Pucon to Bariloche in a new Truck

Early curly start today and we leave the cool town of Pucon and head off for apparently an even cooler ski town of Bariloche 397.4 'route book' miles away.

Border crossing today (Chile out and Arg in) and an extra passenger so Roj will have to be on best behaviour!!

Patagonia here we come..

We managed to pick up our new hire trucks yesterday - well 2 of the Team Terrano. The other 2 crew from Team Terrano were just dropping off in Pucon yesterday and now picking up today in Bariloche so we are sharing out the passengers for the day.

We have Lady Reddington from Canada travelling with us today - poor Tracy has drawn the short straw. And she wants to thank her lucky stars that we forgot to take out our CD of the 'Mendozian Moaners' out of our last hire truck or am sure she would have been hailing a cab lol

Last nights Green Park Hotel was very satisfactory, a little too far from town but cycles were available if needed.

We had spent quite a while waiting for our Hertz rep to arrive to swap cars over that we decided to just chilled at the hotel and indulged in some colourful but tasteless offerings.
But we had enjoyed a delicious lunch in Pucon and befriended a lovely couple from Vista. San Diego who had moved to Pucon to run a great little restaurant ion Geronimo de Alderete street which was very handy as it was right next to our Hertz pick up station!!

Another car bites the dust and is out of the Rally now - shiny red Camaro # 24 Reg and Tony Is now Kaputt and so only 22 left on this battlefield.
Am told that they are flying straight home but hopefully they will join Team Terrano for the last leg to Ushuaia..

The border crossing were quick and very efficient today.
We decided to get ahead this morning before any 'fixers' arrived as this tends to slow things down with all the confusion!

It seems to be quite easy to cross the borders here with a hire car as long as you have your 'cross border' paperwork organised before you set off. But so far using our own 'fixer' Roj Goodwin lol we seem to sail through!!

We stayed on rally route today (only because i wasn't paying attention as we came into a little village called Juan de los Andes where we could have picked up the Ex 40)
so we had the pleasure of the scenic route 234 through the national park and around Lake Lacar and the little ski village of San Martin de los Andes and then out came the sun again :))

I had a complaint from a Top British Photographer about my camera lens and the fact that it could do with a wipe over now and again!!
Point taken and lens now polished but not sure whether the quality will improve as its just the iPhone 5 - quickest way to upload to blogspot here lol

Wise old owl Roj suggested that it may help if we wound the window down but the last time i held it out of the window it nearly took off.
David and Roger still think they are competing!!
Thanks for that Gerard :))

We took an interesting left turn off route 234 and cut through across lakeside on route 63 to join Route 40.
Ab fab scenery throughout the - we decided it was Spain, Alaska and Canada all rolled into one with a bit of The Brecon Beacons in between lol

David had a little brush with law earlier today when they told him to watch his speed oops - very courteous they were about it and again on Route 40 !!

They have a habit here it seems to pile up their crashed cars around their their police controls. Maybe as a gentle reminder to 'watch your speed'

Arriving at Llao Llao Hotel approx 1.30pm local time - splendid day's driving :)


Ps forgot to say the Pope was waiting to greet us on arrival lol