26th December 2012

One of the many silos to be seen along the route

Relay Antenna

 Well, since we arrived two days ago, we ate very late on Monday evening.

Yesterday, Christmas day started off by Claire going to Mass. We had been told on the Monday evening that there was a service at 10:00 and 12:00 and the plan was to turn up for the early one. She did that and arrived in plenty of time for it, only to discover that it had actually started at 09:00, she was given incorrect advice. Eventually, in a neighbouring church at 11:00hrs she managed to get Mass. Upon returning to the camper, Jan and she spent most of the day on the Internet cleaning up files and web based address books. Photographs taken between 21st and 24th December were all uploaded onto the computer for use later on. For us, a typical maintenance day on board. All around us was closed, no shops or restaurants open at all. We ate in the camper ourselves on Christmas evening. Except for 1 or 2 text messages we were not in contact via email or Skype with anyone back in Europe.

The start of the vinyards about 100km east of Mendoza

The plan for today, was to get some maintenance done on the camper before we cross over the Andes Mountains. Today, we left our overnight spot in Maipu and went in search of this ‘mechanic’ that Jan had some information about, it transpires that the lead did not produce positive results. We tried several more places (tips given to us by locals) however they all proved to be non productive. Finally we ourselves came across a ‘Scania showrooms and maintenance facility’. Jan made some enquiries here and they are doing the work for us. We have to provide of own filters but they have all the workshop facilities and mechanics to do the job. While this is being done, Claire is updating the blog, Jan is with the mechanics out at the camper.Well, Jan has just come into the reception area where Claire is, only to inform her that he fell of the ladder into the camper and landed on the floor of the workshop, he has a variety of cuts and quite a bit of bruising, he also hit his head. On a quick examination, he has wounds on his arm, elbow and several on one of his legs in the shin area. He is all plastered up now, I think he will survive……