Vanagon EuroVan
Previous messageNext messagePrevious in topicNext in topicPrevious by same authorNext by same authorPrevious page (August 2009, week 5)Back to main VANAGON pageJoin or leave VANAGON (or change settings)ReplyPost a new messageSearchProportional fontNon-proportional font
Date:         Sun, 30 Aug 2009 06:10:40 -0700
Reply-To:     Malcolm Stebbins <mwstebbins@YAHOO.COM>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Malcolm Stebbins <mwstebbins@YAHOO.COM>
Subject:      Antwerp to Rabat: Trip report
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8

For those of youon the vanagon listserv who might like the background of this trip, you are welcome to read the following previous posts: http://gerry.vanagon.com/cgi-bin/wa.exe?A2=ind0712A&L=vanagon&P=R34218 http://gerry.vanagon.com/cgi-bin/wa.exe?A2=ind0511b&L=vanagon&F=&S=&P=28603 http://gerry.vanagon.com/cgi-bin/wa.exe?A2=ind0906a&L=vanagon&F=&S=&P=36732 If you didn’t just read those reports, then the short story is that I have retired from my job in Halifax, NS and married a Moroccan woman and I’m moving/retiring to Morocco (with my van, hence this report to vanagon.com). To this end, in early July, I shipped my van from Halifax to Antwerp ( Belgium ), and Jamila and I flew up there (from Rabat ) on July 8th to retrieve the van and drive south, back to Morocco . This turned out to be about a 7 week trip. It took only a few hours to get the van out of Belgian customs but we hung around Antwerp and Brussels (in a beautiful, quaint B&Bs) as Jamila has some friends who live nearby. Both Antwerp and Brussels are wonderfully beautiful cities and well worth a visit. Jamila had never been to Luxemburg, so, as we left Antwerp we headed east to include a day driving through the Luxemburg hills and a day in Luxemburg city. To North Americans, the major European cities are wonderfully close together, and it was only a few hours drive from Luxemburg to Paris . IMHO one could spend a lifetime exploring Paris, and we devoted 5 long days of our lives to “power tourism” in Paris, taking in many of the major museums, art galleries and of course Versailles and other sights so associated with Paris. A museum and a metro pass are well recommended. We had both been to Paris with previous spouses, but we found much that we had not done there before. For me Paris always lives up to its reputation. From Paris , we headed nearly straight south past Orleans, Limoges and Toulouse , arriving at the northern slopes of the Pyrenees mountain range (that divides France and Spain ). Here in Foix, when we stopped for gas, I noticed that the front left wheel was very hot! We spend an hour hunting for a mechanic who could/would look at the brakes that day. We found a great guy who spoke French with a wonderful rural accent that really tickled Jamila’s ears. His diagnosis was that the brakes were OK and that the heating up of the wheel was a one time occurrence. He must have been right, as, for the rest of the trip, all was OK. Having been reassured that the brakes were OK for the morrow’s drive up and over the Pyrenees , we spent the night in a campground just south of the small French town of Foix . Again Jamila had never been through the tiny principality of Andorra, so we headed up and over the Pyrenees on a wonderfully twisting 2 lane road, much of it in 2nd gear. Andorracity is wedged in a valley and we were lucky and found a parking space right near the city centre and stopped for a walk around town and for lunch. Jamila, being a linguist, cocked a careful ear to the local Catalan language (a curious mix of French & Spanish). We then stuck to the 2 lane roads and continued south to Barcelona . This is where the trip ‘heated up’ ….. with each day getting well over 40 degrees Celsius for the rest of the trip in southern Spain (This is in contrast to the 18C in the Pyrenees ). Neither Jamila nor I had been to Barcelona so this was all new for us. Again a museum pass and metro pass allowed us to move about, and enter sights without having to think about standing in line for tickets, or think about the costs. Besides the museums etc. one attraction in Barcelona is the architecture of a guy named Gaudi. His name could well be the origin of our word ‘gaudy’ but seemingly it is not. Leaving Barcelona and after a few hours driving west, we arrived in Madrid which again has many world class museums and art galleries. We did not stay in Madrid (no campgrounds as I recall) but just southwest of Madrid is the medieval town of Toledo whose streets still reflect the Moorish occupation of years past: narrow and winding. Toledo has good train connections to Madrid , so every morning we took a short bus ride and then a 30 minute train ride up to Madrid . Our routine was, by now, well rehearsed: Each morning we made 2 sandwiches, and packed some dates, nuts and apples and a water bottle and off we went. Usually the last day in a city, we would treat ourselves to a restaurant dinner. There are several “must see” cites in southern Spain : Granada , Ronda, Cordoba and Seville . For me the old parts of these cities are magnificent with the Moorish parts of town and the mix