Back to Vanlife

The three months we had planned at home to work had turned into four and almost five, as each day passed, surprisingly we noticed we were torn between the comforts of home and the open road. Nonetheless, excited for what lay ahead and packed up and ready to go we started our 30+ hour journey from Denver, Colorado back to Ibarra, Ecuador where we had left Dolores safely at Finca Sommerwind.

We were delighted to find her safe and sound!

Getting right into it we found a place to do the work that needed to be done to the van. A shop had agreed to let us replace the water pump in their space. While George was removing the timing belt pulleys a terrible thing happened – one of them slipped and fell to the concrete below. Upon impact, one of the teeth broke off.

Since we were in a country where Subarus are not sold this was an extremely unfortunate twist of fate. The likely hood of us being able to get access to this essential part for our motor in Ecuador for the right year and make was about 2%. So George gave it a Hail Mary and installed the broken tooth part. With everything back together it was exciting when the motor turned over for the first time. However, after running for a few minutes and sputtering to silence, and then not turning over again despite our persistence, the actuality of the 2% was all over our faces.

Hearing our trouble the jefe mechanic came over to see what we silly gringos were doing wrong. When we explained the issue to him, without hesitation he pulled his phone out of his pocket and made a call. He told us he had a friend with two Subaru motors and that we’d have the part tomorrow morning. We couldn’t believe our luck and kept asking questions to make sure we understood correctly, “You have a friend that has Subaru motors here in Ecuador? It’s the EJ 2.2 motor? It’s from the 90’s?”
“Yes, yes, yes. Sorry he can’t bring it now, but he has to go to Quito tonight.”

At that moment Hans, the owner of Finca Sommerwind campground where we were staying, walked up. He said he had seen the van as he was driving by and wanted to make sure everything was ok. Since Dolores was in no shape for driving, he offered us a lift back to his place where he made sure we were comfortable in one of the beautiful bungalows they have on site. Despite our predicament, we couldn’t help thinking about how much we loved the people in Ecuador.

After a hot shower we fell asleep mid conversation about what to do if the part didn’t show, it wasn’t correct, etc. That 2% was still dancing around in our heads.

The next morning after yet another lift to the van from Hans we barely had enough time to make coffee before the part arrived (all those times waiting around in Mexico had us super impressed with the Ecuadorian timeliness). Giullermo, the jefe mechanic, his team and George got right to work. First they all celebrated because the part looked exactly the same as the broken part, but it had one extra tooth. 3 is better than 1 right? Upon install, sadly the answer was no. But not to worry, George had a Dremel tool and was excited to use it. After a few short minutes, with a large crowd of excited hombres using power tools 3 teeth turned to 2 and the modified part was back in the engine. A quick turn of the key reveled success!

The next day, the van was running but still overheating – grrr. While George, at a different shop specializing in radiators, flushed our radiator I hung out with the kids before they headed off to school. That night we tore apart the dashboard and installed a new blower fan, only to discover that there was a problem at the fuse relay. We had crossed 2 of the 4 mechanical projects off the list and we were 3 days behind our anticipated schedule. Right on par for vanlife.

That night we found a special on plane tickets to the Galapagos. Normally tickets run about $1000+ for two people, during this time of year the average was about $2000. We found tickets that were just under $500 for both of us. Only down side, the flight left in two days in the morning from Guayaquil, about 450 miles on Ecuadoran roads away. If we wanted to make it we would have to leave early in the morning and do a big long day of driving that would likely spill into the morning our flight departed. We decided the remaining van projects could wait, bought our tickets and packed the van for an early morning departure.