37:06
Good morning friends. Today we are taking you on an epic journey. We are doing the Andian crossing from Mariloce all the way to Puerto Vas. It's a journey that's going to take 2 days, four buses, three boat trips across beautiful lakes, a stay at a wonderful mountain hotel, and you are invited to come with us, experience it all, and it's going to be a lot of fun. So, let's get started. The adventure began bright and early at the Crusandino offices on Mitra Street. There are several pickup points across the city of Bariloce, but since we were only a block and a half away, we decided to walk. This office is where we checked
in, had our luggage tagged, and boarded our first bus of the day to begin our journey to Puerto Po. Once we arrived in Porto Puuelo, we paid an embarcation fee and boarded our first vessel of the day. On this catamaran, we sailed across Lagona Wapi and took the blessed arm traveling west. All righty, friends. I don't know if you can hear me. It is a real windy one out here. We are out cruising. We have begun the journey. So, we drove 30 minutes from Bariloce to Puerto Puo and we have now boarded and we are cruising the west arm of the lake towards the border with Chile. It's going to be a 1-hour journey and we're going to share the landscapes with you. several trips to the island in this part
of less fun. Nalwapi National Park is the oldest of Argentina's national parks. It was created in 1934 thanks to a land donation from Francisco Pascio Moreno for this very purpose. That's why when our boat passed by Isla Sentinela, the captain sounded the horn to pay homage to Perito Moreno. After an hour sailing on the blessed arm, we arrived at Puerto Bless, where the famous Hotel Bless is located. This is one of the hotels where you can stay if you choose to do a longer version of the Andian crossing, but that's a video for another day. This time, we only stopped for lunch and to enjoy a short walk.
Mast. All righty. Having lunch at this. That's right. Okay, we've got an excited child who wants to have lunch as well. I'm excited for lunch. I'm having tapa de s. So, this is a really nice piece of meat. It's got some gravy on top and then of course we've got chim churi and we've got potatoes to go with it. So, nice hearty meal and I'm hungry. And for my main, I got the mushroom sauce, added some cheese on top, and I am sharing with Rei Doll. Mhm. Real doll loves it. M I'm cutting little pieces for her. Round. So, she's tasting it as well. But this girl is a meat lover. Yesterday, she had goulash and she's probably going to try some of the Oh, yeah.
I got to save a portion for her. There's no holding her back. We are in luck today, friends. We have a beautiful sunny day. Not a cloud in the sky. And that means you can really appreciate the landscapes and the color of the water, the color of this lake. It is like a turquoise emerald green. Like it kind of changes with the sunlight. It is just so spectacular. I can't believe I'm actually here. I've been wanting to visit this place forever. It has been pinned on my Google Maps waiting for the right moment. So, it's pretty special to be here. Uh the first thing we did when we disembarked was go straight to the restaurant. So that is the hotel. There is a restaurant on the second floor, cafe on the first floor and they also
have lots of picnic tables out here where you can just enjoy, you know, pack your own lunch. If you want to do it a bit more on a budget, you can certainly do so. And yeah, let's go enjoy these landscapes. This is the Patagonia we know and love. It's all about the views. It's all about nature. is all about the rugged beauty and I'm just loving being back here. After lunch, we had time to take some photos with the blessed sign and walked along the peninsula where the Frias River meets the blessed arm of Lagona Wapi. Yes. From Puerto Bless, we boarded another bus and drove a few minutes to Puerto Algre where we got on another catamaran.
