Date: Fri, 15 Jun 2001 21:55:39 -0500
Reply-To: andrewbell <andrewbell@QWEST.NET>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: andrewbell <andrewbell@QWEST.NET>
Subject: Vanagon through South America! Caravana Adventure!
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Hey list -
I was on this Caravana list, (as many of you probably monitored, too)
which was a bunch of people riding round in Vanagons through South
America to Terre Del Fuego, and back. There is really interesting
content about the lengthy 10 month tour. Read or delete - it was fun
watching them go through it!
AB
Hello to everyone
We are home. Actually we have been home but had to go
back to South Carolina to get the vans which we did
day before yesterday. We decided to ship to
Charleston, South Carolina, since it was sort of
midway between West Virginia where we live and Florida
where Kai and Valeria live and also since we wanted to
avoid the hassle of shipping into Miami. We thought it
would be better to ship to a smaller port. Not so.
The container had to go from Guayaquil to Panama to
Miami to Baltimore to New York and finally to
Charleston, SC. After it arrived we found out our
container was the lucky one chosen to be "stripped" by
US Customs to search for drugs. Why? Because we came
from Ecuador which borders Colombia and because we had
been gone for 9 1/2 months. Guess what else...when
Customs "chooses" to search your vehicle, you must pay
a fee ($380) for them to unload the van for the
search. Since we had the keys with us, we asked them
if they could set up a time to do the search so we
could come to SC bringing the keys with us in addition
to showing them how to access the hidden compartments
we had built into the vans to foil South American
thieves. Nothing doing! You are not allowed to be
anywhere near the search area when the search is done.
So we had to pay $20 to FedEx to get the keys to
Customs. The process to get the container from the
Wando terminal of the port of Charleston a mile or so
to the Customs search area and to get it unloaded has
now cost nearly half as much as the 3,000 mile voyage
from Guayaquil, Ecuador. Nonetheless, the search did
get done and last Monday we were notified that the
vans would be ready Tuesday morning so we headed out
Tuesday evening getting to Charleston on Wednesday
where we first paid the customs broker his $275 ($125
for submitting the paperwork and $150 for drayage
(hauling by truck) from the port to the Customs area.
Then we finally found Customs hidden away on a side
street off another side street neither of which showed
up on one of those computer GPS map location finders
that my brother-in-law who took us to South Carolina
had in his van.
Once there we paid our money and were asked to sign a
release that the vans were received in good order even
though we had yet to see them. I asked that we see
them first so someone there accompanied us around a
warehouse building to get to the vans. We couldn't go
through the warehouse even though every door was open
because customs was supposed to be doing a search that
day. But since no one could find the key to the gate
we were supposed to go through to go around the
building, finally we were allowed to scurry through
the warehouse where we saw no one doing anything but
at least we finally saw our vans. There they were
parked much to our surprise inside the warehouse. We
looked inside the vans and were surprised to see that
customs had done almost no searching except to look
through one box inside and check into the locked
containers we had had constructed to replace the
luggage rack up front. I suppose if the drug dogs
don't sniff anything, they don't do a very thorough
search. We did notice however that they are fairly
inept at opening a door. The interior door handle to
the sliding door was broken off in two pieces and was
laying in the floor. Of course, there was no note on
any of the paperwork how it got broken. Also, someone
had tried to pry the rear hatch open from the side
even though they had the keys to open it. We noted the
broken handle on the paperwork, signed it and were
told to leave. We were not allowed to even park in the
parking lot to check over the rest of the vehicle
since it was a bonded customs lot and no strangers
were allowed there. This terminates our US Customs
experience. We then left and headed home: Kai back to
Florida and us to West Virginia.
Our 9 1/2 month near 28,000 mile trip to South America
was over when we finally made it back home last night
at midnight. We had gone through the accumulated mail
and paperwork last week while awaiting the vans
arrival. Now today there is "stuff" all over the house
from unpacking the van. Will has already discovered
that two of the four motor mounts are broken but other
than that we escaped South America with no more than a
couple of dents. We left with 6 Michelin Agilis tires
which Will religiously rotated every 5,000 miles and
we came back with six having had no flats along the
way. We did however note one that was leaking in
Argentina and had it removed and patched where a small
spine from a tree had gone through it. Will rebuilt
the engine before we left and again, religiously
changed the oil (Castrol 20W-50) every 3,000 miles.
Billy, our Vanagon, used not more than a third of a
cup of oil per oil change. We had no problems with the
motor except once when the computer got wet and about
three or four times when the fuel pump relay decided
to take a short break of an hour or so. This happened
usually when we were at high altitudes stuck in first
gear at low speeds for a prolonged period. Then, after
we had waited awhile, it would correct itself.
