Paso Internacional los Libertadores, the most widely-used border crossing between Chile and Argentina is famous for its rugged scenery and thrilling stretch of switchbacks. We really wanted to travel over the pass and we really, really wanted to leave the driving to someone who knew what they were doing.

But buying a ticket for cross-border bus travel is not the same as booking a flight. There are many ways to end up in places not on one’s itinerary, say Bolivia in our case. We almost decided against the trip, until we found this blog post by an Australian couple who ditched their home to travel the world: “What to Expect When Taking the Bus From Santiago to Mendoza” . How perfect is that? John and Monika told us which bus line to use, where to buy tickets, how to reserve front row seats and what to expect at border control. We’ve never seen such helpfully-detailed travel advice.

E-tickets in hand, we left our Airbnb apartment early and allowed two hours to get stuck in morning traffic, go to the wrong station and wander around in search of the right bus. We bounded over the first two hurdles and then were immediately stopped in our tracks upon entering the terminal. There were 60 bus bays spread in all directions and no monitors showing which buses left where and when.

John and Monika anticipated this might confuse us, so they suggested we stop by the Andesmar ticket counter to confirm the departure bay and (not so reassuringly) the “validity” of our ticket. Unfortunately, they did not anticipate the Andesmar ticket office would be closed. No worries. We picked up the pace, approached every Andesmar driver with our tickets and my rusty Spanish and eventually landed at Bay 44.

Let the eight-hour journey to begin.

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