We want to take the overnight trip from Bariloche to Pont Montt staying overnight and returning the next day by bus to Bariloche. Who can we contact and how long does the bus trip back take, what time does it leave the morning after the trip to go back to Bariloche. I see in Fodor that Catedral Turisom does this trip but can't seem to reach themn?

Hi Judy, Catedral Turismo is located in Bariloche,
I have their phone number 54 2944 425444
address is Palacios 363, Bariloche and e mail [email protected].
In my experience you do not need to buy the ticket ahead of time, I mean only a couple of days before will be enough, unless it is the high season.
You should talk to them because in Summer itinerary varies from Winter itinerary.
The first catamaran leaves from Puerto Pañuelo which is at walking distances of the Hotel Llao Llao, but should you be staying in downtown Bariloche they also bring you in a bus to Puerto Pañuelo.
I hope you have nice weather because it makes a lot of a difference. In Puerto Montt there are several nice hotels and I believe the people from Catedral can make the reservation for you at a fair price. You can also reserve directly the Chilean Hotel , in Chile there is a low and high season too and all hotels have a Senior's rate.
The bus will leave at the hotel' s door at no extra charge
What month are you going?
Now remember that in Chile there is a fee for US Passports. If you do not feel like doing the whole crossing you can do half the crossing without getting into Chile.
I am sure the people at Catedral will explain the whole thing.
To come back to Argentina buy bus, you can try a very good chilean bus company called Cruz del Sur, you can call them directly and reserve the seats. They come through Cardenal Samore Pass mountain pass, the first stop in Argentina is Villa La Angostura a nice place to stop. By the way there is a great web
site called lakecrossing... ,( look for it at google) that shows you the itinerary and has a lot of information. Good LUCK>

Hi Judy, it is me again, please forgive my mistakes in the previous posting but I hope you got the general idea, VERY IMPORTANT the official site for the lake crossing is
www.crucedelagos.ch . There you 'll find most of the information you might need , also great pictures. Good luck.

you are terrific, we will contact all the places you have given us. We are staying at Llao Llao so it is good to know we can cross the road and make our connection. We want to make sure we can return the next morning to our hotel and stay overnight so we can fly the next day back to Buenos Aires. We have been unable to get reservations at Iguazu at the Sheraton or the hotel Tropical Das Cataratas in Brazil any suggestions

sorry, we are going end of Oct

Hi Judy, We made hotel reservation through WOW
that is Cintia, at [email protected].
Leaving from Bariloche you are right, Puerto Pañuelo is located right across the hotel.The hotel will take you free in a little van.(2 minutes ride) coming back by bus from Chile the bus will be coming to the Bariloche Bus Terminal, which is located a ten minute taxi ride from downtown in the opposite direction.
One could say that Llao LLao is 25 kms from downtown and that the bus terminal is 3 or 4 kms from downtown in the opposite direction. So on our way back we did not stay in the Hotel LLAo LLAo insted we stayed in downtown Bariloche.
There are many hotels downtown of all kinds. We chose one right in town and avail ourself of the opportunity to walk around , do some shopping etc.
We stayed at the Hotel Tres Reyes www.hoteltresreyes.com . The key is to get a recently remodeled room. The public areas of this middle size hotel are pleasantly decorated with many antiques. The small bar is cozy and great for a drink before dinner. Breakfast with a lake view was very good, everything was homemade , croissants, bread etc. And eggs were made to order. Breakfast was included in rate. In December 2003 it was like u$s55 per night probably more now. There are hotels rated with more stars but I liked this one very much.
I would highly recommend to use Wow, they are very honest and efficient. They can also solve your Iguazu hotel problem and as most travel agency in Argentina often they have better rates.
Do you know that the lake crossing was the old route to take the wool produced in the Patagonia to the Pacific ports? Did you see the great pictures they have in www.crucedelagos.ch ?

I have tried www.crucedelagos.ch and can't seem to get on the site. Help

Of Course, it is crucedelagos.cl .....cl for Chile....sorry

thanks

For what its worth! I was going to do the trip across the lakes but when I gave it more thought re: on and off boats and buses with luggage I decided to give it a miss and do my lake trips around Bariloche and just take the International bus from Bariloche to Puerto Montt which costs $15. You see just as much and you can do it in bits if you want. The lakes around Bariloche are more beautiful in my opinion and more varied but I did enjoy the crossing and more so because of its cost.
All you need do is go to the bus station in Bariloche and get the next one. I did the day trip and it takes about 5 hours.

We did the Lake crossing from Puerto Varas to Bariloche and were very disappointed in the experience. We did not have great weather, but we spent the entire day from 9:00 a.m. to 11:00 p.m. on boats and buses. Actually, much of the time was spent waiting--for the boats and buses to load people and luggage, for immigration in both Chile and Argentina, and for our turn to get on the boat or bus.

If we had to do it over, we would have not taken the crossing but gone directly to Bariloche and spent the day on the lakes there. You can take a partial transit and that would be preferable to the entire trip to Puerto Montt.

Not everybody likes the same things, I loved the crossing, of course the weather was very nice, I checked before taking the crossing. Which is very easy because all travel agencies and also del Hotel Llao Llao where I was, had a five day forecast. I though it was beautiful I do not recall waiting too much, except in customs which are rather unpleasant ...WE had a nice lunch arriving into Chile and after lunch walked a lot around in some kind of forest with a few water falls. Each lake was different and beautiful. Of course if you are short of time or if the forecast is not good the bus is always an option.
It is also true that there are several nice options of one day trips around Bariloche in different lakes.