Saturday In Arequipa

Layne is in Asheville celebrating nephews graduating from high school with the family, I’m in Arequipa watching Rusty sunbathe and snore.

Everyone has left the campground except a French Ford Transit van whose occupants whom I’ve never seen are touring the Galápagos Islands I believe. The hotel staff have some downtime in the camping department though a vehicle can show up any time. I’m using the women’s washroom as it’s closer to GANNET2 and there’s no one to be offended. 

The transmission shop is preparing our gearbox for rebuilding on Monday.  Apparently the torque converter hasn’t yet arrived as there has been a muddle over the size but that’s the last piece needed to complete the assembly. The torque converter is a large heavy donut (below) that uses transmission fluid pressure to change gears and it is usually what breaks on Promasters as they are too heavy for it. In the US you can get one for $350. Double that for around here I expect, or maybe more. 

Here’s hoping the warehouse has the right size in stock. Layne doesn’t want to be bringing one from the US as they are very heavy. In other news I got an email from the US consulate in Cusco announcing the arrival of my new passport. 

An application that was supposed to take six weeks took 16 days - may the power of Uncle Sam never grow less- however this leaves me with a dilemma. I could take an hour flight and back in one day but that means leaving Rusty alone in the van for 12 hours which seems a bit much. Or I could send them an email asking them to hold the passport till the end of the month (when Layne gets back).  Which is what I’ve done. If the transmission gets fixed I could drive to Cusco and pick it up which would be a good test drive. Two days there and two back. We’ll see but the process is done.

I’m reading history mostly as an escape and looking at Layne’s pictures from another world so near by plane, yet so far by van. Appalachia looks pretty good in the spring all green and everything. Here it’s winter and feels like nights are getting colder even though the sun shines fiercely all day. I have three more weeks of this solo living thing. Grin and bear it.