Border crossing in 2 days: From Villa O'Higgins to El Chaltén

When the alarm clock goes off at 6:30 am and the rain couldn't pour any harder from the sky, the mood sinks a bit. The boat crossing is not a cheap undertaking, not to mention that it doesn't happen at all in bad weather. That's why we had hoped for good weather. But - as usual - as soon as we finish breakfast, the rain stops and in the distance we can even see some blue sky shining through. We are really grateful for that!

First, at 8 o'clock, we take the bus to the 'port' 7 km away, the complete end of the Carretera Austral. Here, the road simply ends and there's only water and mountains.

We have presented the next steps (also for other travelers) in more detail because we ourselves found very little information online and were not informed about all the options.

- We take a boat to Candelario Mansilla, a bay with just one farm where you can camp or stay in private rooms (we made a reservation on WhatsApp beforehand, but there were still rooms available). We paid 25€ per person for accommodation including dinner. For another 5€, you could have also had breakfast. The boat trip itself is offered by two companies, Robinson Crusoe and Las Ruedas. You only hear about Robinson everywhere, even the tourist information doesn't mention that there is another provider. That's why we deliberately booked with Las Ruedas, a much smaller, twice as fast boat that is even a bit cheaper (40€ instead of 45€ per person). The crossing takes 1.5 hours and on certain days you can also book a glacier tour (another 50€ per person, but very worthwhile!)

- From Candelario Mansilla, it is 22km on foot/by bike further to the border, to the Argentine lake 'Lago del Desierto'. The farm family also offers transport by 4x4 (the only car on the mainland) for the first 16km to the border, the remaining 6km on the Argentine side cannot be traveled by car. However, the luggage can be transported by horse.

- At the lake, there is another boat that crosses the lake in 45 minutes. The whole experience costs an additional 40€ per person, and the boat leaves at 5.30 pm. What no one told us before: there is also a 12km long path along the lake, but it is said to be difficult because there is a lot of up and down. However, the boat can be bypassed.

- Once we arrive at the other side of the lake, a bus is waiting, which takes 2 hours to hop the 45 very potholed kilometers to El Chaltén (Note: You can take the bus directly at the port for 700 Pesos (18€) or at the camping ground 300m away for 600 Pesos (15€). The departure time depends on the arrival of the boat, in our case the bus left at 6.30 pm and arrived in El Chaltén around 8.30 pm. Important note: In January/February, ABSOLUTELY book a room in advance and don't make the same mistake as we did!

So, now back to the departure of the first boat. It more closely resembles a small speedboat for a maximum of 16 people. But before we are allowed on board, we wait for one missing passenger: Alfredo! The approximately 70-year-old Argentine has been cycling through the country for a year and is a bit late. But his nice and funny nature makes up for the delay. The luggage and bikes are stowed away, and off we go! In about 1.5 hours, we pass snow-covered mountains, rocks, and the slow, lopsided Robinson boat towards Candelario Mansilla. The waves are sometimes not so small and Jan gets a good dose of water when he stands in the wrong place at the wrong time. But with the (icy) wind, it dries up quickly ;-) The last 15 minutes we rock quite a bit, but luckily no one gets seasick. When we arrive in Candelario Mansilla, we dock briefly because not everyone makes the trip to the glacier. We get out for a moment, have tea, coffee, and biscuits, and then continue. With by now blue skies and sunshine, we jump through the waves to the Bernardo O'Higgins Glacier. But even far before the glacier, we come across gigantic, bright blue icebergs floating on the lake. We silently paddle around them. Truly impressive, these meter-high chunks! When looking out the boat window at the front, with a view of the ice, quietly Celine Dion's 'My Heart Will Go On' plays in our heads, but it fades away when the co-captain comes along with a big fishing net. No, there's no fish for lunch... he uses it to fish out a big chunk of ice, which we will later get in our (according to the announcement 'very good') whiskey! Since the ice is not as fast as some fish, he quickly succeeds and we continue towards the glacier. And it is truly indescribable. Huge and beautiful. Take a look at the photos, even if the size certainly doesn't come across. We drift in front of the glacier for quite a while and marvel at its beauty. As so often, we realize once again how small and insignificant we humans are.

We are served our whiskey with glacier ice (well, looking at the bottle reveals: Jack Daniels! Quite a good drop! Even a honey variant! Not for the whiskey connoisseur, but Lisa likes it that way :) ) Suddenly we hear thundering noises and just manage to see a piece of glacier breaking off and plunging into the water. It doesn't look that huge, but the waves it causes show us how big it must have been. We rock violently for a while and that certainly wasn't because of the whiskey! We are sure that the breaking off of a larger piece could definitely capsize the boat. We are visited by a police boat (we don't know what their mission is) and then it's time to go back. The extra excursion, at a total of 100€ for two, might not have been a bargain, but it was absolutely worth it for us!

