There. We fixed it!

Exciting news folks. The rattlevan is fixed.  (It was broken and couldn't go uphill.) Thanks to much help diagnosing the problem from the friendly and supportive forum community at toyotamotorhome.org and some friends of Beth's dad, we've figured it out.  It was a close call with blaming the carburetor (the whipping child of engines) and some laborious work dropping the gas tank and exhaust systems.

In the end it turned out to be something simple.  The fuel pump, when it was replaced, was hooked up wrong.  It's embarrassing that I didn't catch it initially but I finally did when helpful people suggested a fuel flow rate test.  After a 30 second fix of the hoses, the old van blasted right up the hill like a turbocharged super car. Well, maybe more like a lazy hippopotamus with a penchant for cheetos and word of a hilltop Circle K.

Either way, we're good and ready to head out tomorrow for...hmm. I guess we better finally figure that out.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention: I crashed the van.

Ahem.  It almost slipped my mind.  No idea why.  When I was pulling into the car shop.  Into the very, very narrow alleyway that leads to the shop.  I may have slightly crashed into a teeny steel structure that was there.  Oops. I had previously pulled into that area a few times without incident and I guess I was feeling just a bit over-confident. 

That’s when the crunching commenced followed briefly by the cussing and severe disparagement of my character by a certain occupant of the van that wasn’t Lena. 

Did I mention just how narrow the alleyway was? It was extremely narrow.

But then I fixed it. 



By fixed it, I mean I fitted a piece of sheet metal and riveted it to the unbroken part of the window.  What I don’t mean is that that portion is still a window.  Since it’s metal and all, it doesn’t have quite the clarity that it used to have when it was an actual window.  Hey, I did paint it black though so you have to look closely to see just how hillbilly it is.

Why the rattlevan can’t go uphill

I’ve waxed romantic in previous posts here and here about car mechanics and shops on our trip.  I love the idea of places where they make do with limited resources and people learn to make things work by doing.  This is expressed well in a taller mechanico.  We’ve had good work done inexpensively and quickly, so when I left to go to LA for a short trip, we expected the laundry list of car fixes to get done in the 2 weeks we left the car with a mechanic.  It was a rustic shop but came with an older mechanic who’s probably wrenched his way around thousands of old Toyotas in his time.  The problems that the rattlevan had were not serious ones, but we figured that while we weren’t using it, it would be a great time to tune some things up and make it a finely tuned rattlebeast.  It wasn’t to be. 

While our mechanic did accomplish two of the things that we needed (installing airbags to beef up our sagging suspension and welding our bumper back on), he didn’t fix other things and even managed to introduce a couple of new zinger problems.

We picked the rattlevan up after I returned, and I got it all ready for a trip up to Lake Atitlan with Beth’s parents. I was pretty excited because the airbags that we placed in the suspension gave the rattlevan a brand new stature.  We now sport a stout suspension with all the ground clearance we need for the crazy roads down here.  Plus, it’s now adjustable.  If I want more clearance, I can just add air and for a softer ride, let some out.  I was also excited to have a bumper attached with metal instead of ropes.

Beth’s parents wanted to ride along to get a first-hand taste of life in the rattlevan so we all loaded up and set off on an adventure – it went epic on the first hill we hit.  Leaving Jocotenango, we rounded a bend and pointed uphill with gusto.  That was when the rattlevan sputtered and died right in the road and when Beth’s dad provided the unnerving backseat status report: “There’s fluid coming out all over the road!” The fluid was gas and the poor rattlevan was hemorrhaging it. We sprang into action and enacted “emergency chicken bus crash avoidance plan.”  Beth jumped out to warn any oncoming chicken buses of our situation and when she couldn’t find our planned “fluorescent baggies emergency flag,” she improvised with a bright orange thermarest sleep pad.  The parents offloaded, I grabbed the fire extinguisher (just in case things got even more epic), and Beth saved our asses from oncoming demons.  A helpful neighbor saw the gringos in distress and chipped in by quickly cutting several large branches with his machete and placing them in the road.  This is a typical warning system that while not as bright (or fun) as fluorescent baggies and sleep pads, is more recognizable to drivers as “problems ahead, slow your roll.”  The van would only head uphill in fits so we had to turn around on the narrow, blind turn.  With the help of locals, we made it, and the van drove fine down hill. 

