Click on a photo to enlarge it.
After a two day journey our bus arrived in El Bolsón at 18-30 and Kirsten walked to the supermarket to buy supplies for a few days whilst I watched our luggage and found our where a phone was and Klaus' number. Claudia would be in town until late with their car so we got a taxi.
Klaus had already driven the tractor out of the garage where W2 was stored. We attached the battery but not tight enough so on the second attempt, our motor home started without a problem. He was a bit dirty on the outside but otherwise seemed to have survived almost 6 months in storage without a problem.
We carefully drove out and parked up near the shower block and plugged in. We packed our things away as much as we could and at 21-50pm had a couple of cheese sarnis and a cuppa. Then jumped into the shower, made the bed and tried to get some sleep. We were pretty much exhausted.
It was really peaceful here - no jack hammers or barking dogs, nothing to wake us up and so we slept for almost 11 hours! Then we got up and made breakfast - it was wonderful to be able to make our own meals again. Great to be back home and in such a beautiful paradise!
We stayed for 10 nights with Klaus and Claudia and managed to get a few repairs done that we'd left from the last season. The back doors and the electric skylight got hand made mosquito nets so that we can open everything up when it gets hot. We had 6 loads of washing - bedding, towels, mats, fleece blankets and all of our clothes. We cleaned Winnietwo from outside and he looked really clean. Of course it wouldn't be long before we drove on the next gravel and got him filthy dirty outside and inside again!
Other repairs were also on our list - our wind shield washers weren't working because the water line had either come undone or had a leak and all the fluid ended up in the engine compartment. We spent over 30 minutes trying to find the leak and plugging it with tape, and then the next leak and the next ...!! We eventually gave up and decided we needed a whole new tube because for whatever reason the old one had simply dried up and cracked. Not essential seeing as we can wash it by hand so we can leave that for another day.
The diesel tank needed to be fixed though. We leaked through the seam where the two parts of the tank are joined. We'd bought some special steel reinforced epoxy with us for the job and picked up some turpentine and a scraper to clean it all first. Our old silk quilt cover, which is over 25 years old and had finally given up the ghost despite us sewing it back together numerous times, was cut up into rags to use for the cleaning.
Klaus has a garage with a bay where we could park and then climb down a ladder to get underneath. Helen spent a few gruelling and very dusty hours cleaning and sweeping the whole garage which was full of sawdust, wood pieces and various nails. Maybe that's why Klaus didn't charge us for using it!
We stayed for two nights inside the garage, cleaned the tank, used Sikaflex which is a type of non-silicon based rubber filler and put the epoxy on top. We did several coatings which we had to let dry. It's a lot of work but might delay the time when we have to spend around $500 US for a new diesel tank. We wouldn't find out until we topped up our tank to above the three-quarter mark.
We also worked on our website seeing as we are so far behind - as usual! Before long it was time to say goodbye even though we could have easily stayed a lot longer, it's so peaceful here. But our next adventure was calling.
Before we left Claudia warned us about gangs who were well organised and targeted motor homes in San Carlos de Bariloche, our next destination. This was confirmed when we looked at iOverlander on the internet. Never leave a motor home unattended, not even for 5 minutes! We had wanted to stay in Bariloche for a couple of nights and do some of the hikes in the area but it was too much of a risk. Even a broken window would take a lot of time to replace - that's if there are replacements for a German vehicle here!
Not too much of a problem for us because at least we have already been to Bariloche in 2002 when we were on a Kumuka camping trip for 6 months. So we found a really nice parking spot next to Lago Gutiérrez about 14 km south of Bariloche and drove in the following day.
We needed to get money and pay for our vehicle insurance, both made easier via Western Union and PagoFacil, a system of printing out a bill with a bar code which you then take to any of the numerous PagoFacil offices and pay in cash. Kirsten went in to do this whilst I stayed with W2. Then we had to do the shopping in stages, one of us shopped whilst the other played security guard for the motor home and then the other did the rest of the shopping whilst the first one put everything away. It takes a lot more time but at least there was no damage to come back to. We did have to forego the hikes though, which was a pity. At least there are plenty of others in the area as there are several National Parks here in an area that is called the "seven lakes district".
At around 3pm we had everything done and drove north out of Bariloche and found a parking spot near Rio Limay under some tall trees and Kirsten went out to take photos of the reflections. On the other side of the road is a YPF petrol station where we put diesel into our tank the next morning up to just above the three-quarter mark. Have we managed to seal it? The moment of truth came quickly - we still have a small leak. Damn! Oh well, we'll just have to get underneath again - at least it's only a very small area this time around.
We drove onto RP63 which is a gravel road for 64km and took us almost 4 hours to drive because there were not too many decent stretches and a bucket load of dust. It was so fine that it was making us sneeze! We stopped about half way for a coffee and tried to make a better cover for the gas heater where a lot of the dust was coming through.
It didn't help much though and once we got off the gravel and back onto tarmac we parked next to Lago Villarino at a camping area which is in Parque Nacional Nahuel Huapi and stayed there for three nights.
Once we arrived we set about the massive task of trying to get rid of all the dust inside the motor home. Everything had to be taken out or moved and brushed, shaken or wiped over. It took us almost 2 hours. Kirsten says it's the price of adventure, I say it's not worth it seeing as we could have driven the long way round and seen the same sights and scenery!
At least it was warm and sunny by the lake and we managed to get some work done on our website and Kirsten even cut my wildly overgrown hair!
