April 6 – Chile
Day 248 – In the morning Jason got out and once again too a look at the engine, just to make sure we didn’t miss anything, and knew as best as we could what the problem was. All the oil had leaked out, and we had no more in the car. Even if we did have oil, the car could only get few kilometers down the road before it ran out again. The number one spark plug was black and oily again. Uhmmm… this was no good – like Jason thought, the cylinder wasn’t working properly. This was not going to be an easy problem to solve.
Since we didn’t know how long it was going to take to fix the van, and it was defiantly a complicated problem possibly involving a rebuild of the motor, Sean and Maude decided it was better for them to move on. There are only four towns in this vast land, and it was a long way to an actual city, there wasn’t much around. But they packed their backpacks and stood out on the side of the dirt road (all the roads on the Chilean part of Tierra del Fuego are dirt). It didn’t take long, 15 minutes or so, for a semi to come around the corner and stop for them. The driver was going to Rio Gallegos Argentina, which was perfect because that was closest big town, and where we were going to go today anyway. 🙁 Sad to say good bye. It was fun traveling together and we got along well. But it was also time for us to pack our backpacks and hitch to the next small town, to see if we could find a mechanic. There were trucks constantly driving down the road, since it is the main route from mainland Argentina to Tierra Del Fuego Argentina. The first guy who stopped for us was pulling his own little mobile trailer. He said he’d like to tow us, but he couldn’t since he had his trailer on. Another car was driving by at the time and he stopped them. He talked to the driver and then came back to us and said that the other driver would be coming back in 1 ½ hours to tow us. “Great” “that is nice, hope they don’t charge us a fortune”…..those were my first thoughts. Two hours go by, and no one shows up. Oh well, it was worth a try. It was getting dark and we weren’t going to start trying to hitch a ride at this time of day. So one more night in the van.
We didn’t have much water, because I forgot to fill up the jug before we left the immigrations offices the day before, and we used most of our water to make lunch before we started trying to hitch a ride, but it was all okay. We still had a great meal of dehydrated Huevos Rancheros, left over from the camping food my family sent to me when we were in Mexico 🙂 Thanks guys, it was better than our canned veggies and tomato sauce! We also still had some canned applesauce that we ate in the morning, Jason’s grandma gave it to us before we left the States. Were we saving it for a when we had a craving for food from back home; it was perfect. In the past few days we have ended up using a lot of the items that our family gave us before we left on our trip; like the food mentioned above, and my dad gave me a few tools for checking and maintaining the car, which have been very helpful. Jason’s dad also gave us some tow straps, which should come in handy tomorrow. Family really do know what’s best, most of the time 😉 hee hee. Always looking out for us. Thanks, you guys, we are always thinking of you!
Tags: 15 - Chile, Tierra del Fuego
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