Rather than ride our bikes along Ruta 40 which is a major trucking route we decided to take a road less traveled, by trucks for sure.

This involved bike(25km), boat (1hour), bike (3km), boat (15 min), bike (30km) and finally boat (2 hours).

Peurto Pañuelo

We left Bariloche leaving us plenty of time to arrive in Peurto Pañuelo.

We had our tickets in hand and it was smooth sailing. They took our bikes and panniers and attached them on the deck along with all the other passengers luggage.

Puerto blest to Puerto Alegre

A simple 3km ride along what I would call a jungle path. Flat with Riverstone.

Puerto Alegre to Puerto Frias

An easy 15 minute beautiful ride.

Puerto Frias to Puella

This was the tough ride. The first 3 km was straight up, I swear! Then the last 20+ km was straight down.

I pity the bike riders that go from Chile to Argentina on this route because man of man that would be a lot of up hill biking. Our in my case, a lot of up hill walking.

This was a great run and the scenery was spectacular. Tropical. Mountains. And Waterfalls.

As we rounded a turn the only other cyclist on the boat was pulled to the side fixing his bike. We stopped to help.

His rack had broken. Snapped I guess and he was putting on a new rack or putting in a new piece to replace the broken piece.

We helped just by holding his bike and we took some of his gear off on his over loaded racks just too help him down the mountain.

Immigration

Welcome to Chile.

You leave Argentina in Puerto Frias but don't go to immigration until you pass into Puella. That's one mountain pass and 30 km apart!

Chile is serious about keeping the agriculture clean and took our rice (which we bought in Chile) and our granola (think packaged harvest crunch).

I had a ham and cheese sandwich in my Pannier, and the immigration said no... But I could eat it right there in front of her (which I did).

Then she inspected all of our Knorr soup packets as well.

After checking everything she asked me to re do my entry to Chile form and declare that I had items which were not allowed. Rice and granola.

This was the first time we were checked and searched.

Duanes -Customs

The immigration woman lead us to the duanes to declare our bikes and tourist papers.

This looked like her house and there were Spanish dubbed American sit-com s playing in the background.

We got our papers organized now about 6pm and made our way to the hotel.

The boat/ferry left at 4.30pm and now we wait until tomorrow evening.