This route was discovered hundreds of years ago and has been used by indigenous people as well as traders to cross to from Chile to Argentina and vice versa.
I chose this rather than a regular bus because it seemed much more relaxing. To make each travel day shorter, I opted for the overnight option in which I stayed at Puerto Blest Hotel, about 3/4 of the way through the trip.
After checking into the Puerto Varas tour office at 7:30 AM, we had a short bus ride, then got onto our first ferry. This is Todos Santos Lake.
After an hour and a half, we stopped in Peulla for lunch at the gorgeous Hotel Natura.
Outside, a young guy was calling this little dog and I asked “Can I pick him up?”
He agreed. “How old is he?” I asked. “One day ago,” he said.
I must have said it wrong, but he couldn’t be more than two months old.
Next, we took a short bus ride to the border to exit Chile.
It was ten more minutes through the jungle on the bus to check into Argentina. This was not quite as smooth. They were having technical issues or something, but it took 25 minutes to get to the front of the line, and I was only seventh in line. A Chilean traveller sarcastically said, “Welcome to Argentina”. I asked him if Argentina is always like this and he said yes. He said, “Chile is so much more organized.”
After all of this, we got onto another boat and went across the small lake to Puerto Alegre, then a bus to Puerto Blest for about 10 minutes.
The rest of the group continued on to Bariloche, but I, along with two Chilean women, checked into Hotel Blest at about 4:30 pm.
The view from my room was amazing! I even had a bidet and a towel warmer. And there was a pool, which I went in right away.
There was nothing out here, not even a store. The cafeteria was supposed to be open but it wasn’t. Dinner wasn’t to be until 8:00. I was starving and thirsty with nowhere to buy water so I filled it from the bathroom sink. (I Googled it — should be OK because it’s mostly glacier melt like in Puerto Varas).
At 8:00 on the dot I went down to dinner. The ladies were supposed to meet me, but they didn’t show up so I went ahead and ordered gnocchi which was the cheapest thing on the menu that I wanted. Still, it cost $25. It was God-awful.
The ladies showed up half an hour later and had their dinner. We communicated as best we could, but if there was a word I didn’t know or said wrong, the one that knows a tiny bit of English would switch to English that was worse than my Spanish, and the struggle would continue. It was kind of like when I talked to the hotel lady in Puerto Natales who I couldn’t understand and who couldn’t understand me. With most other conversations, I do just fine for the most part.
The next morning, a good breakfast was included. I ate with the two ladies. “Did you bring a bag?” I asked. They nodded and pointed to their little bags on the seat. The night before we had all agreed to bring little bags to put our extras in for lunch. I was able to make a half a sandwich with cheese, turkey, and a piece of toast, along with a small croissant they call Medialunas.
After checking out, I went for a walk around the lake, but immediately two giant horseflies started swarming me, one of them getting stuck in my sunglasses, buzzing really loud. I screamed and shook my head. I was flailing my arms around wildly and they wouldn’t stop. I started to panic. So I turned around and went to the grass area by the hotel to kill time.
We had to wait until 3:30 pm to continue our trip into Bariloche.
I was anxious to get out of there, as I was bored to death. I was also nervous about our luggage getting on the boat because the boat pulled up and people started getting on the boat, but our luggage stayed in the hotel.
“Will someone be getting our luggage?” I asked someone with the tour company. I was dismissed with the wave of a hand. I asked someone else and once again was dismissed.
Once we got on the boat, our luggage was still in the hotel and I was worried so I asked the two ladies. It sounded like they told me they had theirs with them. So then I got really nervous and they asked somebody in Spanish for me. I didn’t understand what he said exactly but he made a motion like it’s coming. Don’t worry. So I sat down where I could see if anyone was carrying the luggage, and a guy eventually brought them onboard. Whew!
After an hour ride on the boat, we had half an hour on the bus, and then we were finally dropped off at our hotels.
Travel Tips and Observations
- I’m not sure I completely hundred percent recommend this trip. It’s just a lot of time and after taking pictures for so many hours there’s not much more to do.
- I definitely do not recommend doing the overnight, especially if you’re a solo traveler. It might be OK for couples.
- It only saves you two hours on Day One and then you have you lose two full days because the second day you have to wait until 3:30 pm
- If you go make sure to bring snacks and plenty of water.
- Be aware that lunch and dinners there are extremely expensive and not very good. Even a bottle of water is about $5. And the cafeteria may or may not open when it’s supposed to. 
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