Interim

Some pictures around where we are staying. I cannot deny it’s boring but the work is important. I’m hoping we will be energy independent for a few years ahead. So here we are, mostly cold and damp.

They love to grill (asado) in Uruguay just like in Argentina.  We use our Skotti grill. 

Gas grilling is frowned upon in countries where they require wood to cook meat. I like our gas burner. 

Vans awaiting conversion. 

The cement marks new column locations for a workshop to be built as the business grows.  

A local customer with a Peugeot Boxer, a common diesel variant of our Promaster, both based on the Fiat Ducato.  

Nueva Helvecia the big town nearby, cheese capital of Uruguay. New Switzerland:

Look at that smooth black top…Uruguay has quality main highways. The back roads and city streets tend to be crappy but 60 mph is easy on the main roads.

I don’t know how they do it but most of the dirt streets we’ve driven have been very good quality. Uruguay is known as the least corrupt most orderly country in Latin America. And the most expensive. 

Fall is here. Housing stock looks like good quality bungalows but people drive a lot of older cars. We see broken down cars a lot more here than you’d expect in a functioning nation. I get the feeling locals feel the high cost of living more than they might admit. 

Montevideo is the main landing port for Europeans shipping their cars to South America. They don’t hang around here much and I think that’s because Uruguay is too much like where they came from. They land on this new continent looking for adventure and mountains and folklore and llamas and all that stuff. Instead they find Iowa, so they head west towards Bolivia and Peru.  

If you’re looking for a peaceful secure country with easy tax laws to settle in, Uruguay would be a good choice. It’s not cheap here but for us it’s a nice break from the organized chaos in other countries. 

Chile is still my favorite country its spectacularly varied scenery and social cohesion similar to Uruguay’s. Our plan is to fully test our new systems once they are installed by driving around the country and checking it out fully. I’m curious to see what we find. Eventually we’ll be on the road. 

Waiting

 I like living in a van. I miss not being aboard GANNET2. I have four rooms at my disposal plus a bathroom with a hot shower and a toilet which can cope with toilet paper, which in South America is not normal. And yet I miss living cramped in a small space which requires me to empty my own toilet. I am coming to think I must have a Mongolian yak herder in my not too distant ancestry.

I’m guessing she takes a shower about as often as I do. I hear other people living in vans complain about something they call “decision fatigue” and they use the term to describe the aggravation of finding somewhere to park to sleep each night. After five years of living in a van I feel no such fatigue, indeed now I am in a cottage awaiting GANNET2’s electrical modernization, I positively miss the nightly decision.

I am old enough and experienced enough in my life to know I will wake up one day and decide I’ve had enough and it will be time try something new, most likely a rest home at this stage, but for now I live in a van and I like it. 

Rusty likes home life and our first full day in here on Tuesday he spent most of the day on his bed snoring, catching up on rest his nomad life denies him. Wednesday night we had a massive thunder and lightning storm which freaked him out which I haven’t seen in a while as he seems to find GANNET2 reassuring in those conditions where in the house he paced around and panted ignoring my efforts to calm him. None of us got any sleep.

Before the dismantling of our electrical system began we drove into New Switzerland to buy food and have lunch which included a Swiss fondue of course which I only remembered to photograph as we reached the dregs of the pot.

The Swiss traditions are expressed in cheese making but the locals are pure Uruguayans. The language is long since lost unlike some German communities we have seen in Brazil. 

We got some smelly cheeses which can be hard to find in Latin America, land of bland white cheese. 

Other than that we sit and wait for parts to arrive. The idea is that after this rebuild we hope we will have a home suitable for more years of living with power to sustain our electric home.  A couple more years in South America then home to see what a mess you have made of things in our absence. All with  modern self sustaining electrical set up I hope. Fingers crossed indeed we will be testing it in a couple of weeks wild camping Uruguay  land of empty beaches and shy little national parks.

Uruguay Again, Repairs Again

We are arrived at the mechanic’s shop in Colonia Valdense, Uruguay. 

Adrián has parts ordered and he has been preparing GANNET2 for the parts that have been shipped. We’ve moved into his guest unit while GANNET2 is stripped and disemboweled.

I am exhausted after discussing parts and making decisions and planning as well as shuffling our life into the cottage. Rusty is very happy to be in a house. 

And has been sticking to his bed with only occasional forays into the garden.

The shop is in the country which is pretty in Uruguay. 

So here we are possibly for two weeks. We have some errors to repair and some money to spend and it’s frustrating. But we will have a well appointed van I hope with modern electronics when we are done. 

The plan is to throw away the second alternator and replace it with a DC charging system off the starter battery. Then we want to install a shore power charging system for 110 volts or 220 volts so we can plug in and charge our batteries in any country. We are also hoping to figure an installation for a 2 kw gasoline powered heater for the cabin. The parts so far amount to $5,000.  Massively annoying but we are hoping this will be the last time for a while we are going to have to tackle this. The parts come from the US and are expensive. Adrian seems capable a retired Argentine Air Force engineer who is studying our systems with an eye to improving the half job done in Brazil. Fingers crossed.

We are both ready and eager to be traveling again but this time we plan to head off into winter with a fully functional house.

Good Bye Buenos Aires

I hope by the time you open this page we will be in Uruguay  discussing repairing our shore power charger, installing a gasoline heater and removing the squeaky second alternator. That our fridge is repaired feels wonderful but we have some more jobs to get done to refresh our home. So in the meantime here are some random photos of Buenos Aires until we get back there again.

I only noticed the height restriction at the last minute. Luckily no one was behind us as I backed up.

We tried to go the Chinese restaurant recommended by Eric who came south in his Promaster last year but the area was packed. You really need an Uber for carefree travel around Buenos Aires. 

Do not graffiti - historic facade. 

Paula photographed her drink being made in the speakeasy bar, under the ground, entered via the Atlantic Florist’s shop. It reminded me of New Orleans so I had a Sazerac.  

12 volts and running well: