Cambios

You may read the Wikipedia articles to the demographics of [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Chile Chile] and [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Argentina Argentina] to learn more about the ethnic groups and the long history of immigration into these countries.

In the bigger cities, especially in bus stations, you need to be cautious with petty crime. But once you get out of the cities into the rural areas people live a tranquil life and sometimes don’t even lock the doors of their houses. I do not recall any scary situation with people along the GPT and only very few instances in which distrust was advisable. But when you meet trunk people be cautious and keep distance. With alcohol these sometimes shy people can get pretty annoying and even harassing in particular with women. In such a situation the best response is to move on.

When hiking the GPT you will be most of the time in close proximity to the border that delimits Chile from Argentina. It’s a seemingly open border with a boundary mark (Spanish: “hito”) every few kilometers. Official border crossings can be 200 km apart. But don’t mistake this as an invitation to cross the border where you wish! Both countries are pretty touchy with their borders and both countries run random police patrols on horse to monitor their boundaries. In particular the Chilean police (“Carabineros”) has many permanent police posts in the vicinity of the border and establishes additional temporary police outposts during summer to monitor movements and prevent contraband in the borderland. The Argentine police (“Gendarmeria”) has less posts but also run occasional patrols. We had to show our passports numerous times in the middle of nowhere just to confirm that we entered the country legally.