Alone At Andean Roads

 Layne spent ten days in southern Brazil’s Pantanal Jungle with photos already reproduced on this page of her sightings of wild animals. Rusty and I stayed at the campground a half hour out of Buenos Aires doing nothing much. 

I glued the fridge door closed, a license plate collector came by and the starting battery died. Other than that it was a quiet-ish week in the campground.

I’m an idiot and forgot to write his name down but we chatted for a while after he introduced himself. The funny thing was I’d already found his Instagram page and knew what he was doing, collecting photos of license plates.

Then I went to start the engine after a week stationary and there wasn’t enough energy to do more than light up the dashboard. That was unexpected. In our original installation I could start the engine using the house batteries by pressing a button installed by Custom Coach Creations but that clever little aide was cut out when we got the new charging system to replace the second alternator. (Note to self: we need to buy a jumper power pack now). The battery is the same size as those used by Andean Roads in Sprinter rental vans. I discovered that after I showed them an online photo: 

…so I figured it would be easy to get a new one. Mine was three years old and was ready to be replaced obviously. That happened on Thursday and by Tuesday there was no sign of the promised replacement so I had a bit of a gringo moment (“in the US a battery gets changed in half an hour in the Auto Zone parking lot..,”) but they called a different supplier and in one hour a two man crew showed up to do the job for $200 which was cheaper than my original replacement US battery.

Anyway the alternator is charging as it should  so we are assuming it was just excessive hard work and old age that did for our 2023 battery. And this whole van has driven 135,000 hard miles sheafs fully laden since we took delivery in June 2020.  Our shake up cruise to Michigan that year is a very fond memory still.

But I’m temporizing as I face the explanation of how I spent my time also gluing the fridge closed.  A long time ago when I was getting used to van life I swung the fridge door and unaccountably cracked the lowest door shelf, the most useful one that holds the big bottles, milk wine water and that sort of stuff. So we couldn’t find a replacement, and we tried and fell back on glue.After the Amazon debacle which wrecked our second alternator and filled the van with heat and red dust I found the shelf was a bit wobbly  so I got out the waterproof JB weld stick and smeared putty on the affected area.

Much to my surprise the repair, as ugly as it was, worked, and didn’t I feel manly as Layne relies on that shelf…then I had the idea as I mooched around the campground to make some improvements. What could improve the crack repair? Why a dose of superglue of course! Brilliant! What could possibly go wrong? 

Allow me to say first that my ministrations worked as the shelf seems secure. However the superglue got all over my fingers which stuck together and needed urgent attention, so without giving the glue fine to dry I closed the door. After I disentangled my fingers I found the fridge was glued completely shut. That caused some panic  and I sat there wondering how I was going to unfuck the situation before Laybegot back. I was not feeling at all manly. So I struggled fearing awful breakage but the foot would not yield. Finally I resorted to Google who advised using a solvent life WD 40 to clean up the glue. Oddly enough that did it bit it was fearsome hour and a half of worst case scenarios. And I broke nothing in the whole cursed operation. I amaze myself. 

This time tomorrow I should be in Miami for 24 hours as replacing the batteries in our elderly iPhone 12 minis has apparently screwed up the SIM cards and the Apple Store in Buenos Aires said they can’t transfer our Verizon phone account to a new phone so me, the man who hates flying and is the nominal Verizon account holder is taking the red eye to Miami tonight and coming back Wednesday. I am instructed to get Saran Wrap and poppadums and I shall get some Yorkshire Gold tea  in addition to two new fully functioning iPhones. Next week after I get back I fly to Peru to see Machu Picchu so my dislike of flying will be surely tested.