Dear All;
Re: Where are you James?
James Robinson is an old friend of mine who Used to hunt me down after a phone call of distress asking for help BECAUSE MY CAR HAD BROKEN DOWN. He always managed to get my car started when i didn't have a clue - and believe me, i used to be a fairly good mechanic. It's just that James was an EXCELLENT GREESE MONKEY.I just finished a 3 day/2 night 4-wheel drive trip across the highest and biggest salt flats in the world here in Bolivia, and then i ventured across southeast Bolivia. A very memorable trip - ie the jeep broke down 15 times. And everytime i kept looking up into the sky and asking the dear Load, ¨Where are you James?¨ The roads were as bad as they come. Our jeep was 17 y.o. and a mess. If it hadn't been for the other jeeps in our caravan, we would of never have made it. We went thru a small water poddle and the engine got wet and stalled on us 3 times. The first tire to go was the only good tire, the rest were totally bald. We enjoyed 3 flats all together. We ran out of gas 3 times because the idiot driving the jeep was a total nincompoop. The last morning we got up and out at 4:30am so as to see some bubbling mud and geysers when the driveshaft went bonkers. Luckily one of the other jeeps had an extra 'female' part that attaches to the axel and we were off for a few more yards when the front wheel bearing went. Great, again someone managed to rebuild one from spare parts. A few more yards and a tire went flat. We finally made it to the geysers and hotsprings which were great for shattered nerves for we still weren't even gone halfway and we still had to get back. On the way back, more flats, we borrowed everyone's spare that were on our expedition, and we even burned up a battery - a first for me. We were only about 50 miles from home base when i could smell sulfur, we had just come from sulfur hotspings so i mentioned it to others in my jeep as we looked around for volcanos. Nope, half'-hour away the jeep broke down again. And i asked the heavens ¨Where are you James?¨We had boiled out all the water and sulfuric acid in the battery. We got within 20 miles of Uyuni, home base, when we ran out of gas for real. We had one jeep that was assigned to us that followed at around a mile behind us who saved our life a dozen times.I'm going down this mountain tomorrow heading for...somewhere. Probably some jungle than onto Argentina.
kendall
