Santander, Colombia
Sixty kilometers to go.
“C’mon baby, don’t quit on me now. One more hill… please.” Think of the steepest mountain road you’ve driven in America. Double it. That’s what the roads are like in South America.
My transmission was toast. But we were only sixty kilometers from Bucaramanga. A large city that was sure to have a wide assortment of mechanics and parts to choose from. I’d already milked more than a hundred miles from it in it’s current state. If I could just will it…
Ultimately my will was overmatched by the steepness of the road and our five and a half tons. On a steep, twisty, narrow section of road the game ended. It was official. Our overlanding nightmare had become a reality. We were broken down in a second and a half world country. No cell signal. No workshop. Shit we were at least a couple dozen kilometers from the nearest little town.
The next few minutes were chaos. I tried to get to the side of the road, but there was no side, only a vertical drop of several hundred feet. Traffic backed up behind us. Kids instantly appeared trying to sell us things. Enormous trucks barreled down on us from above.
Obviously, the only option was to go back down. Making a U turn on a narrow major mountain highway filled with lunatics driving twenty-five ton semis is one thing. Doing it with a fried transmission and a fifteen foot trailer, that turns every three point turn into a thirty point turn, that’s another.
Happily for us, our friends Donna and Okan @driventowander were following. They calmed the traffic behind us. The semi drivers I was blocking came up to offer me advice. The merchant kids gave us a push. Suddenly everyone wanted to help.
We gave our least favorite child the dangerous mission of going up the road and slowing the oncoming semis that were easily doubling the speed limit. Then I s l o w l y coaxed my rig into going back the other way. Once pointed downhill my transmission problems were irrelevant.
Stuck between enormous mountain passes, with the sun setting, our immediate problem was where to spend the night. All along I’d known our chances of making it to the city were tenuous at best, so I’d kept my eyes peeled for a possible place to emergency camp. There was a restaurant at the bottom of the grade.
For the price of a dinner, they agreed to let us camp in their parking lot. Sleeping and dinner solved. We were ahead of schedule. The conversation returned to repairs. But the next step was to somehow get our truck and trailer out of the mountains. I might find a tow for the truck. But not for the truck and trailer.
Donna and Okan again sprang to the rescue. They’d followed us to the restaurant to make sure we made it. Assured of our safety, they were moving on to a more suitable campground, but generously agreed to return the next morning to pull the trailer out. That really saved our ass! Now I just needed a tow for the truck.
Here began the most serendipitous series of events. While eating dinner, which was excellent by the way, I was explaining our situation to the owner. A man seated at the table next to us came over and introduced himself. He was… you guessed it, the owner of a tow truck. He inspected my truck and assured me he could get us out. Seventy kilometers. Three more high mountain passes. Total cost – $120.
Escape From Which Mountain
Early the next morning Okan returned for the trailer. The tow truck showed up a few minutes later… on time. That never happens in theses parts. Things seemed to be looking up. Until I saw his truck. Holy shit… I doubted he could even load my rig let alone drag it out of the mountains.
Throughout the loading he was sweating profusely. It was hot, but not that hot. I could feel his stress. But credit where credit is due, he somehow he got my truck onboard and secured. The drive began. It was slow going. Those seventy kilometers took more than three hours. My truck looked to be in danger of falling off his bed so many times, I stopped looking in the rear view mirror.
We had plans to camp at a family fun center a few miles outside of Bucaramanga that was owned by a family we’d become friends with. This place wasn’t a camp per se, but it had big grassy parking lots. Plenty of room for us.
I was a little worried when we arrived. No one is thrilled to see a car towed into their parking lots. Campgrounds and RV parks in the states won’t even let you in. We weren’t in the states. They welcomed us with open arms.
Within an hour of our arrival we were set up in a beautiful shady spot. The kids had volunteer positions helping the staff of the park operate a go cart track, zip lines, a climbing wall, and petting zoo. It was impossible to imagine that less than twenty-four hours earlier our status appeared so bleak.
NOW we could start thinking about repairs. After we broke down Okan posted a question to a traveling facebook group asking about the odds of having the transmission of a full sized US pickup repaired in Colombia. “Can’t be done”, read the responses. No parts. Shady labor. If I thought getting out of the mountains was tough… the repairs portion of the program looked to be barely possible.
Can We Fix It? Yes We Can.
Early the next morning I started looking for a mechanic. But not just any mechanic. Since it seemed likely we’d have great difficulty finding exactly everything we’d need. I was looking for someone who could conjure up solutions to the problems we were sure to face… a transmission artist.