This time to cross Lago Frias. All righty, guys. We are now cruising Lago Frias, Lake Frias. And this is the smallest lake we're cruising today. So, also the shortest journey, only 15 minutes. Sam is running around trying to get video because it's a short journey. It's so short, but it's so incredible. This particular part of the journey, this almost feels like private access to the national park here. It's just unbelievable. Can't believe it's only 15 minutes. I came to check in on you guys. I'm probably going to go right back out, film some more. We're doing good here. So, the unique thing about this lake is the color of the water. It's kind of like a milky green color and that's because of the
sediment present in this lake. And yeah, we're just trying to enjoy it because this is going to be such a quick little trip. Meanwhile, baby girl here, Aurelia, is having a snooze. So, I'll just be sitting here enjoying the scenery from my seat. Um, you can obviously get up and go out back, but yeah, now we're seeing snow cap mountains, a glacier. We're seeing a glacier comes off. Now, you may be wondering what gives Lagoas its unique color. Well, this lake is fed by several streams, but the main one is the Fria stream, which carries melt water from the glaciers of Mount Trronador. And the sediments from this
melt water are responsible for that special milky green hue. All righty, friends. So, we have arrived at Puerto Frias. This is where we're going to do our border crossing into Chile. We have to do immigration here. So, we're just waiting for our guide to call us by name. It's a very small immigration building, so we're going to go in small groups. Got our passports in hand. And there's also like a little kiosk, shall I say? Um, it's a place where you can get little snacks. And it's called Lao de Rosa. That is the name of Chevara's motorcycle. Um, which he used to cross here at this very point. But yeah, we are here and we've got a little bit of free time just to enjoy the scenery. I've already mentioned the color of Lago Frias is
spectacular. It is such a special like milky green. It just looks beautiful when the sun is out and with the natural surroundings. So yeah, everybody's just relaxing, sunbathing, enjoying a quiet moment. Also running around taking photos. Um, but yeah, it's been a really nice journey. I wish this sailing had been a little bit longer. Um, because it was so relaxing. Uh, but well, it's a small lake. So, yes, off we go to Chile. After going through immigration, we continued our Andian crossing by boarding another bus and crossing from Argentina into Chile. The trip was beautiful. We drove through Valdivian rainforest and also stopped at a viewpoint overlooking Monte Tronador, which gets its name from the ice calving
that roars and sounds like thunder. From there, we stopped at Chilean immigration where they checked our luggage and then we walked to our accommodations for the night, the hotel Natura Patagonia. And guys, just a 2-minute walk from the immigration office, our hotel for the night. I know. It almost feels surreal cuz like we're sort of in the middle of nowhere and then suddenly this immigration outpost and then just a few meters ahead, our hotel. Crazy. Welcome to Chile. Hotel Natura Patagonia is located in Bija Poda on the shores of Lago to Los Santos within Vicente Perez Rosales National Park. The surroundings are beautiful as you'll soon see. But first, we took a little
rest because we arrived quite tired after such a long trip. We broke up the journey into two days, but keep in mind that you can also do this in one single day. D. Action. Aurelia. I like the trampoline. Woo. So, we had a bit of a chill afternoon. You and baby took a big nap. Yeah, it was like a super siesta for the ages. I don't know what it was if it was just all that transportation or getting up early or just things catching up, but we needed a big nap and we didn't wake up until like close to sunset. So, as soon as we saw that uh time was limited, we're like, let's go. Let's go on the trampoline. And she's been having the time of her
life on here. She's just having so much fun walking around. I would call it prancing. She's prancing around. Are you prancing? and she's uh she's just she knows that it's a different type of surface and she's just having so much fun bouncing around. We've been doing some bouncies together, some big time bouncies, but for now this is just her going around. Good job, girl. But before she was going like this, catch me, catch me. But she can do a lot more herself now. That evening, we had dinner at the hotel's restaurant. Sam ordered the mix ceviche with salmon and shrimp, and I ordered the shrimp risoto. Both were delicious.
Cheers. Salute. Well, after all that bouncing around with Aurelia, I think daddy earned himself a little drink over here. So, I'm going for the Pisco Sour. If you guys have been following our channel for a while, you know we love this. Whenever we come to Peru, we have it. It's also very popular in Chile, too. And so, yeah, you can see, check this out. It's got the bitter on top, the sour, the foam. It's got everything. So, I have been ordering all of my dishes with in mind. Every time I scan a menu, it's like, okay, what can she eat? And what would I also enjoy? Lunchtime, we had hamburgers, cheeseburgers. She loved the ground beef with melted cheese. Ate so much of it. And now she is having a shrimp risoto. And it is going very well.
Gorgeous egg. Ooh la. Like, "Yes, mama. I do gourmet food. You feed me." She eats anything we eat. Like, if we present it in like small little bites, she's so adaptable. She's a foodie at heart, aren't you? Yes, I am. Well, good morning friends from Chile. We are up bright and early with the sun. We wanted to get out and just enjoy the hotel, enjoy the property because this place is stunning. the gardens, the amount of flowers, and the size of the vegetation, the size of the leaves on some of these plants. Yesterday, I was
sending some photos to my family on WhatsApp, and my sister was like, the size of those plants. Like, what is going on over there? And I'm like, it's Valdivian forest. Like, the amount of rain they receive. They also have some of the oldest trees in the world here in these national parks. So yeah, it's really impressive and we're out enjoying. So this is called Hotel Natura and we are in Poda in Chile. So breakfast will be served in maybe like half an hour. So we're just going to enjoy the gardens, enjoy the friendly cat who is running. Whoa. Oh, frisky. And we'll see you soon. We have befriended a cat, guys. This cat is very well fed. A little plump in the tum.
Yeah. And Rei loves cats. She is a cat girl. So, she is. She does. We found that out when we fascinated. We found that out when we visited my parents in the fall. She loved Hobie, the giant main I don't know if you guys remember Hobie, but he's alive and well. And uh Oh, she's trying to pet the cat. Oh my god. How cute. She's like, "How do I do this? How do I touch the cat?" Oh, she gave it a nice little pat. Very sweet. Come here. Meowsers. A beautiful morning over here. But I wanted to show you the reflection of the mountains on the windows. Look at that.
