More Bad News

We had a long tiring Thursday at the mechanic’s shop and the news isn’t all great.

The front brakes are reassembled with polished rotors and brand new pads from the American parts store in the city of David. It took all day but that was great. What disturbed me was what Marco and Eleazar found that caused our brake problem. 

It’s nasty up in there inside the wheel well but Marco showed me every step of the way. The brake hose was kinked preventing the drivers side brake from functioning. We burnt our brakes because they weren’t working evenly, and not because we took a steep hill. I hadn’t been able to understand how I cooked the brakes after driving so cautiously in the first place but now I knew. 

After a long day of waiting we got the rotors back all polished and new and with the new pads the front end was good. However Marco showed me another problem. Great! The rubber supports for the steering and suspension have worn out after 92,000 hard miles. 

On a front wheel drive vehicle this rubber donut supports the plate that moves up and down with the drive wheels. This is the cause of the vibration when I brake and they need to be replaced. The van is not properly driveable until they are. 

The shop closes Saturday until the New Year for a well deserved vacation. Today the rear brakes will be checked and the fluid in the system changed and we hope no fresh problems will come to light. 

We will be looking to see if we can buy new bushings at the Fiat dealer as the chassis of our Promaster is based on the very popular Fiat Ducato van which is sold worldwide. If they don’t have the bushing Marco says he can get a new one made at a shop he uses in town.  So it will get fixed and GANNET2 will be  made whole in the new year. That is excellent. 

What disturbs me greatly is that any of this happened in the first place as we went to Ohio last August 28th to avoid this kind of situation. I asked the shop to check the front end and check the brakes and so forth. I’m

not mechanical but I know how my Promaster works and in making our appointment I specified what I, the theoretician knew needed to be done. A month earlier I wrote to the mechanic listing what I wanted done so he could  block out the time. I asked for no discounts or favors. 

I suppose you could or perhaps should call me naive but I expected Kip to check the “tie rods etc…” but apparently I was expecting too much! That does hurt I have to admit and Layne and I  talked at some length about that sense of betrayal. Had the bushing failed in the Andes or the brakes not worked properly in those remote areas this journey would have been a lot more adventurous than I might have liked. As it is we are extremely lucky. Not only is Marco conscientious and thorough he lets me watch in the work area and justifies everything to me directly. We know we are extremely fortunate as Panama is a good place to make repairs. I have always been worried about driving at 15,000 feet on some of the highest roads in the world and I thought I had done a good job of being prepared. Obviously I feel let down. 

We are lucky too in that 40 minutes away we have a comfortable and secure full service campground where we had planned anyway to stay over Christmas. As I said to Layne some people ache to spend their annual vacation in a place like this more or less, by the pool! 

It’s not a Sandals resort but at ten bucks a day we are very happy to be here with all facilities among good people. As Sonja commented it’s not a bad spot at all. 

We took advantage of Marco’s partner Sergio, an electrical engineer to fix a couple of nagging issues built into our custom van in the original build in Florida three years ago. He studied our electrical system and improved ventilation to our hardworking 110 volt inverter which has overheated on hot days and he sorted out the reversing camera which had failed but that I couldn’t replace as the wiring was jammed inside the ceiling built into the van by Custom Coach in DeLand. They left no slack to allow the camera to be easily replaced. I have been carrying the spare since Florida in August and finally found the man who could help. Next time it fails Sergio made sure the connector is easily accessible. 

His wife is an interesting study. She is a project manager but has got tired of working for businesses who don’t plan their projects properly and she is in her last year of law school. She is a woman with a mission and she is passionate about doing her part to fight corruption in Panama’s massive bureaucratic government. I suspect she would have supported the recent protests that shut the country down for six weeks…

It was a long hard day but we have got repairs in hand which may end up costing perhaps $1000 to $1500 to repair, money we have in our emergency fund. We have plenty of time as we have only just entered Panama and Layne may move back our shipping date to Colombia to give us time to do some touring which we are having to put off at the moment. She is finding some cheap rental car options…

We could feel sorry for ourselves but this is the pain and pleasure of travel. We have an unexpected problem and we are fixing it. We are safe and comfortable and rather annoyed! I fear my travel writing will grind to a halt but it’s the holidays and time for all of us to rest. Besides this stuff isn’t fun to write about even though it is the reality of being on the road.

Thank you Silvia from Brazil for cutting my hair and we reciprocated by helping her fix a drawer in her RV. The more fun side of life on the road! 

We may rent a car to drive around a bit and I will post photos if we have anything fun to write about but until GANNET2 is fixed and ready to roll our lives here will probably be too mundane to be of interest. If I have pictures of interest I will of course post them.

In any event Merry Christmas to all and a happy New Year wherever you may find yourselves. And I look forward to unraveling the mysteries of South America in 2024. And driving at very high altitude on solid brakes! 

Hard Labor

Do you know a good mechanic in north Panama? I do and his name is Marco.

He owns Mechanics with a Mission a shop outside Boquete and he has been a godsend, because as it happens we were in need…

I wanted to change the oil we had changed recently in Costa Rica as they didn’t have the correct grade of oil. It turns out the Costa Rican mechanic tore up the oil plug and the oil change shop couldn’t get it out. Eleazar in Marco’s took half an hour but he got it.

Rusty ignored the banging hammer as usual and made himself at home. 

I could hardly believe when that damned plug finally yielded to Eleazar’s impact tool. 