of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam….. sometimes within the same buildings. Again Jamila had never been to these cities so it was all wonderfully new for her. We devoted several days to each town and even splurged for a few quaint B&Bs that were located in the old parts of the cities. My good friend Louise reminded us that just east of Granada are the Sierra Nevada mountains. We took 2 days and drove along the southern slope of the mountain range through several (what are called) ‘While Villages’ as every building in the towns is painted white. Here is the obligatory vanagon content: As we headed back west we had to pass through Malaga and there we were caught in a traffic jam for one hour, up hill in creeper gear, with temps of about 45C . I kept an eye on the van’s temp gauge and my VDO temp gauge and neither indicated overheating. After the traffic jam thinned out, we headed uphill towards Ronda. As the engine cooled off (due to normal driving and cooler mountain temps), the Zetec’s Check Engine light came on. We were high in the hills and not near any town. We stopped and unpacked everything. As I did, I could see steam pouring out of the side of the EMPTY coolant reservoir. Now the Zetec engine is different than the Vanagon engine in that there is no coolant overflow jug. As I looked at the steam pouring out of the coolant reservoir, I was SURE that super heated ‘pressurized’ coolant had melted a hole in the side of the reservoir. I told Jamila this and suggested that we had a serious problem. As I dug out the code reader to check if there was some other problem, Jamila tried to suggest that the hole in the side of the coolant reservoir sure looked like it was manufactured that way. I dismissed her suggestion as, how could there be a manufactured hole in the side of the coolant reservoir. So she tried again to tell me that; I again dismissed her crazy idea. As I was readying the removal of the reservoir so that we could hitch hike into Ronda to hunt for a Ford dealership for a Zetec reservoir, one last time she said (with some more authority) “Before you take it apart, just take a look!” To humour her, I unscrewed the reservoir so that I could get a good look at the backside (the side that Jamila could see from the back seat) and sure enough, it was a manufactured pressure relief hole. Mmmmm Could she be right and I be wrong… Certainly this time. So we theorized a bit and figured that the engine overheated during the traffic jam, and then as the coolant cooled, it shrank in volume to the point that it triggered the low coolant (check engine) light. So we added about 1litre of water, and off we went. Over the next few days, I checked the coolant level a few times but all was OK (Also no air at the radiator).. After interesting visits to, Ronda and Cordoba , it was during our last stop ( Seville ) that Jamila was called back to Morocco for some family business. So, we headed south to Algeciras for the ferry to the Spanish enclave (on Morocco ’s northern shore) of Cebta/Ceuta where we crossed the border into Morocco . We spent 2 weeks in Tetouan visiting with Jamila’s family while the siblings oversaw to the sale of their (late) parent’s family home. So now we are in Rabat (our final destination) and we have a lot of work to do to get a residency permit for me and registration for the van. I’ll soon get around to posting photos, but these will be tourist photos (of Jamila & me) and not ‘vanagon’ photos. If you want photos of these places, I suggest that you download (the free) Google Earth, as when you enter ‘ Paris ’ it will fly you there and there are zillions of photos of the Eiffel Tower . I had visited nearly all of the sights/sites/cities on this trip with my late wife Patricia; and Jamila had visited many sights with her former husband; so there were many bittersweet moments for both of us. For those of you who are still reading, the trip stats are: Total Kilometres:about 5,000 Total cost: about CDN$8,500 (not counting shipping the van from Halifax to Antwerp ) Total days: 55 (for about 150 CDN$/day) We use the Lonely Planet guide books and find them well worth the cost. Also, I should put in a plug for the Bostig Zetec conversion. The engine worked perfectly and once even told us when the coolant was low.


Back to: Top of message | Previous page | Main VANAGON page

Please note - During the past 17 years of operation, several gigabytes of Vanagon mail messages have been archived. Searching the entire collection will take up to five minutes to complete. Please be patient!


Return to the archives @ gerry.vanagon.com


The vanagon mailing list archives are copyright (c) 1994-2011, and may not be reproduced without the express written permission of the list administrators. Posting messages to this mailing list grants a license to the mailing list administrators to reproduce the message in a compilation, either printed or electronic. All compilations will be not-for-profit, with any excess proceeds going to the Vanagon mailing list.

Any profits from list compilations go exclusively towards the management and operation of the Vanagon mailing list and vanagon mailing list web site.