Elsie again.......

Greetings all

This posting is for ‘Elsie’ as she is sure testing our endurance and patience these days.

We still have air somehow getting into the fuel system that we have to bleed air out every morning before heading out and for the heck of me I cannot fathom where the air is bleeding from.

Just before getting to Acapulco, this strange sound came from under the hood and on closer inspection found that the arm tensioning the alternator had cracked and as a result loosened the fan belt so we ducked into the local welder (soldadora) and patched that up.

On arrival in Acapulco we that found that the one radiator support had broken loose and suspect it was from the frigging speed bumps (Topes, reductores, vibradores or velociraptors as we call them).

We also fixed an oil leak at the oil pump which had one washer instead of two as normal.

I tied the radiator down with inner tube as a temp fix unto we found a welder today who kindly patched it up for us and then we went looking for a mechanic to look into a vibration that has been haunting us these last few days when we start approaching 70 km/h.

Before getting that far we had to find and get a look at the famous cliffs in Acapulco which in their own right are quite insane as they are very high and the drop off is into a rough ocean ‘canyon’, not to mention that the cliff slopes back a lot making hitting water a real challenge indeed.

It was also interesting to learn that the public are no longer allowed to dive, it is all done by one family who perform daily from about 1pm until 10 pm (under flood lights)

We finally made it today (August 7^th) to Ixtapa and Elsie attended to discover that the the pinion gear in the rear diff needs replacement – bad news is that there are no such parts here so we had them do an oil change and have decided to risk the journey back as we are and hope the gear will hold up.

As of today we are close to 12,000 km that we have covered on the expedition and with a few thousand yet still to do.

We are staying tonight in a converted 2-car garage with AC, microwave and fridge (yes also another cold shower) but it is clean and comfortable and will afford us a good nights rest after a long intense and hot day.

With a candle burning beside me and Angelika asleep already, I bid you all a good night/day from Ixtapa.

Take care and stay well

Paul and Angelika.

PS we are in San Blas tonight August 9th