ODO: 343,101
Finally, FINALLY, our parts have arrived!! We close up the tent and head into Asuncion. If all goes to plan we should be here for the day, two days tops. Parts pick us is a breeze, and just down the street from the mechanic. Perfect. Marco, the owner of the mechanic shop we pick is very helpful. He takes Berne and our parts to the gear specialist across town to figure out how bad it really is. The gear specialist says tomorrow, no problem. Looks like we get to spend the night in Asuncion. It’s a very modern feeling city, and navigating its streets are very low stress, compared to other Latin American cities. It’s difficult to find a hotel because the Junior PanAmerican Games are in town, but we manage a spot in a hotel that feels like it was the fanciest place in town twenty years ago. Still very charming, though. We receive a pint size bottle of wine as a welcome gift, and they put us in a room with a view on the ninth floor. Across the street is a mall with a Pizza Hut, so we give it a try. Everyone goes to bed with tummy aches.
First thing mid-morning, we head back to the mechanic. The gear guy says our differential 3rd member is in bad shape, so Berne takes a bag of tools, and heads across town to consult. It’s bad. It needs a machine shop. With the exchange rate the way it is, we immediately offer to bribe whoever it takes to get this job going today. And it works! Marco gets us into a machine shop and they start work immediately. Parts will be ready tomorrow, or the next day. Great! We book another hotel night and head out. This hotel has the team from the Dominican Republic staying in it. We walk to Chinese buffet, and then relax for the rest of the evening.
Parade is our alarm clock today. We ingest a mediocre breakfast buffet and Uber back to the shop, cautiously optimistic. Once again, Berne heads across town to inspect the work. While he’s gone, they send a runner for his bag of tools, not a good sign. It turns out things are bad, like, our entire rear differential is broken bad. Which means we’re not going anywhere. We use points to book a nice hotel for the weekend, and try to get parts on order from the USA asap. When we arrive at the hotel (Team Brazil is in this one), it sounds like they do not have a room for us, which is odd for a Marriot. In the end, they find the Oriental Suit for us. This helps us forget a little of the disappointment of earlier. It’s very fancy, and very comfortable, and we get to work enjoying one of the hotel restaurants.
We spend the weekend exploring the hotel. Its a yacht and golf club, so there is a lot of property. And we’re right along the river, which is nice. Fun fact! There are piranhas in the Paraguay River, so we will be staying out of there. This is a nice weekend to stay indoors because it’s very hot and very humid out. We enjoy the Italian restaurant, the Parilla (grill) restaurant, and room service. And we enjoy the sunsets.
One final (delicious) breakfast buffet and it’s time to go get the truck from the shop. We pack up our tools, and limp to the nearest campground. Since we thought we were only going to be gone for the day, we didn’t pack all our stuff when we headed into Asuncion. Our friends are leaving today, so they use an Uber to send us all our things. While that is happening, we are working to try and same day, or overnight parts to the freight forwarder in Miami. Hopefully we can get parts there in time for the flight tomorrow, otherwise its the Saturday flight, and a week the only campground in Asuncion. The campground is a large property on the east side of the city. There are interesting plants, a friendly dog and two horses. One friendly, one not friendly.
Our parts do not make the Tuesday flight. Tracking shows them arriving Wednesday. Nuts. At least Fedex refunds the $500 “get there first thing Tuesday morning” shipping fee we paid. That means we are here for at least ten days…Parts will fly Saturday, and we can retrieve them the following Wednesday. Maybe Tuesday. The wind starts to pick up, and our host tells us we should move out from under the trees. Yikes. The sky is very dark, it feels like its about to be night time but its mid day. Then the rain starts. Big, thick, heavy rain falls on us on and off for the rest of the day. This knocks the internet out more than once. We hunker down. This is where we live until Wednesday. Maybe Tuesday.