Luckily I had gone by the Jeep/Ram dealer after the first failed attempt to remove the mashed plug. The dealer took the VIN from GANNET2 and got me the correct replacement; this despite the fact Promasters aren’t sold in Panama. However the van does use the Jeep six cylinder engine. Useful. 

Then we moved on to the brakes. Lately I’ve felt the steering wheel judder when I brake at speeds over 50 mph. It turns out the very steep hill in Costa Rica glazed the rotors and pads so they need to be resurfaced today and we will be changing the brake fluid as well. 

The brakes will get the treatment today, Thursday and then we will be good to go explore Panama. However Christmas is approaching and we have plans for the holiday this weekend. 

It was such a relief to know our apparently insurmountable problems could be dealt with by a competent shop. 

At the end of a day of hard labor, shopping for us and wrenching for the mechanics we went back to the first campground we stayed at on arrival in Panama. 

$10 a night, cold showers, power to charge our batteries and grass for Rusty to roll on. Oh and a cold swimming pool for us as we love to swim. 

It’s a good place to relax after our mechanical worries. 

The good news is we dealt with it one step at a time not getting too worried. Well done us. 

Keys Disease In Boquete

I wanted a hamburger for dinner. It was cook’s night off as Layne has been cooking up a storm taking advantage of our van being plugged in to shore power and also having access to ample running water for easy washing up. So we planned dinner at the campground eatery with our friends Mike and Silvia. 

I did my outside chores which include the washing up, emptying our portable toilet tank and greasing our heavy duty universal joints inside the front wheels. I have no mechanical skills but I do try to take care of our Promaster and every three thousand miles or so I have to get my hands black. But I also get to walk Rusty by way of compensation. Layne cooked and I walked. 

Right next door to the campground and restaurant where we have been staying there is an American style park and we haven’t seen one like it since the US. 

It is large and criss crossed by handicap accessible paved trails and rushing mountain streams.

There is a duck pond and picnic tables with benches scattered all around and even a couple of dog bag stations imported from the US.  

After four days here cautious Rusty has embraced the park as there are no stray dogs and he has no fear of being ambushed.  

The trails are still under construction  so in the back forty where pavement gives way to dirt I let him off the leash and he wanders at will while I get to enjoy the views and the trash free environment. 

The park is another of the outward signs of Boquete’s status as an expatriate town, a Panamanian hub in a mild alpine climate suitable for retirement by monied foreigners from Up North. And just as in Key West imported wealth is displacing the locals. 

By the way if you’ve never had a spiralized hot dog on a stick I recommend it with hot sauce and fried plantains covered with ketchup. I am dedicated to exploring local delicacies…

I met some workers in the park next to our campground building a fresh trail and I asked if they went to the Christmas parade in town. Not us they said, we live in the hills outside of town. Just like Key West, I thought to myself. 

Our friend Mike who has lived here for weeks in his RV with his family told us how his kids play with American kids in town who are being raised here and cannot speak a word of Spanish. Mike’s daughters have traveled all over South America and are fluent in Spanish and Portuguese but have to speak English with their American friends in Boquete. 

I enjoy traveling as a means of exploration, as a way to open windows into my mind, and I find the open ended slow pace of road (or sail) travel gives opportunities to see behind the facades created by tour companies and packaged vacations. 

However I do get homesick from time to time. Hence my desire for a hamburger which in this town came as perfect example of what we might order “back home.”  For us, staying in an $18 a night full service campground (with hot showers!?) a ten dollar burger is an affordable treat. Not so for locals who are excluded not only by process but by language and culture. Check out the menu at the Tap Out pub in Boquete:

I saw this on Google maps and realized I want to go eat there! Boquete has this effect on a long haul traveler. We are leaving town today so it’s not on the cards to have some Kansas City Barbecue…I sigh with regret. Our campground burger hit the spot so I have nothing to complain about I tell myself. 

A young Panamanian wanted to pet Rusty on the streets of Boquete and we fell into conversation with her mother.  We spoke in English and she told us the stories of Panamanians like herself displaced by wealthy foreigners. We commiserated comparing our home town to Boquete but I don’t think she heard us very well. We stopped speaking Spanish to her and let her vent. It turns out she only rarely comes to town anymore and nowadays brings her daughter to the library, an imposing cement and glass structure that would not be out of place in Anytown USA. 

If you have read “The Charm School” by Nelson B DeMille you can anticipate my next point. It’s an elderly novel about a Soviet spy program that involved building a replica American town in Russia to train spies how to live in the US. It is one of the author’s early novels and it is a good fast paced read. 

The underlying premise puts me in mind of Boquete, a town where you could learn to live like an American without setting foot in the USA. And what gives it even more verisimilitude is that’s it’s not just full of retirees with money. 

The town is full of religious families who have fled the oppressive US to raise their children in a cultural bubble of their own design. I find it fascinating that there isn’t room enough to live as you choose somewhere in the US but you feel the need to escape to Panama.  I suppose you could argue it’s cheaper or the weather is milder here but it seems an odd choice to me. 

I feel bad for the displaced Panamanians just as I do for people marginalized by the wealth flooding Key West but more than that I am surprised by the mere fact families want to  emigrate from a country as vast and varied as the US.  They just talk though, they have done it and created their own charm school in the mountains of Panama. 

It used to be the religious minorities of Europe in particular fled to the US to breathe free. Now they are fleeing in reverse.  

For me it’s just another cultural phenomenon in passing. I got my nostalgia burger, today we go look for tires for GANNET2 and tomorrow we may tour a chocolate farm. Boquete for us travelers will be in the rear view mirrors.