We left Bariloche a few days ago to ride to Puerto Pañuelo and catch a series of boats across to Chile. I was a little nervous.

How was the bike-boat combo going to work? Was my spanish going to be good enough to explain what we needed to do? Did we have enough Chilean pesos to catch the boat on the other side? Would we get searched or otherwise have drama at customs? Would I be able to understand the Chileños any better than the Argentinians? And what is up with Chilean money anyway? I mean, everything is in really big numbers. We changed money in Bariloche and got something like 75,000.00 pesos. That makes the Argentinian conversion seem, well, extremely simple (3 pesos to one dollar).

So, the first boat from Pto. Pañuelo to Pto. Blest was a small, crowded affair. We were suprised by the extrañero fee to enter the park (where the boat actually launched from, 100 meters away), which took all of our remaining Argentine money. And the cafe that we had been counting on was not open. Oh well.

The lake, more of Nahuel Huapi, was gorgeous, but hard to see as every other passenger on the boat was stuffed onto the upper deck in front of us. We did meet a trekker from Hood River who was setting out on a 10 day hike and planning on attempting to climb Volcan Tronador, one of the gigantic, glacial topped volcanos we were going to be spending some quality time under.

There was a brief, ripio ride to the next boat, which we left to catch before the busses bringing everyone else got underway. Lucky for us, because we caught an English speaking launch from Puerto Alegre to Puerto Frias, across Lago Frias. Then, to our surprise (probably wouldn´t have been a surprise if we´d read the guide book closer, but who wants to spend time reading guidebooks?) was customs.

Now, we had been told that it is illegal to bring meat, fresh fruit or vegetables, and cheese into Chile from Argentina, and we can expect to get searched. So we carefully planned our meals to ensure that we would have rather bland meals for the crossing. And I mean to say we planned VERY carefully. Only to discover that customs was right at Pto. Frias, and not at the border. And hey, suprise, the border was only 3k away.

So we went through customs (not even a blink of a problem or a hint of a search), got our passports stamped, and were on our way. We did stop to have a conversation with the young man who ran the kiosco and refilled our water bottles. He lives all summer in this incredible place, selling mate and chocolates to people on boats, and really likes his job. And he gave us chocolate. I really love Argentina.

Now, this place, Pto. Frias, is remote. The only way to get there is by a combo of boats and busses, or, boats and bikes. It is possible to hike it, but probably not very pleasant. There appeared to be a fair number of trekkers returning from Tronador to catch the boat back to Bariloche, but that´s about it. Neat.

Then we started climbing. Ok, we knew it was going to be a climb, but how bad can 3k be? We had been told by another bike tourist that we were going the easy way, that coming up from Chile was really hard. Well, we hadn´t really counted on it being a private road, and the only vehicles that needed to use it were these (few) high clearance busses and luggage trucks. So it was loose sand and gravel, extremely steep, and generally really tough. And we still didn´t know what would happen at the actual border. There were visions in my head of boder guards all dressed in camo with guns stopping us and pulling our bags apart to find our illicit cheese. Meanwhile, the ripio was getting the best of both of us, and we ended up pushing up a couple of the steeper bits.

Then, the border. There were a couple of signs, a big arch, and…nothing else. No guards. No people. Hell, we hadn´t even seen a bus for an hour or so.

In celebration we ate cheese, carrots, and apples. We also met the tábanos-the horseflies. Turns out it´s horsefly season. Lucky us. However, they are so big and so slow that they are incredibly easy to kill. And I have to admit some glee when I finally overcame my squeamishness and made one go splat. It felt good. See, when you are climbing with a fully loaded touring bike, you don´t ride very fast. You can´t really outpace the flies, in fact. It´s very humbling.

Then the truly hard part began. Who ever thought that going downhill could be so painful/scary/difficult/slow? Who ever knew that a road could actually be That Bad. And it was bad. Bad enough that my bike crashed a couple of times when I lost it in the deep sand and gravel. Note: I managed to stay upright and clip out as the bike went down. This has resulted in some interesting bruises.

Like I said, this was a private road with almost no traffic, so the road conditions just had to be passable. No reason for it to be easy. And it hurt. My hands hurt, my butt hurt, my bruises hurt, but, strangely enough, I was suprisingly mellow about the whole thing. Sometimes when I´m mountain biking, I come to a descent that scares me so much I almost start crying (OK, sometimes I do start crying). But this was about a million times worse than anything I´ve ever tried to descend on my 69er, and mind you I don´t have anything like suspension on my Vanilla. But I did it. Andy was great and encouraging and we stopped frequently to stretch our hands.

Finally, the end was in sight, and Tronador was more at our backs. We saw a beautiful glacial river (all gray with silt) in the valley below and decided to camp along that. The water was cold, the sun hot, and the crevasses on the glacier blue in the sun. What a day!