After Jim and my adventure trying to drive the truck up mountain passes as it slowly gave up, though it put up a valiant fight. We arrived safely in Oaxaca, with enough time to find a tow truck so kip and I could head back out 110 kilometers to get the truck and trailer. After arguing with the tow truck whether or not our F-250 (a large truck by Mexican standards) and trailer would be able to get towed, Kip and I assured them it would, and we headed out. The drive there was harrowing to say the least as Adolfo, our driver, pretended he was driving in the Carrera, setting up the turns, and going very fast through the mountain roads. He blessed himself at every cross, and made me do it as well. He also showed us where an Argentinian driver went over the edge and perished in the race a few years ago. About 2 hours later we arrived at the truck, loaded it up with nary a problem, minus a bumped head for Willet, and nervously watched Adolfo cut a piece of rope, towards himself, with a broken corona bottle. We headed back to Oaxaca, arriving around 8am.
We had the mechanic take a look, and determine the issue to be fuel injectors that had been fouled by water. A real test of my spanish was trying to explain what was wrong with the car, since I don´t know any car vocab.
The welded shift linkage bracket, and the clutch support linkage bracket.
While we waited for the truck to get fixed we worked on the race car, and a very nice man,
apparently the local off-duty sheriff, helped us find a place to weld a broken linkage for the clutch. The welder merely took a piece of wire, that looked like it could barely supply electricity to a desklamp, stuck the exposed tip into a hole in the wall, which started his welding machine, and welded it back together, sans mask. We then got in the bed of a pickup truck and went to the local Sam´s Club, to purchase a GPS which should help us navigate the difficult Mexican "highways" the race car is running again, and is ready to go.
One of the difficult aspects has been trying to get oil. the hotel we´re currently at told us they had none when i spoke with them on the phone 2 weeks ago, but last night I spoke with the restaurant manager, and was able to secure about 10 liters of oil. as people see what we´re doing and understand it they are very accepting and excited. there is a real, true grassroots and organic environmental movement here. so many of these people work the land and interact with it much closer than we do that they understand and respect it. we may not be able to provide them with clean sewage, but if we can educate them on a simple way to make a difference, our goal has been accomplished.
So now we´re stuck in Oaxaca another day, oh well, at least the hotel here has 2 bars and a pool. things could be worse. Jim and I could be sleeping under the truck on the side of a Mexican highway, like we almost had to.
A shout out to Xhema and Outcome.
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