The FINE border crossing to Chile

It was one hell of a day. At least it was not boring. Well it all started when we decided to leave San Martin yesterday in the morning and drive to Pucon - Chile with the car we rented. The guy at the car rental told us that crossing the border to Chile is suppose to take 5 minutes.




We left San Martin and were heading to the Chilean border. After a long ride driving on a normal road, we got into a forest. The ride in the forest was even longer. None of us had anything to eat other than breakfast. We were all really hungry waiting to get to some place we can eat. At last we got the boarder on the Argentinean side. We now had to get our passports checked so we could cross the boarder. Although it is summer, it was 7 degrees outside. We were fucking freezing. We had to wait in line to get our passports checked. Then someone told us to move the car to the side cause it was blocking the way. I asked Hilla for the key and all she said is "I don't have it. You have it."

We then found out that she had left the keys in the car and locked the doors. We were now standing there freezing outside in the middle of the forest and had no clue what to do. We couldn't break the window because it was raining outside. Suddenly some Magyver guy showed up from nowhere and said that he had the same problem a week ago and that he could try to help us. He found a string and tried to get it in through the door while Roi, the other Israeli guy we are renting the car with was bending the door open. After 20 minutes he managed to unlock the door without damageing the car. We thanked him so much. We were so lucky he was there. 20 minutes later we got our passports checked and were on our way to the Chilean boarder, another 1 km.

When we got there, we got out of the car and had to get our passports stamped and checked. We had to fill out a form saying that we were not taking any fruit or vegetables over the boarder. We didn't understand what they meant. We thought they meant not to take a large amount over the boarder. All we had was 2 tomatoes and 2 avocados. We signed the form. Then the guy from the boarder control said that he wants to check our car. After a quick check, he found our bag with 2 tomatoes and 2 avocados. "Not good" he said. He was very angry at us. We signed the form saying we had no food on the car and we did. We were held there for 2 hours. They filled millions of forms and at the end told us to pay 16,000 Chilean Pesos - 35USD. We paid them the money and got to the car. All we could think of was finding a restaurant and getting something to eat. By the way after that i asked him if i could get a picture with him so i can put it on my blog. Here it is:



We are in Pucon now. Now we have another problem. We came here so we could climb the Villarika volcano but it is raining and the trek is closed. I hope it will be fine in 2 days. If not we will probably leave and come back another time.

By the way, we are managing to talk to the locals with our little Spanish and some hand signs. Even better - Roi knows Spanish really well so we have no problems.