Santa Cruz de la Sierra Pt. 2

The following morning we were back at the blockade at 6am and nothing had changed. We waited around an hour to see if anything happened, but it seemed to be pretty set as it was. According to Maps.me and Google, there were dirt roads that bypassed this, and we thought we may as well try them. It was a half-hour detour to get around, and we passed through the toll road, telling them we were trying to get to Samaipata. After looking very confused because we were on completely the wrong road for that, something clicked and he waved us through.

Around half an hour down the road we turned off onto a small dirt road. It got smaller, dustier and lumpier until it stopped at a padlocked gate. The guy behind it did not much care for our predicament and refused to let us through his land. Behind us, someone else was also turned around — we weren’t the only ones trying. There was one more option closer back to the main city, and we drove back to try that one. This time we turned left down a very small road, and the sat nav told me to turn left again through a fence and into a field with not even a footpath, let alone a road. After completing a rather awkward turn at the end in someone’s back garden, we retraced our steps back out. Clearly this was not going to work, and we were both tired, fed up and nearly out of fuel. We decided to head back to our city camp spot and wait it out there. At least it was free and quiet.

After a rather pointless trip, we were about to settle down when someone who worked in the motel opposite came over. He introduced himself as Alfredo and told me he had wanted to speak to us before but had been too shy. Clearly a few drinks at the weekend and a large ball of coca had fixed this, and Alfredo was in full swing. He was kind enough to offer us water — he’d seen us trudging up and down to the park entrance to do our clothes washing during the week — and then he just wanted to talk. After a while I called Lee over in the hope of extracting myself, but it wasn’t meant to be. Not wanting to be rude, we tried to make conversation. It was a little hard to understand him through the huge wad of coca. Lee made excuses and went back to cooking dinner, much to the delight of Alfredo that the man of the house was cooking. In his glee, a trail of green spit and a few errant coca leaves dribbled down his chin, of which he appeared blissfully unaware. I made it through until dinner was ready and then politely managed to leave.

The following day was also a social one. It appeared that in our hurry to get back to the roadblock, we had left the generator by the side of the road. This was a bit annoying, but considering it didn’t work and that I could buy another cheap one for the price of fixing it, it probably didn’t matter too much. We didn’t have much to do as we had meant to leave, but at least driving had pulled our batteries back up. Lee was sitting outside in the sun while I was inside when a car pulled up. It was an official-looking car, like the security guards often drive, and we thought we were going to be told to leave. In actual fact, they were locals responsible for the upkeep of the park and they were delighted we were here. They asked us if we’d film a short video saying how nice the spot was and how much we liked Santa Cruz, which seemed like a small price to pay for a week of free camping.

The final visitor of the day was another truck, this time with two women. One of them, Janet, also had a YouTube channel where she apparently cooks a lot of meat. She was very excited to meet us and wanted to do a video for her channel. She also invited us to her house, which we tried to turn down gently — we were really done with social for the day. Instead, she said she’d come back tomorrow and cook us a huge chunk of meat on the barbecues in the park. We told her we’d have to see if the blockade lifted or not and agreed to keep in touch.

While we had been waiting, I had tracked down a shop that sold Subaru parts. They were second-hand, but we decided it might be worth a try to swap the alternator. After all, this one had been second-hand at the start and had done a lot better than it was currently doing. With this in mind, we set off the following morning. After constantly checking the roadblock status, that morning had surprised us with good news — apparently it had finally been lifted. We decided we’d go get another alternator, possibly meet Janet for lunch, and then head out.

Santa Cruz has got to be one of the best cities to drive in out of all the Latin American countries so far. For a start, it’s got no hills or horrible junctions, meaning Google can’t unexpectedly divert you up a ridiculous hill in the middle of a one-way system you can’t escape from. It’s laid out in a very planned and neat way, a series of expanding ring roads around the city centre. This means it’s also pretty easy to navigate, with its series of roundabouts and crossroads. I had yet to reach a junction where I had absolutely no idea how it worked, something that is often common in big cities. This meant we generally arrived at places a whole lot less angry and stressed than normal — a pleasant change. The only thing causing me problems today was the occasional smell of burning rubber. It seemed to be following us, but then it disappeared completely and I couldn’t tell if it was coming from the van or not.