Regrouping at the bottom, we decided it best for me to take the van back to the shop (without passengers in case of further epic events possibly involving a gasoline drenched van and risk of fire. Which, come to think of it, would sure make an exciting blog post. I guess we would’ve been too panicked to shoot video, so in the end it wouldn’t have been worth it).  Beth gave her parents an impromptu tour of what it’s like to ride in a chicken bus (despite my reservations) and they arrived to meet me at the car shop without incident.

We, quite reasonably I think, diagnosed the uphill stall as some sort of vapor lock in the gas line due the torrential outflow of gas from the tank.  The tank had a large crack in it due to the bright idea of Sunrader Corp. placing heavy cabin supports in close contact with the tank.  While underneath the van, getting high on gas fumes, I found something that made the whole incident a good thing.  The transmission was leaking almost as much fluid as the gas tank was.  You don’t have to be a car geek to know that a dry transmission is a very, very bad thing.  We probably wouldn’t have made it more than 100 kilometers down the road before gears started melting and we found ourselves with a desperate need for new transmission.  Apparently, when the mechanic installed our new clutch, he made some sort of mistake that left our transmission way less than the tightly sealed container it should have been.  We would never have known if we didn’t spring a gas leak. 
While the mechanic sealed the crack and lowered the tank to clear the support and revisited his botched clutch job, Beth sent her parents onward to the lake sans tour guide.  We planned to join them the next day in the van.  We didn’t. The mechanic took this opportunity to also revisit some exhaust work that he didn’t complete before which resulted in yet another delay so Beth went on to the lake without me.  I planned to join the group the next day.   I didn’t.  The mechanic waited to start more work until I was there to loom over him, and as a result, I couldn’t leave either.  Grrr.

Finally, Beth returned and the van was out of the shop, so we planned our final departure from Antigua.  We found a convenient (and safe) hill to test out the uphill stall problem to see if it was gone.  It wasn’t.



The same thing happened.  This time without the gushing gas. Hmmm. So it wasn’t vapor lock.  I dug into the other likely suspect – the vacuum system.  What I found was quite disturbing.  Our mechanic had rerouted several of the vacuum hoses more to his tastes and apparently without using the vacuum hose diagram conveniently located under the hood.  I dug into the complex maze of hoses that make up what is essentially a logic and control system for the engine and is pretty much what your car’s computer now handles.  You now need a special device to diagnose these sorts of problems, but at least you don’t need three cups of coffee, a meticulous sense of detail and tiny little fingers on the ends of your fingers.   Several hours later, I returned the vacuum system to the specifications that the engineers at Toyota intended and was enthusiastic about tackling the hill again to see if we could make it up.  We couldn’t. 

Back down the hill, I popped the hood, scratched my head a lot and spent more time trying to figure out how we could find a very good, highly trained mechanic in this town than solving any problems.  My only thought was to ask a VW mechanic I met a couple of weeks back if he knew of someone who was a Toyota expert.  Although I’ve seen him around town in his cool vintage VW van, I didn’t know where to find him.  He found me.  As I was scratching my head and thumbing through both of my repair manuals for inspiration, the VW mechanic tapped me on my shoulder.  He was just cruising by when he saw the hood up and stopped to see what was up.  I grunted-and-pointed my description of the problem and psychically communicated my need for a mechanico muy bueno.  With no hesitation, the VW guy directed me to a nearby gas station which, he promised, had an excellent mechanic.  An excellent mechanic who, as it turns out, speaks English.  (I almost hugged the dude.)  I gave the new mechanic a complete rundown in even more boring detail than above and requested several tests (fuel pressure check, vacuum system routing and leak tests, etc.).  He understood everything and is (I hope) now hard at work solving the problem introduced by our other mechanic.  

This whole experience was quite discouraging.  It’s not that we came down here in a 1981 van not expecting to have any problems.  We knew we would encounter some.  We’ve just had such great luck with mechanics and with our ride and I guess we kind of got used to it.  Now we’ve lost some faith in the rattlevan (don’t tell her) and in mechanics.  Car shops down here just aren’t that different than those in the US.  Some are good and some are bad.  It all makes us a little more nervous about going to some of the more out-of-the-way places. 

The thing is, that despite this little problem of the van not being able to go up any hills, she’s running pretty great.  The suspension is solid, the exhaust now purrs and that weird embarrassing honking sound that we used to sport is gone.  Hopefully, our new mechanic can sort out the hill problem and we will finally be on our way somewhere (though we’re still not sure where that might be). 

