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After all the rain we had had it wasn't surprising that we got a leak! It dripped on top of where we keep our large cotton sack to store our bedding and my clothes. Of course it had to be my clothes and not Kirsten's that were right next to them! So we had to move things around to try and dry the area and hang my clothes up to dry. At least it happened overnight so the bedding was dry we just didn't have a lot of space to put it.
Kirsten had a lie in whilst I tried to dry stuff and sort it all out. It was raining anyway (what a surprise!) so there was no need to rush off anywhere! We finally set off at 2-30pm, got some diesel and the guy who served us spilled diesel all over the side of Winnietwo! We headed back onto Ruta 5 and had to pay another toll to get back onto it - 850 pesos, about $1-30.
In Puerto Montt we tried one last time to get parts. We stopped at a land rover mechanic recommended in iOverlander but the place was shut and looked closed down. Next we tried a parts place listed on our GPS called Jano that supposedly has Fiat parts. Parking was impossible so Kirsten jumped out to go on foot whilst I stayed where we might have to pay for parking.
The meter guy came along 5 minutes later just as Kirsten came back saying Jano had shock absorbers and a steering track rod!! Wow. We moved off to try and find somewhere to park so we could get the shocks - they will be very heavy. But we couldn't find anywhere closer and ended up back in the same place and I paid for 20 minutes which only cost 50 cents whilst Kirsten went to the shop.
When the meter man came I asked him what time it was. There had definitely been a time change and we found out later that Chile put it's clocks back on May 13th and will put them forward again on August 14th. So it means that for three months in a year Chile is one hour behind Argentina.
Kirsten came back with only a small box - I didn't see that the shop owner was behind her carrying two large boxes with our shock absorbers in them on his shoulder! It cost us $182 US so it was a good job we had enough Chilean pesos with us.
Yippee! We have finally got our parts. Now all we need is a mechanic to put them in and somewhere to align our tyres. Well we found both at a Bacon service centre. It just happened to be opposite the Walmart that was our next stop and is also the same company where we had bought our new tyres in Temuco 10 days ago.
Kirsten went over to talk to them and they said it would take half a day for everything and would cost $137 US. It was already 5pm so they said to come back in the morning. We couldn't stay on the Walmart car park so we drove one block away and parked in a residential street for the night. Puerto Montt is also a high crime area for tourists and motor homes so we hoped parking in front of houses would be safer.
We went to bed early and had set the alarm for 8am but we got woken up at around 1am - it sounded like some drunken youths were trying to get our spare tyre cover off. No doubt just a lark but at least they just ran off. I went out to check but everything was in order. Maybe the noise we heard was something else. They woke us up so we couldn't be sure. We didn't exactly sleep much after that though.
I dragged myself out of bed when the alarm went off the next morning. It was still raining and some of our things were still damp from the leak. We drove around the corner to the Bacon workshop and spent the time working on the computer in their office whilst the guys had difficulty getting our old shocks out. For whatever reason, Fiat has built this vehicle so it's extremely difficult to get to anything. They had to take off both sides of the dashboard cover inside the drivers compartment to get at the screws holding the shock absorbers in place!! Fiat could have made it a bit simpler, right?
When we bought the shocks the man at the shop told us he wasn't sure if they were the right ones but we could always bring them back for a refund. We kept going out to take a look as we are interested in learning what we can about our vehicle whenever we get the chance. The mechanics were quite impressed with us especially when I told them we had bought our new tyres from their garage in Temuco.
It didn't take long to find out that we had the right shocks - they are made by Dunlop so hopefully they are good. Afterwards they took off our corroded steering track rod only to find out that the new part was too small! Oh boy, maybe we had celebrated too early. One of the mechanics said he would drive Kirsten back to Jano and when they got there, there had just been a shipment of parts delivered, including longer rods. Within 30 seconds she had the correct size rod and could exchange it without having to pay any extra!
We finally got everything done and put back together and had our tyres aligned correctly. They even charged us 3,000 pesos less than their quote so we managed to save around $6 US. It was 4pm by the time we left and we simply drove across the road to Walmart and I went to buy a hot roasted chicken. We were starving because we hadn't eaten for 8 hours!
