MUNGO EATS Latin America

We took our $200.00 taxi ride today back to Uyuni.  We can’t complain too much actually, since it took the fellow about 9 hours to drive out to get us, and then back to Uyuni.  The “taxi driver” was the owner of the hotel that we stayed at yesterday.  His name is Aldo and he actually is doing a lot to help .  I am glad we stumbled on to him.  So he  drove all 5 of us back to town, and dropped  us off at the hotel we asked him to leave us at.  Actually, it was a hostel.  When we first were in Uyuni, we tried twice, unsuccessfully to enter this hostel.  They basically turned us away because they didn’t have a place for us to park the car.  Today, they told us that they had a room, but that we would have to wait for an hour, because the owner was eating his lunch.  After we waited the hour, they told us, they were full.  AARRGH!  So then I had to tromp all over town, looking for a place to stay, that would take the dog.  To make it all worse, it is Carnaval, so rooms are tough to get. 

Yesterday at the hotel, in the desert, we met a Chilean family.  He is a doctor, she is a therapist of some description, and they have two teenaged kids.  We talked to them about our engine problems and we went for a walk around the laguna with them.  They are very nice people.  The husband speaks English very well, so he helped translate, while Kevin and the hotel owner were discussing the problem with the van.  As luck would have it, they were travelling to Uyuni this morning as well, and actually followed our vehicle for most of the way.  While I was visiting hotel after hotel, they drove into town and asked what I was doing.  I explained to them that I was trying, unsuccessfully, to find a hotel and they got me to jump into their vehicle, and together, we went in search of a hotel.  What I didn’t realize, was that they were actually looking for a hotel for US to stay in, not themselves.  We found one place, that looked pretty nice, and they started asking if there was a room available for 4 people, and a dog?  Huh? They didn’t have a dog!  Initially, the hotel said they would not accept dogs, so then our nice little family started arguing in Mungo’s favour, telling the hotel staff that this was a wonderful dog, that had travelled all the way from Canada with us, and that he was well behaved and would not pee in the room.  They were so cute!!  In the end, the hotel staff decided to let us in.  In addition, the wife told the hotel staff, that they should give us a good rate, because we would be staying at least a week.  Wow!!  Maybe we should hire this family to travel the rest of the trip with us!! 

In the meantime, Aldo was finding us a mechanic and trying to figure out what we should do with the vehicle, how to get it back to town.  Once we had found a hotel, I called him on his cell phone and told him where we were staying.  He had actually already gone to look for us at the hotel he had dropped us off at, to tell us of the arrangements he had made, and found out that we were not staying there.  Once I told him where we were staying, he drove over right away to speak to me.  He had spoken with the mechanic, and the mechanic had confirmed Kevin’s diagnosis with what was most likely wrong with the engine.  Aldo spoke to a trucking company and decided that it was too expensive to bring the van back on a truck, saying it would cost $1000.00!  So instead, he offered to drive Kevin out tomorrow evening, spend the night at  the hotel, and the following day, he would tow the van back with his vehicle.  Awesome!! Sounds like a plan.  It’s nice to have a plan!!

Do you ever regret thinking anything or saying anything out loud?  Two weeks ago, when we were in La Paz, we were congratulation ourselves on a having pretty good luck , so far this trip.  We were robbed in Mexico, and have had a few driving adventures, but otherwise, the trip has gone off without a hitch.  The van has run quite well, we got to see to see Machu Picchu before the floods closed it down.  Yep, we have been doing quite well. 

When we got to Sucre and found out the dinosaur footprints “slid” two days before we got there, we thought, “Hmm, our timing was a bit off.”  When we got stuck in the mud the other day, we thought, “Hmm, that was unfortunate.”  Yesterday, one of the small awnings we have on the van, was ripped off by the wind, and we thought, “Hmm, that’s too bad.”  Then Kevin noticed that the engine was  losing oil.  So much oil, that it is probable that we need a new engine if we intend to finish the trip.  Now we are thinking, “Man, are we ever having bad luck!!!”

Remember in La Paz, we bought an amulet that was supposed to bring us a safe journey?  I think we  should get our money back!!!  Sara is talking about smashing the amulet!!  Maybe our luck would be  worse if we didn’t have that little creature??!!

I will tell you more about the van in a bit, let me tell you about the good things we did yesterday first.  We are travelling through the south west corner of Bolivia right now and it is really a very large expanse of “not a whole lot”.  There is desert, salt flats, and occasionally a lake or laguna to pass by.  There are herds of wild vicuñas running around, and we often pass large herds of llamas (not wild).  Yesterday however, we saw something new, large flightless birds.  I am not sure if they are called rheas or not, but they are about 5 feet tall, mostly grey, and we saw a “flock” of 5 of them.  I tried to get a picture, but they were pretty far away.  This is the best I can do, see if you can see the large flightless bird in this photo!

