Los Cauquenes Hotel Room 116 - Do Not Enter!!

Well we picked up our final hire car at Ushuaia airport (Hertz)
All very efficient and speedy and off we went in search of our Hotel for the next 4 days.

We might have known Le 24 hour car was all ready there and had beaten us to it. Actually the 24 hour car had been there for 48 hours. Lol
Da da our rooms has already been chosen for us lol

Wow - 'mountain view' - well the hotel really shouldn't be allowed to allocate them out to anyone never mind $375 per night!! You had to really search for the mountain through the dusty window. There was a tree in the middle (thank goodness) as the rest of the view was into a building site. Great big digger sat outside our window and unmade pavements lol
AND it looked at if it was going to kick off at 7.30am
Even David got angry about it and came flying out of the room..

We shot down to reception and tried to rearrange. What a song and dance. The receptionist told us that our rooms had been specially chosen by guess who lol
Le Orgs. Mmmm no way jose were we staying in that room. We had encountered some corkers of rooms on route and the last 4 days were not going to be 'view del diggers' on building site.

Eventually we were allocated 'lakeside' views at an extra cost of $200 lol
Now have 'Beagle Channel' view like the remaining rally crews....

Anchorage to El Calafate lol

El Calafate to Ushuaia and maybe Rio Grande lol

Just at airport and off to join the rest of the Rally at Rio Grande

Flying from El Calafate and picking up the final hire car in Ushuaia and still well within the $16,000.00 Rally 'special price' hire car.
Arica to Ushuaia lol

The airport at El Calafate is superb. Spotless, efficient and a cafe serving 'home made' grub.

We boarded with minimum fuss and sat awaiting take off and then dreaded 'announcent' came - in spanish first of course but you could tell by the tones that it wasnt good news!
Yicks then it was the Inglaise version...
We were told that the winds were picking up in Ushuaia and the captain was awaiting an update so we would have to wait about 20 mins to hear whether we would be able to fly at all..

OMG i thought - we couldn't take the chance of sitting around til morn as the same thing may happen tomorrow.
So the plan was to hop off the plane at great speed. We only had hand luggage so could shoot straight out for a taxi back to El Calafate and then straight back to car hire shop to pick up the golf that we had just dropped off in the hope that it hadn't gone off to the cleaners or even the scrap yard. (The poor thing had a good thrashing yesterday)
If we were in luck then we would just hurtle back down the 40 as far as our peepers would allow lol
Not a good option but ...

15 minutes of planning later and all eyes were wide open. 'The air hostess has just belted herself in' says Mrs Goodwin, Yipee i thought, followed by 'oh no she hasn't' :(
Then we hear Herr Capitan over the speakers. His tone i thought was cheery and i turned around to the Spanish guys behind and saw him put his thumbs up and smile and thought yes we are on ...

And yes we were certainly on and in for a rough ride but whats new lol !!!!

Arrived safely in Ushuaia :))

Rio Grande here we come - shall we? Shant we??

Puerto Natales

Puerto Natales and its Torres del Paine is a must ... Lol

Cant upload pics from El Calafate tho

Stage 29 for some - El Calafate to Puerto Arenas for us!!

Early Start yet again..

The remaining rally cars are resting at front of hotel. Short day for them today and some are missing out the stage completely and skipping off to Rio Grande.

We are up and off to the National Park at Puerto Natales and maybe witness the last sunrise over South America - well at least from a Hillux anyway!!

We picked up Route 40 again once out El Calafate and then shot off onto the 70km dirt tracks cutting out the village of Esperanza.

Managed to get through the Dorotea border and into Chile without any problems. No queuing for us today..

The Green Guards were all out on parade when we arrived and we thought ah ha but then up sped a Gendarmes van and out leapt a 'General' with sword clad protectors and then a lot of heel clicking and hand shaking went on. I didn't dare raise my camera tho just in case!!

They disappeared just as quickly as they arrived and we were left with just the Fruit police with their faithful labradors sniffing out the vehicles.

Dropped off the Hillux in Puerto Natales and then managed to find a cosy wifi cafe (bit like the old woolworths cafe lol) to take a coffee break in..

We stopped for a photo shoot of yet another 'bottle bank' at the side of the road just on the outskirts of Puerto Natales.
Shrine del Evian methinks..

Now on 4th Hire Car but still well within the $16,000.00 budget!!

Spent the afternoon snapping away at Eagles, Flamingos, Rheas, Shy Grey Foxes Lakes and 'Rocks' lol in 'Torres del Paine' National Park wow :))

We took afternoon tea in the little border town of Cerro Castillo (nice little coffee shop/ souvenir/ wifi and currency exchange) and spent the left over Chilean Pesos (45,000.00 of them) and then made a sharp exit out of Chile and quickly hopped back into Argentina via Paso Rio Don Guillermo.
Only one bus load of 'Onion Pickers' to banter with and we were stamped back into Arg.

Roger just couldn't resist the 70km ROUGH short cut off Route 9 (poor little Golf took a hammering. We came through it this morn in the Hillux but returning in the Golf wasn't quite the same!!)

Sorry no pis of Rally cars today - well only one from 'The Collection' :)

Restaurant Viva el Viento - Los Antiguos

All fun and games at Viva El Viento