We had found a very comfortable, cheap hotel and saw no reason to quickly leave. Our hostel looked shabby from the outside. Inside there were more signs in Hebrew than Spanish or English.
The hostel was full of Israeli travelers, who seem to permeate every tourist section of South America. We learned that the norm for young Israelis is to finish their mandatory time in the army and then travel in South America. They travel often in large and distinct groups.
We did no planning for future travel. We knew we would hitch hike to El Calafate, Argentina. After our third night, we left early in the morning. We walked to the highway and tried to figure out the right way to go.
I sat to make sandwiches while Jackson stuck out his thumb. He always adds in a Chilean hand movement which looks like he’s patting a child on the head. Before I could make two sandwiches, we had a ride for in an empty mini-bus. The bus wouldn’t take us to the border but at least closer to it.We spoke with the driver about the seasons and where he was from. Then we fell asleep, waking up only when the car hit a bird.
We arrived 7 km from the Chilean border. Or so we thought. We walked 20 meters and quickly picked up another ride. What we didn’t realize, we had walked over the Chilean border. I was until we hitchhiked another 10 km to the Argentinean border that we realized our mistake. They turned us away.
We hitchhiked two more quick rides back and forth to obtain an exit stamp from Chile. Only then we were able to cross the Argentinean border.
We walked 150 meter and waited for our next ride. For 6 hours, we waited and no success. There was nothing around us and it was 100 km to the closest town. It was very windy, a bit cold and barren.
We were waiting close to a family of foxes and a hawk stole our sausages. Condors were flying high above us and we saw a large hare.
In the evening, when the cars stopped passing us by, we walked back to the border office to ask for water. The border guards told us we were doing our hitchhiking (‘hacer dido’) all wrong and should have been asking for rides right at the border. They gave us a place to camp and were friendly. Our Spanish failed us on this occasion and we socialized very little.
When we woke up the next day, the border was a bit more busy.
We sat, dirty and waiting on the steps of the border office. We received strange and confused looks from tour bus riders and other border crossers. We clearly had no car and there is no way we could have walked. I think most people thought we were being detained. I had two puppies which followed me incessantly. When people wanted to see the puppies, I would walk them over. Before long we started cooking sandwiches on our stove.
After a few hours, I followed a couple with a truck and spoke Spanish as they increased their pace away from me. When I switched to English, the Americans relented. When I asked if they could fit us, they asked me ‘Do you have cash?’.
It turns out they had under budgeted their cash and didn’t have enough money for gas home. The highway is gravel and the surroundings sparse. Scattered gas stations had wooden cash registers. As I had learned in Zimbabwe, they learned going to Torres del Paine: ‘Cash is King’. Plastic is no good. They gave us a ride and I gave them 40 pesos ($13) for enough gas to get us to El Calafate.
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