We passed through a really cool area with large sculpted rocks as we drove as well.  Remember, I love rocks.  Here are some of the best ones.

Very cool.  We stopped for lunch at one of the lagunas that we passed, and got to see quite a few flamingoes feeding.

Finally, our camp spot was on another laguna,

and we got to see the flamingoes even closer up.  There was no one else around, the sunset was beautiful.

The night was wonderfully clear, there were no lights around anywhere, and the sky was full of stars.  Even though it was terribly windy in the afternoon, it was dead calm at night, and the stars were reflected in the laguna.  It was a beautiful night. 

Still, we went to bed knowing that something was dreadfully wrong with the van.  As I mentioned, it is losing oil, not dripping it, but spraying it as we drive.  Kevin thinks the piston rings are shot, which I don’t pretend to understand, but I guess it means we pretty much need a new engine.  At first, we thought that we would just try to get the van to Chile, get it on a boat, and jump on a plane for home.  We briefly considered getting rid of the van and continuing the trip out of backpacks, but public transportation often doesn’t support dogs (D*** the dog, and d*** you Kelsey for not being my back up plan for the dog).  Who am I kidding, I could never send the dog home!  Not with that face!

We also considered trying to rent a different RV in Argentina or Chile and finishing off the trip this way.  I think now though, we are going to try to see if we can find a new engine to get put in.  Kevin thinks we will have better luck finding an engine in Chile than Bolivia, so as it stands, the four of us (and the dog) are heading back to Uyuni tomorrow, to try and find a vehicle to haul our van to the Chilean border.  Failing that, we will buy A LOT of oil, and try to limp our way to the border ourselves.  Once in Chile, we will try to find a motor and a mechanic to “pop” in a new engine.  If all goes well, we will be ready to continue our journey in a few weeks.  Tonight we are staying in an ecolodge on the edge of a laguna.  We have all had a warm shower and are  feeling a little less sorry for ourselves.  Keep your fingers crossed for us, rub any lucky charms you have, say a few prayers, and hopefully all will go well!

dink a dink dink dink a dink dink mrow mrow mrow!

The power is out!  I think that it still is, anyway.  I can light a BIC LIGHTER!!!!  We used my amazing skills to light a candle last night.  Since the power was out, we needed one.  It went out at around 4 pm and when we left Uyuni it was still out!  Rotten cow corpses!  GROSSSSSSSSSSS! 

We drove about 20 minutes before we got stuck in some mud.  We had turned off the main road because it was really, really, REALLY bumpy.  Mom asked Dad if the road was still okay and if it wasn’t to soft and he said that it was fine.  Then the  road got wetter and WETTER and WETTER and WETTER!  And then we were

     STUCK! (this picture doesn’t show the stuckness but believe me!)

As we were busy getting stuck, Sean and I noticed a white car on the other side of the road quickly losing speed.  Sean said “If those guys get stuck they won’t have any more luck than us”.  Right after he said that two guys popped out and tried to push their car out of the mud.

After we were finished getting stuck, Mom noticed the guys on the other side of the road so she and Dad wandered over to help them.  I got my shoes on too and ran out to join them.  We started to push the car and I stood right where the tire flung all the mud.  I got a big clod of mud up my snorg!!  Once we got them out they drove back to the bumpy road and parked.  Then they came over to help us.  When the driver walked through the big puddle in the ditch he said “Fria, fria, fria!”  Oh, come on, it isn’t that cold!  We pushed the van out of the mud that was GOOEY!  Amazing, we thought that we would need a tractor to pull us out!  They left and Dad parked in their spot.

Now we had to get the trailer out of the goop!  When we drive  in the mud the  trailer fenders glom up with mud so the wheels don’t turn.  So we emptied the trailer and put little blocks of wood under the tires.  The problem with this is that we only have six pieces of wood,  two long, two medium, two short.    But eventually we got onto harder ground and we just ran and pushed at the same time.  Mungo really didn’t like that.  He was okay when we were just pushing it on the wooden blocks.  He could just squeak at us then.  But now we were running away from him!  So he had to jump out of the open window and sped along in front of a Toyota Landcruiser.  Then he splashed through the big muddy puddle and cut his foot on a rock then he reached us.  And got in trouble.   But his foot is fine and he didn’t get hit by a truck, so that’s okay.

Then we drove about 90km and camped here!

  A big mud/salt flat.  It was so flat and empty that Dad let me and Sean drive.  But we didn’t get to work the clutch.

Ta-Da!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

dink a dink dink dink a dink dink mrow mrow mrow!

We left Uyuni this morning, with a plan to drive kind of southwest toward the Chilean border.  We plan to stop at a few sights along the way, a national park, two very picturesque lakes, and a geyser.

