Broken in Bolivia

Part I.

On reading this mornings post I realised that it was full of typos and errors. Only 7 hours sleep in 48 hrs does that to you. Ironically, I only slept for three hours last night even though I could have had 5 and even though I was so tired I was practically hallucinating Typing on the running board with dozens of Bolivians staring at you doesn't help. Excuses! Anyway, did I tell you how hard the drive was yesterday? Not enough, I feel. Trust me, you never, ever want to experience anything like it. One of the mechanics told us that there were sheer drops of over a thousand feet on the narrow 'road' too. I'm almost glad it was dark. We had our own 'death road'.

Actually, the people in the Plaza were rather sweet and polite and all dressed in their Sunday best. One local entrepreneur even came with a camera and portable printer and was charging people to create an instant postcard. Every mantelpiece in Sucre will now be displaying a family portrait with a background of car 7. Every other car was long gone - more later.

Bolivia is full of police posts and you have to get out at all of them. At some you even have to pay. The police post is usually a scruffy shed with a piece of string across the road. There are also masses of tolls; it all becomes very tedious. We hardly have time to stop for the loo, we just need to press on. There seems to be a reason to extract money from you at every opportunity.

We left after everyone else because A was trying to sort out our brakes. He discovered that all the jolting had broken the rear rods and we will need them welded. So, still no brakes. We set off anyway as A's feeling was that having gone 100kms without any yesterday in the most atrocious conditions imaginable and whilst climbing 2000 metres we would be o.k. Humph!

Actually, the braking was alright thanks to our Land Rover gearbox but all was not plain sailing. It just wouldn't be, would it?

We immediately climbed another 2,000 metres, very slowly. At the top, it felt like The Garden of Eden. A huge plateau of such beauty awaited us, we gasped. Neat rows of crops were growing and, although the houses were made of mud, all was exceptionally neat and tidy. Truly gorgeous. The car was still overheating, mainly because all our special Evans coolant was lost when we had the leak and, we have some more just not enough to fill up and you are not supposed to mix it with water. Water boils at a much lower temperature at altitude , hence the special coolant. We pressed on though, still very slowly.

We came to Potsoi - the highest city in the world. Do not even think about visiting though, save your money for somewhere nice like Chernobyl. It will forever be known as #1 contender for ' Arsehole of the Universe' in the Shooter household. We stopped for gas - what a rigmarole. The usual bollocks about country code and everything being typed into an ancient pc. A. had to show his passport and the number was duly recorded. In the list of acceptable countries, neither the United Kingdom, Great Britain or England was listed however, Ireland was. A plan! Adrian is now an Irishman! As we have three grandchildren who are half Irish I think that was o.k. Getting gas is such a palaver and then they have the gall to charge triple the advertised price. As many places won't sell it to you at all, actually, you'd pay anything.

We found an amendment to the route book stuck on a wall at a crossing - I'm surprised it hadn't been ripped off. When we tried to make a turn there was a policeman banning us from doing so. We found an alternative way around in exceptionally busy roads as it was market day and there was a fair on.

We indicated to turn left and, as we were doing so, a car came up on the inside and smashed into us. The damage wasn't great to his car and Adrian rushed out to give him some money - anything not to get the police involved. I stayed in the car so we could make a quick getaway, all the time praying a policeman would not appear. You can imagine how that would have run. Needless to say the 'A' was undamaged, except we now have a collection of Pedro's white emulsion sitting on our running board.

Pedro's pride and joy, an ancient jalopy held together by filler and hand painted had a bit if a bent bumper. Adrian made a very generous offer. Not enough. Adrian grabbed a handful of notes and that was deemed acceptable; he doesn't know how much it was. Expect Pedro to be driving around in a new set of wheels very soon whilst laughing about the gringo. We flew out of there.

More climbing, more over boiling over. Adrian was afraid that the radiator would explode. The result is that currently we are waiting for assistance at the side of the road in a desolate but beautiful place. Sound familiar? Shades of P2P. There is more traffic here though and Llamas rather than Bactrian camels. People keep stopping for yet more photos of the kids covering our broken car.

Adrian is using the time to remove the brake rods that suffered after yesterday's journey. Did I tell you how bad that was? I, meanwhile am writing this. My Garmin tells me we are at 3972 metres and that it will be dark in 1hr 38 minutes. I hope help arrives before then. No Internet, obviously, and so, by the time you read this, we will have been rescued and be somewhere sensible and will be able to read about the rest of the story. It's unknown to me.


Part II.

After a time in the dark help finally came. Not just one support vehicle, but two. By that time I really felt in need of some oxygen and that was the first thing we asked for as we were told that all support vehicles would be carrying it. Neither of them had any. I was put in the back of an F350 and given some coca leaves to chew by one of our Argentinian helpers. It definitely helped and I started to feel a little better.

The plan was to tow our car up the steep inclines, but as we only had engine braking, Adrian would drive down unassisted. We set off with me remaining in the F 350. Thus we continued for many kms until, at the bottom of one drop Adrian came back and told me that he didn't think we could carry on with the car. The alternator had packed up on top of everything else. On its own that was no problem as we have another but our problems are many layered and just too great. We would not be able to fix the brake rods until La Paz and we had to get there and negotiate the city with only engine braking would be impossible and dangerous. The radiator problems are the most difficult. We had already arranged to have a new one sent out but the earliest we could get one for was Arequipa. We would never have made it there unless the road was flat all the way. Go figure.

We also might have managed to limp on if we had more special coolant but ours is lying on a road in Brazil. It is impossible to buy it here. We have spent too many hours by the side of the road, too many hours working on the car and we feel broken too.

Neither of us like to give in and, normally, I would be persuading Adrian that we could get through this, but I can't. This is far tougher than anything we did on P2P and we are undone. It's just after 4 in the morning as I write - still I cannot sleep. The sense of failure is very great. I like to feel that I have tenacity and am able to persevere through any hardship but I am finished at this point.

We want to carry on with the rally just not in the Model A. Tracy and Lloyd, also veterans of P2P retired their car in Brazil. They collected a hire car in Sucre; they should have picked a car up in Santa Cruz but that one was caught in a landslide. We are hoping, when we see them in the morning, that we can hitch a ride to La Paz tomorrow and then we can figure out what to do from there. Many cars have retired. Most unfortunately David and Karen in their wonderful Itala retired on the way to Santa Cruz. Like us they felt their problems were just unfixable. Roger and Maggie have retired too. All of us veterans of P2P. Many other cars are undrivable but I don't know what's happening with those yet. There will be many hire cars, if that is possible, as it is by no means straightforward, completing the rally. We should hire a bus.

It's all just too sad and hard to believe that we only set off from Rio just over a week ago. I don't know what's going to happen next, we'll have to wait and see. We are totally undone. But, for the moment, I am lying in a bed in a fifth rate hotel in Uyuni feeling overwhelmed by sadness.