Greetings again,
We have had quite a few calls and e-mail wanting to know what we have been up to in these last few days and why there have been no recent blog entries….
As mentioned in a previous entry, we met up last week with family who flew in from Atlanta to be with us and share in a bit of the expedition and yea, Elsie has tested us to the limits again.
We had a fantastic time with the family, Russ and Jax, who treated us to a rare but unique experience of booking us into to the active Arenal volcano observatory lodge.
Before we could get there Elsie had shut down the alternator, so our second day comprised of hanging out at a workshop for a full day having the alternator rebuilt.
The volcano is an intense experience to behold (when not enshrouded in cloud) because it cranks up almost constantly with lateral emissions that come billowing out in huge cloud formations and also almost close to the summit is this red glowing vent that chunks out molten rocks the size of Elsie and larger that come hurtling and pounding down the mountain slope with the of the like of the sound of a herd of elephant bashing through the bush hell for leather – this all visible with a naked eye.
The sound affects are also so spectacular and the brief moment we saw the summit in the dark it was like a fireworks display.
We had such a good time together and then came Elsie, with brakes pulling so dangerously to the left that we pulled into a gas station in the sleepy town of Arenal to ask where we could find a mechanic.
The fellow stood up and said to us that he was our man, so we found ourselves in yet another workshop with a dirt floor and the rain pouring down incessantly making mud everywhere.
Our mechanic dude, Jason found a leak in the one brake drum and then one thing lead to replacing the cross members of the universal joints and another thing lead to another thing when we found that the gearbox and transfer box had gear damage and the bearings were shot – so out comes this entire gear assembly, crashing to the bottom of the pit because Jason had no pro equipment at all.
We spent all Saturday from 9am to 5am Sunday getting the gear box and transfer case assembled and had to manhandle it back in position without the gadgets one normally uses and it was a job I do not care to remember for the rest of my life.
Angelika held out stoically as our “spanner girl” until 2qm and when I got back I showered for a half an hour and slept for an our before we got up and headed with haste to the coast to meet with a client in Garza Beach.
Not long after we left Elsie started to make this vibrating sound that sounded like it was related to the gear boxes and drive train so we drove slowly not wanting to cause more damage.
After our meeting we headed to Samara for a meeting the next morning (Monday 16th) and we took this cool road through the forest until we hit this nice river crossing that looked pretty ok to cross in a diagonal path.
Even though it was pretty deep all went well until I hit a sand bar and Elsie put her butt right down on the bed of the river and refused to budge even an inch.
The exhaust was totally underwater so I bailed out and Angelika kept the rev’s up as water poured into the vehicle.
The heck with the croc’s, I grabbed the winch cable and was grateful that we just had enough cable to reach the closest tree that was only about 6 inches across and secured the cable to it and hoped it would hold and headed back to the intrepid Angelika as the rain cam pouring down.
Back at Elsie, when I got back in the vehicle, the river was flowing through her with brake fluid and other containers floating around.
As soon as the winch started to pull Elsie, she leaped up on the river bed as if to say “screw the winch”.
Back on the bank of the river, we were so happy, we left Elsie on a gradient to drain the water off and we went back to swim in the river and cool off in the rain.
So we pulled into Samara sopping wet, checked into a hotel but we were still worried about what to do in this small village with Elsie’s problems.
We met with a really nice client the next morning (also got a ton of laundry done) who suggested we go back to San Jose to get the job done right but I was not prepared to risk the distance and cause more damage in so doing so we decided to head the next morning (today) to the slightly larger town of Nicoya and try to get the help we needed.
After arriving here we went from one work shop to another getting turned away because they were all to busy but finally we found one just out of town who was willing to help us.
In no time he found the problem in the rear diff with some more worn parts that we got in town and he replaced for us.
This left us with one last mission, trying one last time to get the brakes working right, so back into town we went to find someone who would work on the brakes for us – By 4.30 we had this job done but would still have to work on the hand brake in the next week before heading to Nicaragua because we could not find the parts we needed here.
As it stands today, we will be heading tomorrow to Guiones Beach and head north to meet our appointments along the way, hopefully with no more hassles from Elsie.
We will be updating more regularly again from now on so long as we do not find ourselves in more workshops.
Take care and stay well
Paul and Angelika
