12/10: Paper war

Puerto San Julián, AR to Río Grande, CL

Today's another long distance trip. We need to step back to when we made the car reservation three months ago. For 100 USD we would get ex- and import papers for the car. These papers are necessary to cross the border with an Argentinian car driven by Non-Argentinians to Chile.

Unfortunately the papers were not ready when we arrived in Buenos Aires. We were told that this is no problem - happens (probably always). They would send us the form to any city along our trip by Jet Paq (by Aerolinias Argentinas). Well, we didn't trust it too much and I called and wrote several mails to be sure and today would be the ultimate test.

In Río Gallegos we would pick up the form. With a little help from maps.google.com we find the place no problem with some detours nevertheless. In the office our envelope is found no problem and we have a poor copy of a customs' form in our hands. It worked! And we reward ourselves with a good Italian icecream before we continue our journey.

The border crossing is the first test to the paper war. It seems there are always three counters you need to queue up. In some places there is a paper to allow to track the "customer" in others there is chaos as the lines mix - but it works. So one counter is for immigration (where they stamp the passport), the next one for customs (where they stamp the car form) and the third one is duty (where you pay if you are unlucky). The counters are not in any visible order and you do them twice: once existing the country, i.e. Argentina, and once entering the country, i.e. Chile, and vice versa. If you speak Spanish it's easy but always takes some time (maybe 15 minutes), if you don't it seems to work, too. We do it fourtimes as we enter Chile at Monte Aymond (place exists twice, once on every side) and exit again at San Sebastián (twice, too).

The ferry at Punta Delgada departs every 20 minutes - so you'll never have to wait long. In high season it even runs 24x7. The short trip over can be paid in USD, if you know where. We don't so shortly before disembarquing we are told where to go and indeed we get a receipt and off it goes.
One funny thing. The ferry is big, loads several trucks but it lands like an military landing boat by just pulling up on the shore, no permanent structure...

Río Grande is a busy town. We get a nice hotel that serves good food. I run around to place some phone calls and buying minues for my mobile prepay subscription.