While signing paperwork and paying for our Volkswagen Gol four-door sedan, I overheard another tourist asking about car availability to Torres del Paine for that morning. He was told there was nothing available. The man lamented that the tourist buses were all full as well for the next few days. My brain clicked into action as I deducted their contribution to our car rental and suggested they ride with us for $100. So after packing out of our hostel and loading up on wine, cheese and chocolate, we picked up two attractive German men in their 30s standing outside a hostel in El Calafate with loaded backpacks. Max spoke excellent English, little Spanish, and Florian was a good listener. Still on Spanish mode, I tried to talk to them in Spanish until Maggie explained that I could speak English with them.
We drove the paved Hwy 40 to La Esperanza, a town consisting of a restaurant and the only gas station open between El Calafate and Torres del Paine unless you sidetrack through Puerto Natales. After a total drivetime of about four hours we reached Argentine customs in Cancha Carrera on the side of a gravel road surrounded by scrub-covered hillsides. We stood in line with our passports and a nagging thought zigzagged through my brain about crossing a foreign border with two strange men and all their baggage. Working through the line of tourists who had disembarked from their huge bus, the harried man at the desk stamped our passports without question and we left Argentina, temporarily. I’d carried the paperwork from the car rental agency in with me, but the man did not ask for it even though we told him we were in a private car.
Crossing borders with new companions through the Patagonia steppe
Finally the harried customs agent pointed us to another window. Three other Argentine customs agents milled about in the office. We met with a young agent who flirted with Maggie, asked us about our passengers Maggie had told him we met in El Calafate including whether or not we were charging them for the drive to Chile (“No,” Maggie answered wisely), got our paperwork stamped and then we zoomed back to Chile. By this time, a different surly face met us at the window, we filled out our declaration forms and had our passports and paperwork studied and stamped.
Then they wanted to search our car. Supposedly for smuggled fruit and vegetables. Chileans are very concerned about bugs and diseases from fresh fruits, vegetables and animal products that could affect their agriculture. Knowing the grocery stores (actually small rooms selling less than convenience stores) in Torres del Paine would charge an arm and a leg for a poor selection of processed food, we purchased wine, cheese, crackers, cookies, pasta, canned peas, coffee and assorted packaged, prepared foods that we understood would clear customs. No illegal peaches or contraband honey. The Germans said they had done the same.
The customs agent started pulling up the cover in the trunk to expose the spare tire, picking through the tools used to fix a flat. He explained to Maggie that the dog was “very alert” which signified illicit oranges or celery. While this was going on I noticed another customs agent carting off a wilted carrot and a brown banana from another travelers’ car. At one point the dog seemed to lose interest and just sat next to the car, but the customs agent wouldn’t give up. He kept whistling to the dog to jump back in the car and sniff, which the dog finally did, sticking his nose into the crevasses of the car trunk. One of the Germans kept looking at me hesitantly, concerned that maybe I was a smuggler of some sorts and would probably get us all carted off to Produce Prison. The agent finally conceded defeat, realizing we had nothing hidden, but he declared that our car was “contaminated.” With applesauce maybe? They finally allowed us to leave the customs area, our contaminated car cleared for entry into Chile. If the car rental company fusses at me over the destroyed shocks from racing across pock-marked gravel roads, I’ll throw that one back at them.
The icing on the cake was of course that once we tried to start the car to escape from the Chilean customs area, the battery had died. In Argentina and Chile you are required to keep your headlights on when driving. I had forgotten this and although I don’t think the car sat too long at either the Argentine or Chilean customs with the lights on, I guess the car battery was weak enough that this did the trick. So without the help of the customs agents who stood around and watched, one even laughed but in a friendly way, we pushed the car away from the parking area and raced it down the street into Chile. With Florian behind the wheel, we jump started the car and the engine roared as we all cheered. We motored on through Cerro Castillo, and the rest of the drive was uneventful and beautiful.
Rainbows, mountain crags and smooth sailing
We waited in line at the reception desk behind a horde of tourists fussing about their reservations. Several Russian women upbraided the frazzled blonde behind the desk. “You want us to sleep with men?” One of the Russians repeatedly demanded. “Are we to sleep with the men?” I was too shell-shocked to stare.
When we reached our cabin, everyone’s apprehension turned to wide grins; our cabin not only had a fantastic view of Torres del Paine, it was a private cabin away from the main lodge filled with tourists. It had a small fully-equipped kitchen (except for no coffee pot), a bath with shower, a living room with chairs, a couch and a dinner table with four chairs, and two separate bedrooms, each with two twin beds! The guys agreed to stay and split the rent.
We woke at 7 a.m. and I made coffee using a napkin to filter the grounds and drank it without my usual milk. We headed in the car for the earliest catamaran trip with Hielos Patagonicos for $24,000 Chilean pesos, approximately $40 USD each, to cross Lago Pehoe for a hike on a section of the W trek. The wind howled like a banshee when we arrived at the boat dock. I opened the car door and the wind ripped out a piece of trash from our car and whipped it across the gravel parking lot. I chased after and retrieved it from a tree branch that had snagged it. We were early for the 9:30 boat and to my delight, the dock area included a café that served eggs and café con leche behind multi-paned glass windows that overlooked Lago Pehoe.
Once on the catamaran I remained below behind the protective windows as the boat steered directly into the freezing wind and the icy water sprayed the stairs leading to the upper deck.
We reached the dock at Paine Grande to find a crowded tent city full of grouchy campers crowded into the tiny cooking area or bundled up and hunched over as their tent flaps whipped them in the face. We immediately headed off for our day’s hike up the Valle del Frances, which is surrounded by the towering mountains of Torres del Paine. The Germans, both from Bavaria and experienced mountaineers in Europe, pushed on ahead as I like to amble.