We did have problems with our batteries both of which
we replaced and with the rear brakes which were
sabotaged by an Argentinian brake man who didn't know
what he was doing so he turned our drums and got them
"eggy" which plagued us for the next three months. We
bought nearly 1,400 gallons of gas over 9 1/2 months
and averaged 20 mpg for the whole trip which is the
same gas mileage we got before we left and the same we
got yesterday driving home from South Carolina.
Gasoline in Argentina was the most expensive and cost
us nearly a tenth of the total money we spent...around
$1700 US just for gas in Argentina.
VAN PROBLEMS: Here is a breakdown of the problems we
had with the vehicle: 1) repaired gasoline leak where
vent pipe enters gas tank (twice) 2) repaired
antifreeze leak 3) replaced exhaust support bolt 4)
replaced auxiliary battery switch (twice) 5) bought
and replaced exterior sliding door handle 6) front end
alignment 7) repaired and then replaced plastic bleed
screw in rear heater box 8) changed air filter 9)
switched to our back up computer for two days while
original dried out after crossing end of lake 10)
changed throttle cable 11) replaced clutch master
cylinder 12) relined rear brakes twice due to ignorant
brake man mentioned above 13) replaced hose clamp. 14)
bled clutch several times. As you can see--all we had
were minor problems. This was entirely due to Will who
checked the tires and oil and the antifreeze each and
every day before we started out. Also, he would
inspect the vehicle all around every day looking for
anything unusual especially anything leaking
underneath. He also inspected the engine from above
and underneath as often as we could and whenever it
wasn't covered in mud or dust. We had the bottom of
the van washed more frequently than the top. As I
mentioned above, oil was changed every 3,000 miles and
tires rotated every 5,000 miles.
TIRES: I can't say enough about the Michelin tires. I
would have no others. The punishment they took can not
be explained to anyone who has NOT seen the roads in
the Andes of Chile, Argentina, Peru, Bolivia and
Ecuador not to leave out the potholed moonscape they
call roads in the north of Brasil.
MONEY: Traveler's checks are NOT needed. Take some
emergency cash in dollars. Use ATMs exclusively and
sometimes you can use your credit card for tours,
flights, rental cars and such. We charged a bit more
than $2,000 on credit cards for the two of us and we
withdrew about $12,000 in cash from ATM's along the
way. The only thing missing from this total is about
$400 to get the vans in Charleston, the $1400 it cost
to ship ours from Guayaquil, the $1000 or so to ship
them from Miami to Venezuela and perhaps $1000
miscellaneous which I carried in cash and used mostly
in Ecuador where the dollar is accepted which brings
our trip total for two people for 9 1/2 months to
around $18,000 or a little less than $2,000 a month
which is more than what I thought it would average out
but much less than other travelers have spent on
similar trips. The reason for this is the fact that
except for the beginning of the trip when we stayed in
a hotel in Venezuela awaiting the vans to be released
from corrupt port officials and again at the end when
we stayed in a hotel in Guayaquil, we stayed in the
vans in city squares, in service stations, in people's
yards, in effect anywhere that was free and safe for
nearly 9 of the 9 1/2 months we were gone. Once when
we linked up with Jeanne and Tyler in Chile, we rented
a "cabana" for a few days and twice in Brasil we
stayed with friends of mine for about a week each time
where we had a house of our own but otherwise, we
slept inside the vans nearly every night.
CARNET: Our carnet served us very well everywhere. You
do NOT need an official one for which you have to pay
money but if you make your own, it has to look
official with gold seals, ribbons, rubber stamps and
such. Be sure and leave a big space for the border
officials to sign their names...they like that.
DRIVERS: I might have ranted and raved over the insane
things that the drivers in South America did but now I
actually miss them. Our interstates are clogged with
people who have a drivers license but haven't the
faintest idea of how to drive whereas in South
America, you have to be an expert to even attempt the
chaotic conditions that are continent wide. We were
the odd drivers who clogged traffic. We were the ones
who nearly caused accidents. We were the ones who
reversed our course while walking on a sidewalk and
caused others to have to veer away from the congestion
we had caused. We also were the ones who became
angered at other drivers. To them, chaos is normal and
they accept that and manage. We became frustrated with
it.
