crossing is something we are going to remember for a while. But there wasn’t time to relax. The roads of Chile were waiting for us.