[For you technical types and car nerds:  The truck is equipped with a new mechanical fuel pump, a new fuel filter, a relatively new air filter that’s not too dirty, it’s carbureted, and has a vacuum advance system.  When the hoses were misrouted, I noticed oil in the air filter due to a problem with positive crankcase ventilation but that no longer is a problem. Even before we went to this mechanic, we’ve been experiencing increasing throttle hesitation during acceleration and slow, cold starts.  Also, performance seems weaker than when we first started the trip.  The air mixture screw on the carburetor has been adjusted by feel and not by specifications and the exhaust has always smelled a little rich.  The timing is the same as it was when I set it at the beginning of the trip and seems fine.  I think that there’s either a problem with vacuum triggering extra air and advancing the timing under load (the vacuum advance does seem to work manually) or with fuel delivery despite the new pump (it does seem to be hooked up right).]

Murals

Dictator/War Criminal/President

Our neighbor in Antigua was an interesting and idealistic guy who rode his bike from Oregan to Guatemala and who currently works for Lawyers Without Borders.  He offered to take me to a hearing in the case of Ríos Montt, the former military dictator recently charged with genocide for his alleged involvement in the massacre of indigenous people during the civil war.  Montt is the only Latin American leader to have been so charged by his own country, and I was excited to see what the hearing would be like.

Neighbor and I left in the morning and hopped a chicken bus to Guatemala City.  We arrived at court hours early so that Neighbor could get a good position in the courtroom, as part of his job is taking photos.  When Montt was first charged, there were huge demonstrations in front of the courthouse, demonstrations in which people scattered rose petals to signify the spilt blood and held signs condemning Montt as the impetus behind the genocide.  The hearing I attended had been scheduled only the day before it was to take place, so the human rights community and survivors of Montt's policies didn't have time to mobilize in the same way.  The plaza in front of the courthouse was quiet and peaceful.

After Neighbor checked in with his colleagues, we entered the courthouse (which looks exactly like all the depressing 70s-era courthouses I've seen in the U.S.) and rode the elevator up to the courtroom.  On the way there, a reporter told us that the judge had been recused and that the hearing had been canceled - this was news even to Neighbor's colleagues (i.e., the lawyers involved in the case).  There are lots of theories about why the judge was recused so suddenly, some of them involving politics and Montt's remaining network of incredibly influential friends.  (There's a brief article about the recusal here, but it doesn't mention the sudden change in prosecutor that took place the very next day.  I make no comment.)  The immediate reaction to the judge's recusal seemed to be that the case likely wouldn't go forward and that a new judge would be appointed who would dismiss the charges against Montt.  As it turned out, though, the new judge's first move was to deny Montt's claim of amnesty, so it remains to be seen what'll happen in the end.

Since the hearing was canceled, we decided to wander around and do a little tour of Guatemala City.  At the entrance to the Presidential Palace, an imposing building on a giant square, it became apparent that some event or another was taking place inside.  Curious, we pretended to be members of the press and took our seats in the palace's main courtyard.  We looked wildly out of place.  Everyone else there wore a suit, and I was one of only three or four women in the crowd.  We were among the only gringos. Security people eyed me and my jeans.  

It was only when someone passed around a program that we realized the event we had crashed was the President's unveiling of his new economic policy  -- and that we would hear President Molina himself speak, at close quarters.  And that we did, seated next to various members of congress.

The speech itself wasn't interesting - but what political speech these days is?  President Molina and his advisers spoke only in the vaguest and most general terms about improving the economy, increasing exports, "green" energy, road conditions, and other nonspecific topics.  I listened casually and turned my attention to the architecture.

I've heard various things about Molina since we've been in Guatemala: that he's a war criminal (mostly from American sources), that he's already improved security in the country since taking office very recently (mostly from Guatemalan sources), and that indigenous people fear him even more than they fear Montt (from a single source - my Spanish tutor).  All these competing opinions of Molina aside, it was cool to hear him speak in such an intimate setting.

Eventually, the event reached its conclusion, we attended the nice reception following the event, and a chicken bus took us back home to Antigua.

Next up, perhaps: The Richardson-Royer Parents Come to Play or, alternatively, The Brokenvan (in other words, Will We Ever Get to Honduras?).

Interlude Part II

Without further ado, I present the following:

No further comment necessary.

America is Weird

Last week I ripped myself from our long trip and made my way towards LA via the Houston airport.  It was weird.