I got a promising lead who had a shop a few kilometers away and set off to grab a bus but our host at the park where we were camped insisted on coming along to help. She recommended a taxi instead. It’s funny how sometimes the simplest of decisions can have the greatest impact.
Enter Luis, our taxi driver. I explained our situation and who we wanted to visit first. He, of course, had someone better. This is always the case. But since his guy was on the way I agreed. We drove for five minutes and Luis stopped in front of two guys dismantling a car in the street. They had no garage. No workshop. All they had was a collection of tools and a plastic tarp for some shade. “These guys will fix your problem”, Luis assured me.
None of us were convinced. Mostly in the spirit of “why the fuck not” I got out and explained our problem to them. Repairs are more complicated when your vehicle is also your home. You either camp in their shop or get a hotel. Neither is an attractive option. These two offered to fix our car where it was and while we supervised. I was interested.
We worked out a deal. They tear the transmission down and diagnose the problem for $150. If… IF I like the way it goes we negotiate another deal. It was already close to noon, I figured the fun would begin the next day. I was wrong. We immediately drove back to my truck. Within an hour the transmission was on the ground. Two and a half hours later it was dismantled and diagnosed. I was impressed. We worked out a deal. Rebuild and installation $300.
After a few questions I found out that these guys were Venezuelan refugees who had only been in Colombia for two weeks. They were formerly mechanics in Venezuela, complete with a garage and workshop, for twenty-five years. Their specialty… full size US pick ups. The current crisis in Venezuela had rendered their business worthless.
The next mission was to find the parts. Luis drove us into Bucaramanga and we spent the next two hours canvassing auto parts alley. A roughly ten by ten block section of the city that specializes in… oh you’re good… yes, auto parts. A master key, or complete rebuild kit was we were after, and we couldn’t find one. There were, it appeared, several kits scattered about the country and every one of them had been cannibalized. We would need to cobble them together into a kit that fit our needs.
For four days Luis drove us into the city to pick up our ordered parts. We’d take them back to the truck and check for correctness. Then back to the city to return what was wrong and reorder.
Finally, after five days and nearly a dozen trips into the city we had everything we needed. We crossed our fingers as the mechanics brought our adventure back to life. It fit perfectly.
For $1600, including Luis’ services, we did what the Facebook “experts” said couldn’t be done. And we had a great time doing it. Luis became a great friend. He extended his hospitality to us in many ways including hosting a feast for us at his house the day before we left where Carson had his first cup o joe ever.
We faced one of our top overlanding nightmares and, as is commonly the case, found it unworthy of the fear we had allocated to it. The whole experience showed us how much we’ve grown on our adventure. Adversity used to tear us apart. Here we didn’t find it to be a threat. It was a challenge that united us.
One plot line here is the nature of life in general. If any one of those series of events had been different. If I had broken down on the next pass, or if the tow truck driver hadn’t been eating at the restaurant where we were shipwrecked, or I had taken a bus instead of a taxi, or the driver of that taxi had been someone other than Luis. Things may not have worked out so well. But life being what it is, an interconnected series of lives and events that no one has control over, that tow truck driver was at our restaurant, we took a taxi, and the driver was Luis
The Poverty of Wealth
The wider narrative is how this belief in “right” answers limits us. No one in the land of right answers could see a way for us to effect repairs properly. But with the “right” answer unavailable to us we had no option but to improvise. Our new transmission is working great. Yet my mechanic friends who live in the States still insist that it’s not “right”. Because we didn’t follow the book. This is how having everything robs you of creativity.
In the states no one would think of combining parts because no one needs too. Parts are fucking everywhere. Worst case scenario… you wait two or three days for your Amazon delivery. So no one pushes the envelope. But in the second and third world… fuggedahboudit. If you stick to the exact right parts dogma here, if you don’t take some chance, you’re dead in the water for weeks… maybe even months. Necessity really is the mother of inverntion.
I call this the poverty of wealth. When you have everything there’s no need to invent. No need for imagination or creativity. Shit, there’s barely a need to think. Go to the book. Get the part.
So we stomp around the world certain that there is one right way to do things. It’s why the first world spins off so many perfectionists. A personality type that doesn’t exist in the third world because there is no illusion of perfection here. Lateral thinking is the order of the day… every day. The successes here come from embracing imperfection. Like millions of little MacGuyvers, these people can cobble together random pieces of shit into things that would blow your mind.
So don’t let your worries about breaking down stop you from driving the America’s. If I can figure it out, so will you. But if you’re a member of the perfectionist clan, I recommend you start your overlanding adventure in first world countries. Your proximity to auto parts and good hospitals will help with your insomnia.