A wet morning and no
cup of tea! The stove was playing up. We considered that the problem
could be fuel, as yesterday for the first time we were offered a
choice in diesel. We chose the cheaper one but didn’t know how they
differed. But on investigation of the flashing lights the combustion
air fan was the problem. So we pulled the stove out of the bench and
undid the exhaust hoses from outside (in the rain) . Meanwhile the
heater decided it would stop working too!
We did find a wire on the combustion fan in the cooker that was faulty so we soldered on a new one. And put it
all back together. But not our day now the overheating light comes
on. Could it be the diesel?
When the rain
cleared up and the clouds lifted we realised it had snowed in the
night and there was a very distinctive line to the lower altitude of
snow.
Too wet really to
walk especially with no way to dry clothes, heat us or heat food. So we decided to
head over to Chile where it should be a bit warmer, and use
some diesel. We still think diesel quality may be an issue so if we can top the tank up with good diesel it may alleviate the problem.
WE came upon the
Argentina border station about 15 k’s East of the boarder at 800m
altitude. Very interesting process. We got a ticket at a box about 50
m before the offices. We had to both get out and go in to clear out
of Argentina. Our piece of paper recieved earlier got a stamp at each
office then we were free to go. Handing in the sheet of paper 50 m
further up the road.
15km’s up to the
border and the snow is looking very low. Border is at 1363m Altitude.
We encountered snow and at one stage it did snow a little. Had to get
out and take a picture of EC in the snow!
Down the other side
another 20km’s to the Chilean border control station. We stopped
300 m short and ate an avocado, a pear and the rest of the yogurt.
The Immigration & customs used the same system as Argentina but
the sheet we got needed 5 stamps instead of 3. We lost most of the
fresh food we thought we would, although they let us keep the cheese
and butter. The only thing I had over looked was cooking the eggs
last night, so we lost those. All in all no surprises. It also helped
that most of our packeted food originated in Chile. The stews and
soups were all OK which was great.
We wanted to get
some diesel burned to put more in, so we hiked it down to lake Llanquthue and camped on the sand. We are on the opposite shore to
camp 2017-04-26 and some 68km’s away.
The heater is
working and the stove top cuts out every 5 mins or so. We did get
some soup heated for dinner.