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16/1/2018 Arrival to Los Antiguos

...around 7:40am we stopped at a bus terminal in Perito Moreno. We though by this time we should be in Los Antiguos already. But we reached the bus terminal in Los Antiguos around 8:40am. The last part was on normal paved road. 

I could see that the Chaitén travel bus is already in Los Antiguos. And another bus just reached after us. 

The Los Antiguos bus terminal is similar size to that one in El Chalten. Has toilets inside and few travel offices. It is Tuesday, but most of the offices are closed. Since about 3 full buses just arrived here, it’s is quite busy, on the floor with people sitting and in the toilets too. We are waiting to get it more quiet here and asking about how to get to Chile Chico. 

We were told that there no service to go to Chile Chico anymore. The travel office is closed. And the only way is to walk or to hitchhike. It is nearly 20km from here to Chile Chico center and of it 16km between the border controls. As we are standing here, a Scottish woman Annie joins us and later Belgian-Italian couple joins us too. Because we don’t want to walk that distance neither we are sure with hitchhiking, the only option seems to be an organised trip to Puerto Río Tranquilo. 

This trip is sold in the Cal Tur bus office inside the bus terminal. Normally it is a round trip together with marble caves boat trip. But young English speaking guy in the office sells also one way trip only. It is organised by Los Amigos hostel and the price we paid was 1000 pesos per person. The bus is for tomorrow (Tuesday) morning at 8am. All 5 of us reserved the places for the bus, but paid later. 

Annie asked tourists office for printout of accommodation in Los Antiguos and together with with the other couple headed to the nearest one - Dona Juanita. There is a small grocery shop at the corner and we asked inside. The owners also do the accommodation and showed us nice Cabaña next to their house. 5 people can fit in, two rooms and a kitchen. 2000 pesos per night. So we each paid 400 pesos. 

After refreshment, we went to the town to withdraw some money from a cash machine. There is Banco de Chile and there was very long and slow queue for ATM. I didn’t need money, so went back to cabana to eat something. The rest of the guys were queuing for money and didn’t get any at the end. So better to have some cash before coming to Los Antiguos. This was the same situation like in Ushuaia - the cash machine didn’t allow to withdraw from foreign payment card, but allowed locals to get money out. 

I then went to pay for the bus transfer to Puerto Río Tranquilo marble caves directly to Los Amigos hostel. Paid by debit card. 

Later in the evening, went to the beach of the Lake Buenos Aires. Big waves and windy. 


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