Just stunning. So peaceful, so calm. The sun still hasn't broken over the mountains. And you can already hear our girl playing on the trampoline with Sam. So funny cuz this morning when she woke up, she was trying to bounce on the floor in our bedroom to see if it was like the trampoline. After breakfast, we went for a walk around Vija Poda and Sam took this opportunity to visit the local waterfall. Okay, so Sam did the hike to the waterfall. Tell us all about it. I sure did. Well, first let's acknowledge baby being kind enough to take a nap to allow me to do it.
I stayed here with the napping baby. Yeah. Um, not a difficult hike. A little bit steep, but beautiful. It's so lush, so humid. So, I'm drenched in sweat, but it's a really nice path. So, it starts off gentle, not so steep, and then you go over this really interesting pedestrian foot bridge, and then from there, you have the option of going left or right. What you're going to want to do is go up the steps, and that part is a little bit steep, but it's worth it. Persist a bit further, and that's where you get the payoff view of the waterfall. So, overall, that was a lot of fun. It made me feel like, hey, we're actually staying in the national park. When you're at the hotel and you're kind
of pampering yourself with all that food and relaxing, you're kind of like, "This is nice. There's a beautiful view out the window, but it sort of lacks the adventure." That was the adventure that I needed this morning to go on a really fun hike to get deep into the forest and to see that incredible payoff with the waterfall. After checking out of our room, we went down to the restaurant for lunch. This time they had a buffet. We got salad as a starter, then stroganoff with mashed potatoes and corn, and lasagna with rice and corn for our mains. And dessert was panakotta and chocolate cake. And since we still had some time before resuming our Andian crossing, we decided to take an excursion. This is the safari
tour, also known as the photo tour, where you can enjoy the scenery and visit different tourist attractions in Poda. The excursion is done aboard an off-road vehicle. Oh, she's awake. Yeah. First, we stopped at a farm to visit the animals. This is a really nice activity, especially if you're visiting PA with children. Our girl is still a little bit young, and this activity happened to coincide with her nap time. So, our first stop on this tour is at a little farm. It's very cute. They've got pigs and peacocks and chickens and roosters. It's just really sweet. But somebody is having a nap. We went down for a little stroll, but the day is also
really hot, so we're back here so Really can finish sleeping. And meanwhile, Sam is photographing all the animals. Tell us, how was it? It was fun. But to be honest, I was hoping that Aurelia would get to enjoy it. I know, but it's her nap time, so that's just the way it is. But a really nice farm. And um I guess the highlight was seeing other people feeding the animals. I didn't do that myself, but I thought that was really neat. And you can tell the animals are being really well taken care of here. They have lots of room to graze and to roam and um just in a beautiful setting. Got a mountain backdrop in all
directions and um just a beautiful farm. It was a good experience going there. Great for kids. Tremendous for kids and there aren't too many on this tour. So yeah, I think this is one of the most familyfriendly things you can do. and um just hopefully doesn't coincide with napping hour. The next stop on our tour was crossing the Rioenegro. To be honest, this activity might not be very suitable for babies or toddlers because we were bouncing around on the back of the bus. It's more for those seeking adventure or traveling with slightly older children, but we weren't very well informed. And then the next part of the tour was a trip on a small catamaran. I stayed with the baby on the bus as it was too hot
and there was no shade. And Sam took the trip on the Riongro. That was the safari excursion. From there we returned to Poda directly to the port to resume the Andian crossing. This time we boarded a large catamaran to cross Lago Los Santos. This was the longest part of the journey with the crossing running 1 hour and 45 minutes. But as you'll see, the scenery was breathtaking. We even saw volcanoes, which was something we were not expecting. This one here, which looks like Mount Fuji with snow on top, is the Osorno volcano. And this other one with a point is called the Pontiagura volcano or pointy volcano. At the end of this boat trip, we arrived in Pedro. And here we
boarded our last bus of the day which brought us to Puerto Varas Chile. The last stop of the Crusandino or the Andian crossing. And that was the adventure. Four buses, three boats, and two countries. We got to enjoy incredible landscapes and discover hidden places in the Andes Mountains that we didn't even know existed. And this was just the outbound trip. We'll soon be sharing videos of Puerto Vadas and our Andian crossing back into Argentina because we got to see some different attractions and stay at another hotel. Lastly, thank you for watching this video until the very end. If you enjoyed it, we invite you to give it a like, subscribe, and we'll see you soon with more Patagonian adventures.
Tata.
