Puyuhuapi Lodge & Spar is located in Bahia Dorita which involved another ferry ride, passengers only. Cars were locked away in a “secure” compound, although it wouldn’t have taken much to scale the fence.

The hot thermal pools were a welcome relief after a tedious day and most of our group enjoyed a good soak.  Another good thing was there was no Internet, so our bloggers got a night off!

But best of all we got to sleep-in the next morning (a rare treat) as the first ferry left at 9.30am.   Lots of roadworks, slippery wet roads, amazing scenery, and road workers snapping away merrily as we drove by.  I’m sure we have contributed to considerable time lost as the workers down tools to catch us on their iPhones.  We hope we have brought some joy into their lives, and not added unduly to the cost of the roadwork.  Today we managed to get past the roadworks, so that when they closed the road off for 5 hours we were already got through.  Dave’s car, RIP decided to play up today just as soon as we were on the made road with about 140kms to our accommodation in Coyhaique. Lots of smoke, serious discussion, and soon RIP was being towed gallantly by Shiraz, under the guidance of Mike and Kay.  Ross and Ian decide to take the short cut on gravel roads and were rewarded with amazing views and beautiful wildflowers right along the valley.

All three groups arrive in Coyhaique around the same time to find there was no record of our bookings.  Fortunately the Tehuelche Patagonia Lodge and their English speaking manager Giesella found they could put us up, and even feed us all at such short notice.  RIP is towed the last few metres up the steep driveway by one of the neighbours who has a Land Rover.  Before long all the experts were under the the bonnet and by 9pm RIP was purring away happily.
Question:  how many experts does it take to fix a blown head gasket?
Answer:  I counted 6!  RIP was just beaming after all that attention.
Most of the bloggers were happy as well as they found some wifi, some of course were under RIPs bonnet!!