We are back in Argentina - and there were several reasons. On the one hand, the weatherforecast for the coming days on the Carretera Austral in Chile was exclusively rainy and cold. So you don't see the beautiful mountains around anyway. On the other hand, Chile is extremely expensive, no matter what has to be purchased (especially compared to Argentina). Even just 95 petrol costs about 38 cents per liter in Argentina, about €1.57 in Chile and it runs through almost all areas. This is not of primary importance but does play a role in our travel budget. Furthermore, you miss beautiful corners in Argentina if you only drive through Chile (where everything is currently overcast and wet anyway) and we are attracted by the small passes and border crossings.
Our journey continues north to Lago Vintter and then on to Corcovado, Trevelin and Esquel. At least that's how we imagined it. Unfortunately, we had reckoned without the innkeeper, as the saying goes. Shortly before Lago Vintter, the previously unimaginable happened. After a long straight with excellent piste quality, this changed abruptly before a left turn. There were an extremely large number of medium-sized river pebbles on the slope, which were extremely rolling. In addition, there was the fact that (in our opinion) only in this curve was the roadway much higher in the middle than at the edge. Usually the curves of slopes are higher on the outside than on the inside or just flat. And as the all-important factor, I was driving too fast at around 60 km/h. So Zacharias swerved from the back, lurched back and forth twice and I was already hoping to be able to stabilize him again when the right rear wheel hit the side of the earth or gravel wall at the edge of each track and we rolled over from the passenger side, the roof flipped over 270° onto the driver's side.
For a few seconds my memory went blank and we looked back at the kids, who had been woken up by the performance and were lying on their sides in their seats, looking at us. We immediately took the children off board through the sliding door, which can now be used as a roof hatch, took a short breather and got the most important things out of the bus, which was lying on its side. Less than 5 minutes later, Juan and his friend Aldo stopped, asked a few seconds what had happened and started shoveling. The aim was to dig holes for the wheels and put the bus back up with manpower. That turned out to be rather impossible, with a weight of almost 3 tons.
So the two men first took Juliane and the kids to Juan's house, who lives almost directly on Lago Vintter, and came back to me almost 30 minutes later. In the meantime I had dug the holes for the wheels even deeper and a few other people had come, including Juan's daughter-in-law, as it turned out later. Finally, we attached a rescue strap to the jacking points on the bus and pulled it back onto its "feet" without much effort. The rescue strap was immediately attached to Zacharias' front rescue eyelets and it was pulled out of the two holes for the wheels back onto the road. A quick check to see if the steering and brakes are working and off we went on the tow rope in the direction of Lago Vintter.
When I got there, Juliane was already waiting for me with the kids. I was still so electrified that somehow I hadn't really realized what had happened. But I was so incredibly happy that nothing happened to anyone and especially to the kids. Nobody suffered any physical damage, except for a small bruised knee in Juliane. It was actually my first car accident ever. First I got a beer from Juan - that was definitely the most important thing after such an experience.
After the first shock was over, so to speak, the next item on the agenda, at least for the Argentinians, was to see if the engine was running. Because that is the most important thing next to the integrity on our part. And indeed, after we had refilled about 2 l of engine oil and had drawn 200 ml of oil out of the cylinders, it purred like a kitten again. For us in Europe it's the other way around: the engine can be repaired or replaced with ease, but the body is what's important. A lot of cars drive around here like this or worse and the decisive factor is the engine.
For the next two days we tried to process and relax a little what we had experienced with Juan and Isabel, his wife, and of course to assess the damage a little. And these were considerable and it became clear that there wasn't much that could be done with Zacharias' body. In principle, it was warped everywhere, primarily in the front right, where the first impact was, but otherwise neither the tailgate nor the other doors closed properly.
Without further ado, all levers were set in motion via the WLAN, which was powered by electricity from the petrol generator, to find opportunities for spare parts and repairs. And that worked surprisingly well. In Argentina as well as in Chile there is a relatively small but well-connected T3 community. Everyone we contacted was closely involved in our misfortune, but at the same time was extremely helpful with contacts, spare parts, etc. Over time, unfortunately, it became clear that we (fortunately) needed few spare parts only, just a windscreen, a triangular window, and a blinker, everything else worked and was messed up at most. However, it also turned out that the body had some unsightly cracks and was therefore not really usable for another year (or a little more) in South America. Finding a good donor body for a Syncro here is the epitome of the impossible.
Isabel and Juan, their son Cristian and his girlfriend Aylen welcomed us incredibly warmly with the naturalness with which one offers a coffee to a visitor. They live on Lago Vintter in modest circumstances, but that didn't matter at all. We were planned and cooked for almost every meal, there was fruit, vegetables and beer. Juan in particular was extremely solution-oriented and sent us, so to speak, two days after the accident to Corcovado (about 60 km of track) with bag and baggage, where Lucas was supposed to knock the doors and knock out the worst of the sheet metal.
In Corcovado, we were also received incredibly warmly by friends of Isabel and Juan and invited to dinner while Zacharias felt the hammer and various other equipment. After two days we drove back to Isabel and Juan and spent another two days with them before we headed north again and again to Corcovado. As luck would have it, Juan and Isabel also had to go to Corcovado and so we were able to do a big asado the following day together with their friends Susana and Marcos and their family. It was very beautiful and it came from the heart. Then we said goodbye and continued on our way to Bariloche.
We were incredibly lucky with our accident, on the one hand that nothing happened to us and especially to the children. They were really well protected in their seats and we were also strapped. On the other hand, that we were helped so quickly on a route where less than 30 cars drive on a day. And last but not least, that it happened right there. If I imagine it being somewhere in the middle of nowhere, 70 km away from the next mobile network sender with 70 km/h wind and 10% humidity – that would be a completely different story. We had all the luck in the world in our misfortune, so to speak. Lago Vintter is a dream landscape, the weather was good, Juan and Isabel are such good-hearted people that it would almost have been a shame if we hadn't had the accident, because then we certainly wouldn't have gotten to know them.
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