Culture shock as defined by Wikipedia is "the personal disorientation a person may feel when experiencing an unfamiliar way of life." I can't say that I experienced a classic case of culture shock as I was returning to a somewhat familiar, if not forgotten, way of life.  I noticed some things upon my return that I never noticed before and the noticing was more like a jaw punch than a "hmm."

Some weird things about America:

1.  People don't say hi like they do down here.  When you walk all but the most crowded streets in the places we've visited in Central America, people say hi.  They mean it, too.  They don't stop at hi either - they say Buenos Dias!  They lift their head and flash a genuine smile and say good day!  You really get the sense that they actually want you to have a good day.  That it would truly please them and help them have a good day if you did as well.  When you walk in a restaurant down here and pass the tables of other diners, you say hello and good evening.  Of course you do, right? You'll be dining with these fine people and it would just be downright rude if you didn't at least acknowledge them and wish them well.  When you depart, you wish them a good appetite. If you are like me and slow to learn just how to do that, you might be considered rude. The diners might wonder why the gringo didn't hope for their good appetite and be perplexed.  I think that the people in the Houston airport were just as perplexed with my well wishes.  Especially the people in the highly corporate and polished restaurant where I dined and wished good appetite upon the set of business travelers enjoying their chicken fingers and very tall beers.  Apparently, my travels have made me weird.

2.  Everything is shiny.  There are many lights and signs, all of them clean and sparkly.  One storefront flows right into the next, with no transitions void of sparkle.  The tops of buildings sport neat rows of tiles or shingles and don't contain shards of rebar that signal the hope of another story when funds become available.  They do look pretty sans rebar though.

3.  You people DRIVE REALLY, REALLY FAST! I got my rental car and despite it appearing to be a compact, energy efficient car of the tin can variety, it apparently actually was a super-charged, nitrous-guzzling beast of a supercar.  It was a good thing, too, because before I merged onto the 101, I didn't know that there was an amateur car race scheduled. I merged into one of the 4 lanes and up to the agreed upon speed of 75 mph while I tried to unglue my eyes from road surface long enough to warn all the other racers of the danger.  "People, watch out!  What are you doing! What if there's a tope ahead and you hit it at this speed?!  What if a washout has left a section of the 101 in shambles ahead?! You'll drive right into it and crash.  The pile-up will be a huge mess of mangled shiny new cars and it'll take weeks for the two cops that show up to sort out the mess of liability." The other drivers didn't listen and even seemed to taunt me in my paranoia by casually sipping gigantic cups of coffee and laughing while talking to themselves with funny illuminated objects stuck in their ears.  I gripped the steering wheel in confusion and fear and tried to keep up with the pack.  I was pretty surprised that we all seemed to finish our portions of the race and find our exits/finish lines without incident.  Weird.

4.  While ads try to tell me what to buy, people don't.  I couldn't understand why when I walked past the fronts of stores, nobody tried to sell me anything.  It was weird.  I walked past a store in the airport and nobody told me about things inside.  Nobody stood at the door and tried to convince me that I needed something there. Did they think that I couldn't afford the shiny things that the store contained? Was the store actually closed? I couldn't understand it.  Do they expect you just to come inside IF you need something? How am I to know that they have great shiny luggage in there without someone to tell me? Even the (very few) vendors I saw on the side of the road (where were they all?) patiently waited for me to stop and purchase their wares.  They didn't even bring them to my window to show me what they had.  There seems to be a complete disregard for salesmanship around America.  Get it together, people! How are you to sell those oranges if you don't get out in the street and get to work! The cars are just passing you by!

5.  I understand many of the things you say in America but I just can't seem to figure out why you have no interest in shrimp and neckties.  People down here seem to talk about those two subjects a lot, but in America, the topics rarely seem to come up at all.  Maybe you're all just a little behind the times and unaware of the hot topics of conversation that are all the rage in the rest of the world.  That's okay, folks.  I never found them very interesting here and have never understood the appeal of the frequent conversations that seem to focus on them.

I returned two days ago to Guatemala and the comfort of the familiar. I experienced no reverse culture shock upon my return.  I found that I was noticed and appreciated by the people that welcomed me into their stores and told me of their wares.  I enjoyed the regular interruption of the transit by the topes that forced my shuttle bus to slow.  I purchased treats through the bus window from bustling entrepreneurs working hard to make sure I didn't go hungry on my trip, and my snack settled as well as the people who wished me buen provecho truly wanted it to.

I enjoyed you, America, even with all your weirdness, but it's nice to be back.