At The Shop

One more day waiting for GANNET2 to be ready for the next part of the road, but the work is moving right along. Our ever irritating second alternator is out after much grunting. 

It took time and effort but the accessory alternator supposed to charge our house batteries as we drive finally yielded to strength and came out.

Adrián suggested we lost more than a hundred pounds weight removing the alternator that rarely ran smoothly in five years of driving. 

Piles of heavy cable cane with it all replaced by one blue box, the smallest of the there below: 

Next to it are three 180 amp Victron batteries all three combined the sizes of one of our old 250 amp Go Power lithium batteries and we had two. 

Adrián the retired Argentine Air Force engineer is doing a great job of doing things right. I love the logic and simplicity of his installation . We are confident this will hold together for years to come. He likes things done right. We meanwhile keep our fingers crossed. 

Our neighbors and the road out front.  

A French Toyota Land Cruiser in storage. In Uruguay you can easily get permission to store your vehicle up to one year so lots of Europeans do that while they spend summer at home. 

Rusty living well. 

Crossing Uruguay Last Week

Work is underway. 

Meanwhile to pass the time a look back to last week. 

We stopped in the town of Mercedes to spend the night on our way into Uruguay after our struggles at  the border and we saw an illuminated sign on our way to a street camp in town. “Our Country Was Born Here.” 

That statement deserved some investigation. The town was founded in 1788 named the New Chapel of Our Lady of Mercy (mercy is Mercedes in Spanish). The town has a population of 45,000 people and is known for its massive waterfront drive along the Rio Negro which was precisely where we down the night two Sundays ago: 

And the waterfront was where I walked Rusty on Monday morning and where we met the locals: 

The Rio Negro: 

The bank of the Rio Negro:

Rusty on the bank of the Rio Negro: 

Autumn along the Rio Negro. 

Part of the waterfront park along the Rio Negro:

There were a couple of local RVs whose occupants we never saw. 

We had some shopping to do after crossing the border and we wanted to pick up some cash at the ATM. Apparently they had plenty not that we needed that much: 

After the bank got resupplied  with cash we went to the supermarket and got US $100 worth of food, a reminder how expensive Uruguay is compared to other countries hereabouts: 

The quality of the meat is excellent. 

One odd thing about Uruguay is how there aren’t necessarily commercial districts in towns. Businesses sprout up in people’s houses and you have to know where they are especially as most aren’t very good at putting up legible signs. This seems to be a hardware store with a home on top: 

The main supermarket even doesn’t have much in the way of advertising. 

And that was another day in Uruguay.

Work Starts Today

Adrián drove 75 miles Friday to the German workshop where we stopped previously and picked up supplies for our various jobs. UY Storage is the  importer of Victron electronic parts for camper builds and Adrián had stuff to gather for our build.

So after much discussion we want to install a gasoline heater which will undoubtedly blow up but before it does it will heat our cabin easily and it won’t suffer from altitude problems like a diesel heater. Nor will we have to carry separate fuel to feed it.

Our new 110 volt 3,000 watt inverter is en route from Miami supposedly so it hasn’t arrived but it should be here soon I hope and it will look like this.

And Adrián will be removing our squealing second alternator and replacing with a small blue box that will charge our house batteries from our engine battery:

Our 2 old Canadian Go Power lithium batteries, 250 amps each will be replaced by three 180 amp Victron batteries which will be the size of one of our 250 amp blocks  saving space and power. Plus we will have a new shore power charger which will take any voltage from 110 to 240:

How long will it take to install it all? Good question  meanwhile we suffer through 45 degree days in Adrián’s rental cottage.

Thank god the  rain has stopped because that put a serious damper on going outdoors. Now it’s just cold.