MUNGO EATS Latin America

Today, after a VERY long wait…we FINALLY got our van back.  We last saw the van in early May, and today it completed it’s journey home…four months later. 

It was still in it’s container, and we had to go and pick it up at a container storage yard.  Here is Kevin breaking the seal.

And here are the van and the trailer all packed up.

The van had to be loaded on a flatbed for the ride home. 

It was all so easy.  Just call the AMA, they meet you at the site and load up the van.  Then they drive you home.  Easy peasy!!!  Where was such a truck when we needed it in Perito Moreno??? 

We towed the trailer behind the van and now everything is safely home. 

Then it was time for the NEXT big job, the big “unload”.  Everything had to come out of the trailer and the van…EVERYTHING!!  Even things that will eventually live in the van forever, had to be taken out, because the whole van has to be scrubbed out and cleaned.  All the cupboards need to be washed out, even the upholstery and the curtains need to be taken out and washed.  As well, the van came home with a funky smell, kind of like transmission fluid, so it definitely needs a good wash.  All the stuff was piled in the house.

Yippee!! Now I have to find a place for all this “stuff”.  Not only that, but first I have to wash EVERYTHING.  There is dust on the whole lot of it, especially the stuff that travelled in the trailer.  The nasty rough roads in Bolivia caused the dust problems in two ways.  First of all, dust from the gravel roads entered the trailer.  Secondly, and more annoyingly, the washboard roads vibrated everything in the trailer.  The vibration of things succeeded in causing very fine shavings of aluminum from the trailer itself to embed themselves in most of our belongings.  So to the laundry with the whole lot of it!!

As we were cleaning out the van, Mungo decided he should stick close, in case we decided to take off again.

As if we could ever leave you behind, Houndy!! 

Looking at the van felt very strange.  It seems so strange to think that this was our “home” for almost a full year.  It almost feels like it didn’t happen. 

Now the van gets cleaned up…FULLY and then it gets the new engine that Kevin has waiting.  Hopefully our “home away from home” will be up and running again soon. 

I went to see the band Crowded House in concert last night.  Know them??  Well, if you are my age, you may remember the band from way back when, in the 80’s. 

When I heard the band was coming to town, I mentioned to Kevin that I would like to go and see them.  I got the big eye roll, which I will translate for those of you that do not understand “Kevinese”.  In this case, the eye roll could be loosely translated to mean," You’re kidding, that 80’s band?  Come on, Daniela, you’re a big girl now, not an 80’s teeny bopper anymore, time to start acting like the 40 something gal that you are.”

Luckily, I was prepared for such a “speech”.  I have quite a few Crowded House songs on my IPod (and many other 80’s songs as well) and I have managed to get my kids liking my old music.  So, since Kevin would not consider going to the concert with me, Sara was more than happy to go.  To be fair, Kevin would not have gone to see this band with me in the 80’s either.  They were not his “thing”. 

I saw this band in concert when I was a teenager.  I remember the concert vividly (and that is not usual for me).  The three members of the band played at the Jubilee, all those years ago.  The curtain was drawn and in front of the curtain, in the 5 or 6 feet of room before the edge of the stage, the band stood.  They played their entire concert in that small space using a guitar, a bass and a snare drum…that is ALL.  It was amazing. 

Last night, they were decked out on the entire stage, no small corner this time.  They were however just as amazing.  I was instantly transported back to my late teen years (bye, bye grey hair!).  I would say that a good half of the audience had more grey hair than me.  Strange crowd, but I had a blast!!!  Sara loved the show as well, although I dare say not nearly as much as me! 

Great night!  Sometime it’s good to be a teeny bopper again.