Carretera Austral day 8 to Puerto Montt and beyond

There was a house fire last night a block from where we parked the RV and spectators and fire engines came out and so we drove down to the end of the road for more privacy. 

We had a long day of driving today and so we headed off in the dark before the kids woke up to get a start on the road. 

We drove an hour to the last ferry and crossed it and only had another hour and a half until Puerto Montt and the end of the ruta 7, the Carretera Austral.

Puerto Montt is a large city but we were only passing through to find propane which we were almost out of.

We had filled up in Ushuaia and then topped up in Punta Arenas but the cold weather meant we used the furnace which uses propane pretty quickly. We had made over two weeks but needed to fill up more. The propane bottles in each country are different with different valves. Fortunately there are propane fueled vehicles in some cities and the fill connection are compatible with my bottle so I went to find an autogas fill up spot but the place I had bookmarked was closed for the holiday. I checked with someone on ioverlander and he drove us to another place that was close and then asked for $5 tip. I then drove an hour north to Osorno to a Copec but they would not fill my propane for some reason but they referred me to a place called Gasco and they were able to it. That was two hours for looking for propane.

Once filled up we headed to the Chilean Argentinean border passing through the beautiful lake district none of which we took photos because we were racing against the clock.

Border crossing days can sometimes be long and there was a lot of traffic at this border because of the holiday weekend but we made it through in under an hour and I was able to dump our cassette in a portapottie.

I had tried to dump at a Copec but their drain was clogged and I clogged it more. I felt terrible about that.

The border control for the two countries are about twenty minutes away from each other and we had to cross the Andes. 

The town of Bariloche sits on the southeastern side of a large lake Nahuel Huapi and the similarly named national Park.

All the traffic was heading there for Easter and so were we. We booked a hotel there for a few days to recuperate after the long driving days on the Carretera Austral. 

We pulled into town and it was packed and no parking was to be found. There was a chocolate festival going on on Easter weekend and everyone was here.

We decided to drive to our hotel and get dinner there instead.

We booked a place that looked like a log cabin. It was very nice and the family was happy.

We went and had dinner next door and had a fantastic steak dinner. It rivaled the steak we had in Cartagena but cost 5 times more.

We then went back to the hotel and got out stuff from the RV and Christine had the kids decorate some eggs for tomorrow.

The hotel has heated floors which was amazing but it was very hot to go to sleep. We ended up turning on the AC.