We pulled up outside the Subaru shop and asked if he had any alternators. I knew they did because I’d already spoken to them via WhatsApp. He shook his head, clearly thinking these idiots in a VW bus had gone to the wrong shop. After some coaxing, when explaining clearly wasn’t working, we got him out from behind the desk and showed him the engine. Suddenly it all became clear — we had a Subaru engine. After a while, he found us an alternator and we swapped it there on the driveway to see if it was any better. It did indeed seem to be putting out a better voltage, so we went ahead and left it in. The bad news was that we had found the source of the burning rubber smell. In a not-so-unexpected turn of events, the failure which we had experienced and repaired back in Ecuador had now occurred on the other side of the chassis.

Clearly we would not be barbecuing with Janet this afternoon. We gingerly drove to the only marked VW mechanic, hoping that the last bit of metal held. We met Joselo outside his shop and he waved us inside after we showed him the problem. While it was more of a welding thing than a VW thing, it did require some disassembly, and as the rear suspension is not that of a normal car, we felt a VW guy might be a better shout. It turns out we were horribly wrong, and I watched possibly the worst job I’d ever seen unfold.

We pulled Ruby up into his higgledy-piggledy workshop and he allocated the other guy to taking it apart. The other guy was about to get properly stuck into removing the drum brakes and undoing the rear hub nut (both of which were totally unnecessary) before Joselo at least intervened and took it apart. He told us he wasn’t the welder, but that the welder would come. Before too long, the welder did indeed arrive. He didn’t have a welder with him, just a gas torch and a small piece of wire. I’m not entirely sure what he was doing — it looked more like brazing than welding. One thing I knew for sure is that to repair something like this you don’t just fill the gap with wire.

To make matters even worse, they didn’t bother to bend the torsion tube back into place. Apparently the welder said it was fine and Joselo was happy to let him get on with it. The moment that tipped me over the edge was when I smelt the internal rubber suspensions bushes burning. I told them this wasn’t okay — they had welded it on at an angle and were also burning the suspension bushes. They waved me away. It would be fine with the weight on it, they said. Even though anyone with half a brain could tell you that weight would make it worse. What does the crazy lady know about cars anyway? I sent Lee in to try in the vague hope they’d listen to a man. They did not. The welder finished and left. I was later outraged to find out how much Lee had paid him for this complete joke of a job.

Then they put it back together and set us outside to “try it”. I was incredibly angry at this point and Lee took it on a lap of the block. He arrived back with the wheel about to fall off, as they hadn’t done up the nuts and the shock absorber was jammed on the tyre. Joselo waved a thumbs up at us. I shook my head and showed him underneath, explaining the tyre was touching the shock absorber. He shrugged and agreed it was a bit close.

“IT. IS. TOUCHING! WE. CAN’T. DRIVE!” I shouted at him.

Reluctantly he pulled the car back into the workshop, while making ridiculous excuses about the torsion bars. It was a Saturday after all, and that was clearly more on his mind. I told him to fit washers on the top two bolts of the suspension arm. This would throw out the camber angle and make it driveable. Seeing as it had been welded in the wrong place, there wasn’t much else to do. I suppose the only good thing in this situation was that I knew that weld would fail anyway, and then we’d be able to do it properly — not that you can really call that “good”.

Soon, because he clearly wanted to get out of there, he had adjusted the camber angle and actually put the wheel on. He seemed proud of it almost. He told me that the problem was the fault of the locating point for the torsion bars in the tube and we needed to fix that. I told him that all we needed to do was find a competent mechanic and that should be enough. This didn’t make him very happy and he then tried to charge us 150bs for this. He didn’t try to argue when I told him he was lucky to get 100bs and we drove off.

We were in two minds — it was a terrible repair and it would definitely not last, but on the plus side we were out of there. In the dark, we left Santa Cruz and headed for a nice-sounding little campsite just before the village of Samaipata.

Fortunately it was only just over an hour, though it took far longer due to some steep mountain roads. Nevertheless, we arrived at a time where we could still get in. A little old man, Juanito, saw us coming and met us at the gate. We asked if we could camp and he went off to check with his wife — clearly the boss — if this was okay. They asked if we had pets, as apparently their dog wasn’t very friendly, but we said it was fine and they let us drive into their back garden on a perfectly manicured lawn through some apple trees. We plugged our dying batteries in and collapsed in a heap for the night, enjoying the cooler temperatures that accompanied the altitude gain.