The road heading south is not paved, but at least it is a nice distinct road.  Unfortunately, since it is not paved, it is mostly a washboard.  It started to get so bad, that we started eyeing up the dirt trails just to the side of the roads, running across the desert.  These trails are usually smoother, but softer, so it is a bit of a risky trade off…bounce and be safe, or ride smoothly and risk getting stuck.  I’m sure from the title of this post, you know the choice we made.  All was going fine, the road was not too soft and it was much, much smoother.  We passed a few ruts in the road and I asked Kevin if the road was still okay, or was it getting soft.  He said, “It still seems fine, not too soft…Oh no, now it’s no good.”  We had come to a grinding halt.  The trailer is very bad for getting stuck.  The tires on it are quite a bit larger than the originals and there is little room between the tires and the fenders.  It is very easy for mud to clog up the space and then the tires really cannot even turn, so we are just dragging the trailer.   We decided to unhitch the trailer and see if we could get the van moving without it.  We managed another 75 metres of so, then the van stopped as well.

We were just contemplating what to do, when we noticed a car, on the other side of the roadway in the same boat. 

I decided that we might as well go and help them.  We really didn’t think they could do much for us, but at least we would be doing something productive, while we pondered our predicament.  It didn’t take much to get them out.  The car was fairly light and they were not as deeply stuck as we were.  Once they were back on firm ground, it was time for them to help us.  First they looked at the trailer, but I told them that we should probably work on the van first, since the tires on the trailer were not actually turning.    It took some hard pushing, but with the help of our “friends”, we managed to get the van back onto terra firma.  Then we were on our own.    Now what to do about the trailer?  We thought about trying to tow it with our tow rope, but it was not long enough, and we would have had to tow it through a fairly deep puddle, in the ditch.  That didn’t seem hopeful.  Kevin thought we should just leave the trailer where it lay and go back to town and find a lot of rope to try to tow it, then empty out the trailer and pull it lighter.  I thought, we should try emptying it first and then see if we could move it, if not go back to town.  That is what we decided to do.  Even empty though, it was not going anywhere unless we got the tires rolling again.  So we had to pry the glommed in mud out from between the fenders and the tires with our hands mostly.  We could move it then, but soon the wheel wells would fill with mud again and it would stop.  Sara decided we should put some pieces of wood under the tires, to prevent them from rolling in the muck.  Sounded good, but we only had a few short boards that we use to level the van at night with, that we could use.

So we began a very slow game of roll the trailer a few feet, move the boards, roll the trailer a few feet.  Slow, slow, slow, slow!!!  We scavenged some plywood from the trailer (used to keep things divided) and the job went marginally faster.   We had long abandoned our shoes, they were just filling up with mud and we had to keep crossing the large deep puddle in the ditch, so at times we were up to our knees in muddy water and mud.  Finally, finally, finally, we got the trailer back to more solid ground and then we could approach it with the van and hook up again.  But the job wasn’t finished yet.  Next we had to haul all the stuff that was in the trailer, through the muddy ditch and back up to the road, so we could repack the trailer.  All together, it took us about 2 1/2 hours to free ourselves.  After that, the washboard road looked pretty good!  Anything was faster than STUCK!!  So by the end of the day, we had gone a whopping 100km…5 hours of driving!! 

We called it a day at about 4pm.  We found a dried up “sort of” salt flat and parked there for the night. 

Before we actually parked though, we gave the kids a chance to drive the van around.  They were not really up to switching gears, so Kevin did that part of it and they just steered and worked the gas pedal.

Neither of them hit anything, but really, what is there to hit?!

We saw the salt flats today.

Did you think that was the end???  I didn’t.  The salt flats were REALLY COOL!!!  I SHRANK!!!!  Goob, my stuffed person grew!!!  See? Dad also shrank.

Sara did.  Wanna see her? Pretty tiny, huh?  This is mom when she shrank. The vehicles that took us out were cool.  You know, I think this place would be a good place for a Toyota commercial.  -buy your new Toyota Land Cruiser now!-  I mean really!  Salt encrusted cars that still run perfectly?  Which one, that or this?

These old trucks are for transporting the salt.  Oh, speaking of salt, look what the water did to it. 

If you remember, in Guatemala we saw a place called Tikal?  It was an old ruin that was full of pyramids.  This is what the salt pyramids reminded us of.  Look, the salt water was so salty, look what would happen in about a minute.

Hmmm, do you see a horizon?  I don’t. See at the middle, there’s a titch of a line?  That’s the horizon.  This is how reflective the flooded salt flats are.  The mountains reflect!!

On the way to the flats, we stopped at a Train Cemetery.  It was full of Thomas the Train Engines, or Locomotives.   Now we stop, rest, wash off and yawn.  Look-King Mungo rested too, after a long hard day of sleeping.

The end.