South Americans in general are hard workers who are
doomed in many cases to toil all their lives just to
feed themselves all the while their often corrupt
governments squander the money of the country
enrichening politicians. In Peru for example where it
is common to see people going through trash cans to
find food for their families, we saw Toyota
Landcruisers costing perhaps $60,000 each all over the
country parked beside the highways in which sat two
policemen reading comic books or sleeping. They did
nothing all day long but sit or in one case pull us
over to try to extract money from us. We saw the Land
Cruisers everywhere...they numbered in the hundreds. A
plausible scenario for this waste of public money
might be as follows: the Minister for Security for the
country of Peru suggests to the President that they
equip their road police with new Land Cruisers. The
Minister's brother-in-law in Lima just happens to be
the Toyota dealer so the three of them make sure that
twice as much money is appropriated for the purchase
of the Land Cruisers as is necessary and the three of
them pocket half the money so they can buy 50,000 more
hectares of land just S of Lima where the new
industrial park will be built so they can sell it back
to the government for a tidy profit of a million or so
dollars each. Of course this kind of corruption
happens everywhere but in Latin America it happens
from the president all the way down to the man at the
license bureau who says that if you want to get your
"cedula" (an ID card that everyone has to have) today
instead of next week that you have to pay him $5
knowing that you live 100 miles away.
To wind this up on a positive note, I must say
something about the "normal, everyday" people of Latin
America especially South America. I haven't words to
express the gentleness and friendliness and
helpfulness of the thousands of people we met. In 9
1/2 months, we probably came across fewer than five
people who were unhelpful in addition to three
policemen in Paraguay and two in Peru who tried to rip
us off. ALL the rest of the people we encountered who
numbered in the thousands went out of their way to
aide us in any and every way they could. I could drive
up in my fancy vehicle (to them it was very fancy),
get out with my $2,000 camcorder beside a house made
of mud bricks where there was no electricity, no
plumbing, no bathroom inside where people slept on
pallets on the floor at night and there was no
animosity toward me. On the contrary--after I had
asked if we could park there for the night, the family
would many times go off in different directions only
to reappear later with fresh limes from the lime tree,
fresh oranges from the orange tree, chirimoya,
bananas, passion fruit, guavas or some kind of freshly
prepared juice---always something.
If I asked a taxi driver out the window at a traffic
light what the easiest way to get through town was,
often he would lead us through the town. Sometimes
another driver who overheard us asking would offer to
lead us all the way through town. Sometimes people
would ride with us to show us the way and then take a
bus back to where we had first encountered them. We
could learn a lot from them.
Thanks to all my old friends in South America and to
all the new ones we made. Now I have friends in all
nine countries we visited with whom I can stay the
next time. Yes, there will be a next time. Thanks to
Kai and Valeria and Les, Vicki and Jozey for making
our trip a "memorable" one especially Jozey's
caricature drawings. It wouldn't have been the same
without you. I miss all of you.
Thanks to Ron for preparing the Caravana site which I
happened upon shortly after purchasing my Vanagon in
the Fall of 1998. Thanks also to him for posting the
pictures from our preliminary meeting at Custer State
Park in South Dakota and posting the pictures from our
dispatches from South America. Thanks much to Jeanne
Maly for gifting us with her walkie-talkies which
proved invaluable throughout the rest of the trip.
Thanks also to her for the book, "Birds of the Beagle
Channel" which she lent us when we met her in Chile.
Thanks to my friends Fabio and Ba and Fabio Jr. and
Fernanda and Ricardo for putting up with five vans
full of people in Atibaia and to Renato and Celia in
Pelotas, Rio Grande do Sul who gave us a house to stay
in. Thanks to my friends in Carlos Barbosa, RGS and
special thanks to Graciela and her family who
graciously put us up under a mango tree for nine
wonderful days at Agualinda, Venezuela. Thanks to Irma
Gamboa and her family in Argentina for receiving me
after a 12 year absence. Thanks to the Lahausen's for
showing us their estancia in the Provincia de Buenos
Aires. Thanks also to Eduardo in Buenos Aires for
receiving a package for us and then finding us a place
to stay and for the empanadas at his apartment.
Thanks to my family who took care of things in my
absence especially my sisters Cay and JoAnn and my
nephew Roger who sent us a new carnet for Les after
his was stolen and who sent me a cable for my
CD-writer after it was stolen. Special thanks to my
brother-in-law Bob who managed a website to receive
nearly 3,600 pages of my diary and hundreds of photo
pages. Thanks also to all our friends here who sent us
e-mails which were like "mana from heaven" when we
wandered into an internet cafe, dirty, sweaty and
tired from driving and saw that we had 15 new
messages!! Thanks to Karen Keck for keeping our house
intact and our dogs healthy. Now can I have my Academy
Award please?
I am sorting through some 10,000 digital photos and
have yet to even attempt to look at the 50 hours of
video I made on the trip but here are a couple of
photo pages I have been working on. (Sent this once
and it bounced saying the message was too big so will
post the message sans photo pages and try to send them
later one at a time.)
Larry and Will high on a hill in West Virginia