Back to reality !

Day 178

Current Location: Guatemala City (Guatemala)

Total Countries visited: 9

Total Miles Driven: 22,601

Happy New Year everyone !  I hope you are all having a great start of 2012.

I am finally back on the road... it hasn't been easy...

Nepal was quite an adventure - I will blog about it later and give you the captivating details, but let's just say for now that it was quite the roller coaster.  And the return from Nepal was like a cold shower back to reality.

Of course, there were the insanely long flights back to Central America.  Kathmandu to New Delhi, New Delhi to New Jersey, New Jersey to Costa Rica, then Costa Rica to Honduras (from door to door, it would have taken 40 hours... ended up taking 60).  Unfortunately there was a snowstorm in Newark New Jersey which delayed my flight to Costa Rica for 6 hours (I was on board for the entire time - - - we had to get de-iced three times!)  And I arrived in Costa Rica as my flight to Honduras was leaving...

Since all direct flights to Tegucigalpa Honduras were booked for the next day, they had to give me what was possibly the most convoluted itinerary in the history of flying - three flights zigzagging around to get back to Tegucigalpa, covering a total of 400 miles.  That was a very fun day.

Original (black) vs. revised (red) itinerary

Finally back in Tegucigalpa, I went to pick up Large Marge - she looked great !  New brake pads, changed the gaskets which made the engine overheat, oil change, grease the suspension... felt like new !

Not so fast :)  This is my crazy adventure after all, things should not be this easy...

So on my first day of driving (2 days ago, on January 24th) I only had 300 km until San Salvador.  I figured 4-5 hours should do it.  It took me 11.  The biggest issue was that as I arrived at the Salvador border, their internet was down.  I waited there 4 hours as they tried to reboot the internet, to no avail.  So they decided to send me to the other office 1 mile up the road which did have internet.  1 more hour and I was back on the road - - - why they didn't send me there earlier, beats me.  After that, I got caught in really heavy traffic which cost me another couple hours.  What an exhausting day !!!  Arriving in San Salvador, I just went to KFC to eat, parked at the Walmart and fell asleep immediately.

Hot day in San Salvador

Day 2 of driving wasn't much better.  I only had 200 km until Guatemala City.  It was a very hot day - probably in the 90's, with high humidity, and very windy and uphill roads (Guatemala City has elevation of 4500 feet).  I made it about 120 km, then I saw my engine needle start to act up again.  I got out of the van, checked under the van - and there it was... Large Marge losing her waters again.  Radiator emptying up, engine heating up.  ARE YOU F*ING KIDDING ME!  It was the 5th time that I had this very same issue, and the last time the mechanic had a month to fix it... and each and every time the mechanic was confident that everything was going be fine... I'm quickly starting to lose trust in the level of competence of Central America mechanics.

The previous times that my radiator blew up, I suppose I had lucky - it happened in a major city, where incompetent mechanics abound.  Well yesterday, not so much.  I was 50 miles away from Guatemala City, on top of a hill, in the middle of nowhere.  What to do?  My first instinct was to panic, second was to cry - but I resisted my instincts and just sat there for a little while, stunned.  Luckily there was a roadblock just down the road, I left Large Marge where she sat and convinced someone to drive me down the hill until I hit the next mechanic.  They dropped me off at a car shop where I filled up with water, came back up to Large Marge, filled the radiator with water and drove back to the shop as fast as I could without exploding (I barely made it).

After that, it was mostly waiting.  As the cell phone system was down, we couldn't call the specialist (my guy was not a mechanic after all, he just sold car parts).  So we waited until his wife came back from the village, then had to go fetch the mechanic by hand.

It wasn't the radiator after all - it was the radiator hose that was not quite tight and was letting out all the coolant.  By that time, it was getting late so the mechanic went home and I slept at the car shop owner's house.  That was actually quite pleasant - the man was incredibly friendly and helpful, he let me use his facilities, and he let me park and sleep on his gated compound.  That's when I learned about the typical Central American comfort - this isn't the US, ladies and gentlemen !  The toilet did not connect with water so we had to dump a bucket of water after the deed, and there was no shower - when I asked to be directed to the shower, he brought me outside behind the house to a running tap of cold water... I was so certain he was joking, I actually started to laugh.

Guatemala shower - quite the experience !

Oh well - things could be worse right?  This morning, the mechanic came back, changed the hose, I drove the 50 miles to Guatemala City, and here I am !  I'll go explore the city this evening, and really hope that the van is finally fixed for my trek to the highlands tomorrow.

I swear I'm not making this up !  Great start to the year, isn't it ?  I hope your year has begun at least as well as mine !  Happy New Year all, and talk to you very soon in the next post.

DMR