MUNGO EATS Latin America

Sorry that I haven’t posted in the past few days.  Not much has happened, and I just didn’t want to bore you all.  We made it back to Toronto okay, and this morning Kevin dropped off the “unit”. 

We are sure that we will never buy a camper like that.  So, what we rented folks, was a very large truck with a camper on it.  The camper had a “pop out” or “slide”, which is a section of one wall that gets popped out when you are stopped for the night.  The pop out had the kids two beds in it.  The thing we did not realize was that when you are driving and pop out is not “out”, there are large bars projecting into the interior of the camper.  So if you try to use the camper without sliding out the pop out, you constantly have to leap over the bars.  Not fun.  During our 2 weeks with the camper, we had 5 things go wrong.  There is a exterior shower, that is housed in a small cupboard outside the trailer.  We used the shower to rinse Mungo off, the first day we had it and the second day, the whole locking mechanism for the cupboard just fell off.  One minute it was there, the next, the cupboard is just hanging open, with no lock in sight. 

Our second mishap involved the sink and toilet dumping.  We kind of outlawed using the toilet in the camper, unless there was an emergency and NEVER for number 2.  It  is kind of lucky that we did.  In case you are not familiar with RVs, the way you “dump” is the following.  First you take the cap off the drain pipe and attach a flexible pipe that leads to the drain.  Then you open the valves and the black and grey water flows through the pipe, down to the drain.  Unfortunately, the valves in our camper were left open.  So when Kevin opened the cap, all the water just started flowing out.  Not a big deal when it was just soapy dish water, but man, it would have been a HUGE disaster if there was a bunch of toilet “stuff” as well. 

Mishap number three involved the spare tire.  We assume it was there when we got the vehicle.  We were told that it was, although, we didn’t actually check.  If it was there at the beginning of the trip, it certainly was not by the time we hit day 5 or 6.  We were on a road that had lots of dips in it, and the truck bounced up and down over the dips.  We think this is where we lost the tire.  If it had been secured properly, it would have been fine.  Again, not our fault. 

We had problems with the propane tanks, because when we had to exchange tanks, something was unaligned properly.  Finally, the camper chains were not tight enough, and while we were driving, the camper slid back 2 or 3 inches. 

So five issues in 2 weeks.  That is without once driving on washboard roads, and being bathed in dust and blown by the “broom of God”.  For all our problems with our little van, we NEVER had these kinds of issues with our cute little van. 

In any case, our unit is returned, and tomorrow morning, we fly to Kelowna to reunite with the grandparents.  We are all looking forward to living in a house for the first time since Christmas.  It is not our house, but it will be a pleasant change.