April 5 – Argentina/Chile
Day 247 – Yesterday our drive out of Ushuaia included a side trip down a country road called Route J. It took us out along the Beagle Canal and through farms, grassy hills, and a forest full of autumn colors. We were making our way to the first border crossing of the day, which would bring us closer to heading north, and warmer temperatures. We were all ready for that. It was not far from the junction of Route J that Maude found her missing book, “The Godfather”; and that Henry’s speed started to decline and he started jumping when we tried to use fourth gear. Before we left Ushuaia Jason had installed the new water trap for the fuel, so we were really confused as to what could be wrong. We slowly drove up, and coasted down, the foothills, hoping to make it to the gasoline station that we had stopped at three days ago. We made it with a record amount of coasting, and since it was getting late we camped there. The next morning the van seemed to be fine. We made sure the water trap was working well, and took off.
It was a full day of driving; a full, grey, rainy day. It felt like a typical day in Seattle during the fall, but with lots of wind. Sean and Maude were reading as we drove, blanket over their laps to stay warm…like a cozy day in Seattle, but on wheels instead of a couch, with no warm coffee, and on the opposite side of the world. It made me smile. Actually, I should say “they were reading as we drove, off and on”. Henry kept losing power, and after a while wasn’t doing so hot. Jason kept stopping to try to figure out what the hell was going on. The fuel didn’t look like it could be the problem, as the water trap was working great and catching all the water. So we drove slowly and tried to think of what was wrong with the car. We crossed into the Chilean side of Tierra del Fuego. 30 kilometers (18.5 miles) into the country we were driving along when all of a sudden Jason pulled over and jumped out of the car, yelling at me to grab the fire extinguisher. I jumped out, opened the slider and grabbed the extinguisher. Sean and Maude grabbed the few items out of back, along with the seat cushion, to help Jason get to engine faster. Not knowing what Jason saw, we worked quickly, and he opened up the hood. No fire, phew….Jason had seen a cloud of white smoke behind the car and thought the engine was on fire! It was no fire, but it was white smoke coming out of the tail pipe! OH, that was the problem, we were burning oil. He checked the spark plugs and saw that the number one spark plug was oily and black ~ no good. He changed it out and checked the oil; looked fine. All we could do was keep driving, hoping to get out of the middle of nowhere and to a mechanic.
A red light blinked on ~ it was the oil light 🙁 Jason went out to fill up the oil reserve, and saw that we left a nice trail to follow in case we got lost. Still burning oil, and now losing oil, we drove on until we could find a safe spot to park the van and wait for a miracle. We ended up only 20 kilometers (12.5 miles) further up the road. This looked to be very bad, very bad. There was nothing we could do tonight; the sun was starting to fade through the cloudy sky. The wind was really strong, like Ellensburg WA, so you guessed it ~ three to the bottom bed and one up front, again. After looking in our VW bible, “How To Keep Your VW Alive For The Compleat Idiot” by John Muir (the best book and a good fit for us ;)) the different options for our problem with the van seemed very few and very ugly.
Tags: 15 - Chile, Tierra del Fuego
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