Elsie update

Greetings all,

So we have our own adventures and those with ‘Elsie’, yesterday sure was one of the latter type events.

We had an early meeting with a client and then headed out north intending to cross over into the Yucatan of Mexico.

Elsie was running sweetly and was the quietest ever with the new manifold/exhaust gasket so we were happy even though everyone was talking of a possible tropical storm forming offshore.

All went well until we passed Corazol and we had already gathered all our “Elsie Docs” in preparation for the arduous usual border crossing with her, when we stopped to pee alongside the road and Elsie started to cook and steam.

I got her cooled down but was worried about our cylinder head gasket because there was too much pressure in the radiator for comfort.

We limped back to the town and opted to have the Toyota agent in Belize City (who knew us by now) sent out a trailer to fetch us so that we could have Elsie taken care of today.

The truck arrived late and we drove Elsie onto the trailer whilst the weather was still going nuts – not happy with the tie downs they had, I winched Elsie securely to the front of the trailer and we both piled into her as the truck headed back south to Belize City.

Now that was a funky experience, sitting in Elsie on the back of the trailer while trundling in another fashion cross country. – Quite trippy indeed.

We settled down in Elsie and had a few ales to celebrate Anders’s 20^th birthday and chatted a few times with him.

After it got dark and approaching the city, thank goodness we had to slow down for a speed bump because the trailer wheels literally and figuratively came off and disappeared into the night as we ground to a rapid halt.

Without much ado, I hauled Elsie off the trailer, filler her with water again, we left the fellows waiting for their manager to come assist them, as we did the last few miles back into town on our own ‘steam’.

As parts are so scarce for Elsie, we have to wait until Tuesday or Wednesday for the parts to come in fro Guatemala City, so all things being equal, we hope to be on the road to Quintana Roo, Mexico by Wednesday latest if we can find the parts.

A last note of interest, as we were sitting in Corazol waiting on our ‘ride’, Angelika noticed this Creole dude pick some flowers and started to approach her.

Not knowing what to expect she thanked him but in short order he informed us that they were for all the raw ‘mozzie’ scars on our legs (yea we are pretty bitten up).

It was not the flowers; it was the leaves that he ground up in his hands until they made up a watery poultice.

There was no hesitation, itching as we were these last few days; Angelika wiped the green goo all over her one leg – it was almost like magic to see all the red inflammation recede within 10 minutes and the itch back off.

We were both sold on this newfound potion so we gathered up the leaves and saved them in a sealed bag for use down the road.

So we learned yet another thing and who knows, Angelika might yet start dispensing leaves in the future J

We hope you all have a great weekend

Paul & Angelika