In Candelario Mansilla, we check into our (way too cold) room and prepare for tomorrow's hike. We try to lighten our load a bit, but it doesn't really work. In the evening, we are treated to a delicious meal by the nice owner and dine together with an elderly French couple in the (way too warm) kitchen. Since there is NOTHING here except the farm, we can't avoid eating meat, but we still enjoy the warm meal very much. The temperatures here are around 7 degrees Celsius (just a reminder: it's summer here) in bad weather. We have a nice, albeit cumbersome, conversation with the French, because foreign languages are (as the lady even admits herself) simply not their strong suit ;-)

We go to bed early and with the (not joking) 7 blankets, we don't freeze at night either. Breathing is a bit harder under what feels like 10kg of blankets, but the main thing is that it's warm :-) It's only the next morning when we have to slip out of our blanket mountain at 6.30 am that it gets a bit chilly so we have our breakfast wrapped up warmly. But as soon as the fire is started, the temperature rises.

Punctually at 8 o'clock, we set off. We quickly strap the guitar to our backpack and start the 22km hike with our luggage. We can't say exactly how many kilos we're carrying, but at the beginning (including food and water), we estimate around 22kg for Jan and around 16kg for Lisa. After the first kilometer, we already reach the Chilean border station (the real border only comes at KM 16), where the police give us a stamp. The following 15km we walk along a gravel road with wonderful views of Lake O'Higgins and through beautiful forests. The weather is on our side again! After about 8km (mostly uphill), we meet Alfredo, who camped here because his bicycle has a bent axle and he can't go any further. We share cheese sandwiches and get mate in exchange until the woman from the farm comes by in her car (she transports the luggage of the French couple) and picks him up with his bike. After another 5km, we get our first glimpse of our new favorite mountain: Fitz Roy. We have never seen such a mountain range! After a total of 16km, we reach the border. But there is nothing here except for 1 sign welcoming us! The last 6km follow a narrow path through the forest, so it can't be traveled by car anymore. We make surprisingly good progress and have to take fewer breaks than we thought. So at 3 pm, after 7 hours, we reach Lago del Desierto with the Argentine border station. Here too, we get our stamp without any questions or checks and can finally take off our backpacks. The boat doesn't leave until 5.30 pm, so we have enough time to cook on the shore in the sunshine. But just as the food is ready, the sky suddenly clouds over and it starts snowing!! We seek shelter in a wooden shed and put on a few more layers of clothing. The snow quickly changes to hail and the wind whistles through the cracks. Together with the French couple and a Swedish-Irish couple, we pass the time and get tips for El Chaltén. Meanwhile, our friend Fitz Roy has also disappeared and only reappears when we board the boat. After 45 minutes, feeling a bit frozen, we reach the other side of the lake and get on the bus. We enjoy the 2-hour bus ride in warmth and sitting feels really good too! We reach El Chaltén at 8.30 pm and are a bit shocked by the many tourists we find here in the streets. We knew that this place is a hiker's paradise and that it will be busy here in January/February. But we didn't think there would be so many. The only advantage: there are many, really good-looking restaurants, cafes, bars. We have heard about a few of them multiple times and are looking forward to better food again! Since the places along the Carretera Austral are supplied with fresh vegetables & co. from north to south, the quality has gotten worse from place to place here.

But now we have to quickly find accommodation (at least for the first night) before we can enjoy a well-deserved feast. We didn't pre-book because the boat is very weather-dependent and in Candelario Mansilla there was neither internet nor reception. Plus, recently we never booked a place in advance and just inquired directly. However, as it turns out, that was a big mistake. We spend over 2 hours walking through the ENTIRE village, every back alley, and ask about 40-50 different accommodations. Whether hostel, hospedaje, cabaña, we even ask at luxury hotels out of desperation. But always the same answer: 'Estamos completo / We are full'. Only the wife of a hostel (also full) tells us about a private room in her brother's (?) house or something like that. We are already happy, but it turns out that there is currently no water there. So showering and using the toilet would not be possible, which is not an option for us. Only when we search for eternity and cannot find anything, we have to fall back on this offer. Alternatively, we might have been able to rent a tent and sleeping bags and go to a campground, but since it is already 10.30 pm, the rental places have surely also closed. Completely exhausted (because we have to carry our entire luggage during the search), we go back to the offer of the private room without water. However, it turns out that large parts of the village are currently without water and the pipes are being repaired. Well, we have no other choice anyway. We are driven to the house in the car, and a nice family with a little girl opens the door for us. They are really very open and immediately show us the room upstairs, we use the bathroom together with the family, and we can also use the kitchen. We are super relieved, bring our luggage into the room, but also have to go out again immediately because apparently most restaurants only serve food until 11 pm and we are starving! Fortunately, we find the right one right away and fall exhausted into the chairs. Never in our lives did we think that there would be NOT A SINGLE room left here. We wonder if we were the last tourists (without a tent) looking for a room tonight. Or are there still other desperate travelers wandering the streets? We don't know. We're just incredibly happy to have found a place to sleep. When we come back, there is water again! Nevertheless, we still postpone the shower until the next morning because now we just want to lie down and not move anymore!