I can’t wait to finish this journey.
I’m sitting at the border between Chile and Argentina, at a no man’s land. Apparently, there is a large truck that is taking up both lanes heading this way.
This is somewhat annoying because I took about an hour at a gas station in Chile before taking off. I know for certain that if I had just filled up and left I would be in Argentina by now, perhaps even in Bariloche. But the fact that they had some food I grabbed for easy lunch on top of free and fast wireless service made the stop so the much inevitable. I also wanted to make sure I understood the currency rate.
Today started out somewhat turbulent enough. Not because anything new happened, but more so because there were 2 things of great magnitude which required my attention. 1) I needed to get money. None of the ATMs worked, and I had been to 3 of them the day before. 2) Getting the reverse gear fixed. This one was a priority, for obvious reasons. I took its presence for granted until now.
Priority #1 got fixed after about an hour of searching. I went into about 3 or 4 gas stations and none of the ATMs there worked for me. I headed into a woodshop store like Home Depot named Easy for no apparent reason other than the fact that it probably had an ATM I could try out. I asked a security guard with a busted nose where it was and voila! After last night’s search and the morning’s frustration worth an hour, I finally found an ATM. I withdrew about $270 worth of Chilean Pesos because I didn’t know when I could get money again.
Priority #2 also got resolved in that it became certain it can’t be solved in a timely fashion. I found a Mercedes dealer workshop with relative ease. The mechanic told me that it will take 5 days and $3000 to fix it. It would require taking out the transmission. Obviously, that’s time and money that I did have but didn’t have the luxury of doing. So I left, not necessarily content but satisfied that I knew what the problem is and the fact that there is no viable solution. I need to be careful where I park from now on.
Selling the car is no longer a viable option. It would have been near impossible to do, but now it’s certain that it won’t happen. No one will take a car with a messed up transmission and an odometer that hasn’t worked in years. So the only option is selling it for parts or simply dumping it, although it may not end up being that simple at all.
I’m thinking a bit ahead now and wondering how the hell I’m going to get my car out of the ferry. I’m sure they have something that they can figure out at the ports, so I probably shouldn’t worry too much.
All these things obviously make this trip that much harder. But if I persevere and make it through all of this, the trip will be that much sweeter. But even though I know that I have gotten further than what most people could even imagine doing, I do not feel like I accomplished much at this point. I don’t think I will unless I reach Ushuaia.
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I drove past the border just fine. The customs guys wanted insurance papers, which apparently, I could have bought right at the Chilean side of the border, some 20 km away through an easy but curvy mountainpass.
I noticed that there was a Hostel International place along the side, and I was immediately thinking about how easy (or difficult) it would be if I parked there. If I did park outside it would have been on an incline, making it easier for me to push the car out. Oh, what a life.
My stomach is giving me a hard time. I think it’s a combination of reasons all of which includes, but are not limited to, 1) Drinking from the faucet yesterday at Holiday Inn because I was thirsty but had $6 worth of cash with seemingly no way of getting cash from ATMs, 2) being stressed out because of the car’s reverse gear malfunction as well as the inability to obtain money, 3) being limited to crappy foods from gas stations, eating hot dogs for brunch and lunch for 2 days in a row, and 4) being very, very cold.