Qualla: Paso Internacional Los Libertadores

Paso Internacional Los Libertadores: Introduction

Sun, 21 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Diego Tirira from Quito, Ecuador, CC BY-SA 2.0. On 19 September 2013, nearly 15,000 Chileans found themselves stranded on the Argentine side of the Andes. The temperature had dropped, half a meter of snow had fallen, and the only practical route home through the mountains had to be sealed for ten hours. That bottleneck has a name - the Paso Internacional Los Libertadores, also called Cristo Redentor - and it is the main artery between Santiago and Mendoza, carrying a relentless stream of trucks, buses, and travelers across one of the great mountain ranges on Earth.

Image: Diego Tirira from Quito, Ecuador | CC BY-SA 2.0

Paso Internacional Los Libertadores: Two Faces of the Same Mountain

Sun, 21 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit GerthMichael, CC BY-SA 3.0. The pass shows a different character depending on which side you climb. From Argentina, the approach is deceptively gentle - a long, patient incline that eases up toward the tunnel mouth at around 3,200 meters. From Chile, the mountain shows its teeth. The slope plunges far more ...

Image: GerthMichael | CC BY-SA 3.0

Paso Internacional Los Libertadores: The Bore Through the Border

Sun, 21 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Rodrigogomesonetwo, CC BY-SA 3.0. Opened in 1980, the Tunnel of Christ the Redeemer runs 3,080 meters straight through the rock, and the international border sits at its midpoint - the literal end of Chile Route 60 and the start of Argentina's Route 7. The tunnel was a transformation. Before it, the road crossed ...

Image: Rodrigogomesonetwo | CC BY-SA 3.0

Paso Internacional Los Libertadores: Named for a Vanished Summit

Sun, 21 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Robert Taylor Pritchett, Public domain. The pass owes its other name to something travelers rarely see anymore. Higher up, near the old Uspallata Pass at 3,832 meters, stands the four-ton bronze statue of Christ the Redeemer of the Andes, raised in 1904 to mark peace between Argentina and Chile. For decades that statue...

Image: Robert Taylor Pritchett | Public domain

Paso Internacional Los Libertadores: The Ghost of the Railway

Sun, 21 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Leo Wehrli, CC BY-SA 4.0. Long before the trucks, there were trains. The Transandine Railway crossed almost this same gap at the Uspallata Pass, opening fully in 1910 after nearly two decades of construction by the Clark brothers of Valparaiso. It was an engineering marvel of its day, using a toothed rack...

Image: Leo Wehrli | CC BY-SA 4.0

Paso Internacional Los Libertadores: Dreaming of a Lower Road

Sun, 21 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit François Bianco, CC BY-SA 2.0. A single high tunnel is a fragile lifeline for two national economies, and planners have long dreamed of escaping the snow line. Proposals come and go: a John Paul II Tunnel bored lower at around 2,250 meters to link Horcones in Argentina with Juncal in Chile; a Las Lenas Pass cr...

Image: François Bianco | CC BY-SA 2.0