You know you’re an overlander when…you’re in the shop. Facundo went over our electrical system, recommended some changes and tried to figure out what had gone wrong. We have been living with a bottleneck in our system where a hundred amp battery is blocking our two 250 amp batteries. Apparently with this line up the big accumulators never get properly filled. Who knew?
Meanwhile the lack of charging came down to a broken alternator. We have a second alternator dedicated to charging the house batteries and the negative pole has failed, whatever that is. At least it wasn’t the three thousand dollar inverter/charger.
The alternator been removed and sent away to be rebuilt for an estimated $70. I’m just hoping their certainty that it will be repaired works out. Meanwhile all our junk from the back of GANNET2 is resting comfortably in the spare room of our cabin in the woods.
We were extremely lucky to find this place where they repair RVs and build them too.
That they took us in right away was a bonus, and they have lots of work assembling van interiors and building travel trailers from scratch. A couple came by looking to have a trailer built for their southern Chilean travels.
I thanked Facundo for his work and found out he is from Argentina where he started an internet video security company, he speaks English Russian and German after working in Berlin and Russia and he travels by motorcycle. We had notes to exchange when he told me of his fall in Patagonia that wrecked his motorcycle and shredded his clothes and left him on foot alone in Patagonia with no water. After two days he walked out to find help. The survivor:
I left GANNET2 to be repaired and…
…took a thirty minute Uber ride back to the cabin. It was nice to be a passenger.
And this is where we are staying until Saturday morning. At least that’s the plan.
Me being John Bunyon.
This is the heat and it is blazing hot. 45 degrees and raining outside? No problem. Except cleaning up the ash and lugging the logs and starting the fire…who needs central heat? Tea and a book and a blazing log is pretty nice.
A gas stove with an oven and a full sized fridge.
Rusty loves this place. He sits outside on the gravel watching the chickens scratching around. He sits in the porch when it rains and only comes in to sleep or eat or if I demand his company. Otherwise Patagonia weather suits him.
We are about half a mile from the PanAmerican Highway and about thirty minutes from the waterfront in Puerto Montt.
Layne had been in contact with a German couple overlanding Chile whose Unimog expedition truck broke an axle. They are waiting for a replacement to come from Germany. Maybe this week, maybe not.
They were commiserating with Layne on WhatsApp when we suddenly needed a place to stay and there was an empty cabin next to theirs.
Two bedrooms, two bathrooms and $55 a night. Done.
Rusty’s bed as he is required to spend the night indoors for our peace of mind.
I didn’t mean to give the impression he hates to be in here. He likes his day bed too.