Once we had stuffed our faces we left Puerto Montt as we didn't fancy another night here and drove through very heavy rain to the lake in Puerto Varas where we had stayed on the way south. It was very windy and pouring with rain. Miserable weather but what a difference new shocks make! No more kangarooing! I've been driving with bad shocks for so long I'm going to have to learn not to slow down for every bump in the road!
We had another leak - this time through the vent for our heater which is on the roof. It wasn't really a leak and had probably happened because we were driving through heavy rain and it just came through the vent. This time it was Kirsten's clothes that got wet. More stuff to hang out to dry. We looked like a Chinese laundry!
The next day we headed north east to Puerto Octay and stopped at a rest area where we could get free lukewarm showers. It had finally stopped raining and we had a really sunny day to cross the border into Argentina. It was a lovely drive and the volcanoes all had fresh snow on them. They were a brilliant white backdrop above the pass to San Carlos de Bariloche which is only around 1,300m high.
Exiting Chile only took 5 minutes and, after the 40km drive to the Argentinian side, the formalities only took 15 minutes. We were expecting a search of the vehicle so Kirsten went to open our sliding door but the man didn't even bother looking inside. Then Kirsten tried to shut the door again without having fully opening it and got it jammed! We didn't realise until we pulled over at a viewpoint just a little further from the border and it took us 30 minutes to get the back door open. It would have taken less time but Kirsten managed to jam it a second time!
We parked in a residential side street in Villa La Angostura for the night but it was getting so cold that we went to bed early. We have been putting up with the cold temperatures because we only have gas in our cooking bottle and continually taking it off and attaching it to the heater is a pain. We also needed to conserve gas for cooking but now that we were close to El Bolsón, where we knew we could get gas, we could use the same bottle for the heater again.
We certainly needed it the next morning as it went down to minus 3 degrees overnight. It was also just below freezing inside the motor home and we had ice on the inside of the windows. Everything outside was covered with frost and all white! So we moved the cooking gas bottle and attached it to our heater. We haven't used the heater for so long we didn't know whether it would work or whether we would need a new battery. But it came on first time. Yippee!! We can get warm.
I braved the cold and went in search of something for breakfast. I had to be really careful because there was ice on the footpaths and it was very slippery. There was a lot of ice on the road when we drove down to Bariloche too so it took us longer to get there. Kirsten got the hiccups en route and she sounded like a beeping horn! As our horn doesn't work we thought about recording her hiccups to use as a replacement!
Once in Bariloche we stopped at the bus terminal to check the times for our overnight bus to Santiago and to buy tickets for the bus from El Bolsón. Then we drove south until it got too dark and pulled off onto a parking area at the side of the road for the night.
The next day we drove to the gas plant in El Bolsón and filled up both bottles for 160 pesos each ($11 US) and a lot cheaper because it is a privately owned plant. We paid more than twice that when we filled up in Mendoza months ago.
Then we had to dash off to get internet because it was the last match of the season and our team from Hamburg were in danger of having to go into the relegation play-offs. We needed to win against Wolfsburg who only needed a draw to keep them out of the play-offs.
We missed the first 35 minutes and it was already 1-1 so Wolfsburg were safe at the moment but we weren't. It was nail biting stuff and our internet connection kept breaking up so it was very frustrating to watch. We had to wait until the 87th minute for a goal by Waldschmidt who had only just been substituted onto the field. Within one minute he had scored!! Three minutes to go plus 5 minutes extra time. Oh God. Then our connection died on us completely! Arghhh!
We desperately tried to get the connection back. We couldn't get back on to watch the match but we managed to get onto a website where we could see "Final whistle, 2-1 for Hamburg!!!" Yesss!! We made it! And then Kirsten cried!! Ahhhh.
After a while we could get back on to watch excerpts from the match and managed to see all the highlights we had missed. We hit replay and watched it all again! I know - we are football crazy! Well it was a very important match. Poor Wolfsburg will have to play against the third placed team in the second league to decide which one of them will be playing in the first league next season.
After all that excitement we needed sustenance so we went shopping at a local supermarket and stayed on their car park for the night. The next morning we drove out to Klaus and Claudia where we will be storing our motor home for the next 5 months. We have one week to get all the cleaning and sorting out done. Plus we need to work on our website as we are way behind. At least we get electricity so we can plug in.
Unfortunately it was extremely cold. The temperature went below freezing every night and we used a full bottle of propane in 7 days just on our heater. We had to keep the heating running all day. We switched it off at night, only to get woken up early in the morning because it was below freezing inside. I had to get out of bed at around 6am in the mornings to switch the heater on. At least we managed to get the gas bottle refilled so we have more gas for heating.
It took us 5 days but we finally managed to get virtually up to date with our website and even managed to get some of the cleaning and sorting done. We drove into town one last time to use the internet but our mouse was playing up and Kirsten was swearing like a trooper. It took 5 hours to get everything done including trying to find files etc. that the touch pad had sent everywhere except where we wanted things to go!! Truly frustrating!
On our final day in El Bolsón it was minus 1 in the motor home again and we had to wait for everything to defrost before we could clean the outside of the motor home and finish off the rest of the cleaning inside. We packed our bags and then drove Winnietwo into the shed where he will be stored.
We ended up with a bit of a rush the next morning as everything needed to be done last minute but we managed to be ready by 10-30am and Claudia gave us a lift into town. Kirsten dashed off to buy some things from the supermarket and even found a new computer mouse!
We got the 2 hour bus to Bariloche and had an hour to wait for the overnight bus to Santiago. Our server on the bus must have thought we all stink because he kept going around spraying everything with some kind of disinfectant! The border crossings took a lot longer with the bus - 90 minutes but the bus was full and all bags needed to be checked by sniffer dogs and then by hand. We actually managed to get a few hours sleep because the bus is far more comfortable than the flights.
This time we arrived at the bus terminal in Santiago de Chile on time - we had 12 hours at the airport to wait for our flight so, of course we're on time. Last year we had a mad dash to the airport and the taxi driver broke the land speed record for the journey!!
This time we shared a taxi with two people we had met on the bus - Hans-Uwe and Maria Luisa (German/Argentinian couple) who live in Argentina and were going to the Dominican Republic for a long beach holiday to avoid the winter in Argentina. They were staying at the airport hotel for the night but joined us for breakfast at one of the airport cafés.
We had a great time with them and it certainly made our long wait far more entertaining. We're hoping to visit them when we return in November. We checked in electronically and then went for strong cappuccino (not our choice) and day old doughnuts (definitely not our choice!)
We flew with Delta Airlines to Atlanta and then Vancouver. The seats were very uncomfortable and could only be moved back an inch with great difficulty so we got no sleep. At least the films were good! The Vancouver flight was one of those where you have to pay for food which didn't look very appetizing but we still had some snacks with us that kept us going.
The flight over the Rockies was spectacular - huge snow and ice covered mountain peaks breaching the clouds and we even got a photo of Emerald Pool in Yellowstone National Park. We had another long wait at Vancouver and then got onto the overnight bus.
Fortunately it wasn't raining when we arrived at 05-40 but there are no taxis or buses at that time in the morning so we set off to walk. After a 74 hour journey, walking about 5 miles (7km) to Winnie was not something to look forward to. We stuck out our thumbs hoping someone would take pity on us even though last year we had to walk the whole way.
This year though, we actually got a lift after we'd got about a third of the way. A local young lady had already past us in the other direction and stopped to pick us up when she came back. We were really grateful. She even took us straight to Winnie.
We checked out Winnie and immediately saw that our tarp covering the roof had been virtually shredded! Tom came out to see us before he left for work and told us that they'd had one of the worst winters for decades - minus 20 for a long time, flooding, and extreme winds! No wonder our tarp didn't survive. At least we couldn't detect any leaks inside so we seem to have survived the worst.
We got the tarp off, got our bags inside, attached the batteries and Winnie started first time!!! Wow - he's so good even at the age of 31! After that we made a cup of tea and then went straight to bed - exhausted! The next day we went shopping and bought a new toaster oven as our last one died on us at the end of last season. Finally we get pizza, home made cakes and casseroles - all the things we can't do in Winnietwo.
That's it for now folks. See you at the end of October for our next season in South America.
