What next?

On February 20 in Iquique, Chile we discovered piston #1 of our motor was no longer fully functioning. Two things were clear:

#1 - we fully understood why we had such trouble in Bolivia, which you might remember from here (one of the reasons we started looking into our engine issues in the first place).

#2 - it was total crap shoot of what to do next.

All of the parts (head gaskets, piston rings, etc.) needed to repair the motor are not easily accessible in Chile. We started by looking for a new motor, but turns out our engine (Subaru ej22) is not imported to Chile because of the taxes on engine size. So we looked for a similar motor but in the end found out the similar motor (Subaru ej20) was too different to work without significant changes to the wiring harness.


With our options exhausted on the motor search in Iquique and our friend Metzler headed to Santiago we told him what parts we needed to repair Dolores' heart and decided we'd take a stab a tearing her apart. 

With that plan we took to the Atacama Desert really slowly with our fingers crossed that we would make the 1,000 mile trip in three days. After all, what could go wrong while crossing the continent’s largest desert and driest desert in the world in a 33-year-old vehicle running on three cylinders?

Metzler’s flight ended up being cancelled and we hung out north of the city for three days surfing, fishing and sleeping at gas stations while we waited to collect him and the parts that could potentially help to send Dolores and us south to Ushuaia. Surprisingly, it was a good thing his flight was delayed a day; it took until minutes before his flight left for all of our parts to arrive.

With Metzler on the ground, and parts in hand, we all agreed it’d be best to have a Subaru mechanic do the work. However, after multiple tries it was finally clear that the Subaru mechanics needed the car’s VIN number before they could perform any work. And since our VIN number was a VW they couldn't make it happen. We couldn't understand why head gaskets had anything to do with VIN numbers and thought surely we were missing something trying to understand the fast Chilean Spanish.



After a day and a half of talking to mechanics we decided to shift to plan C of plan B, which was to perform the work ourselves, by putting our best carpenter and internet cop on the job. We just needed a place to do the work, which meant more mechanic chats.



Meet: Carpenter and Internet Cop

By chance as we were getting gas, in English, someone asked us if we really drove all the way from Colorado. During our quick chat Gato told us that he was restoring a Series III Land Rover and a Datsun 510. Little did we know at the time but over the next few days he and his family would drastically impact our adventure. Silvia and Alberto, Gato’s parents, welcomed us in to their home like family and gave us every advantage to be successful at the task of rebuilding Dolores' heart. We ate three wonderful meals a day with the whole family and we were unbelievably grateful for their kindness and support. Gato’s niece, Maite, the 1 1/2 year old, stole our hearts with her wide-eyed curiosity and newfound love of the flash tattoos we gave her! Gato drove us on runs for parts and shared wonderful stories about his travels.



In a time that could have been very rough, we found ourselves laughing about cultural differences, idiocies of learning a new language, things that are the same in all cultures and eating fabulous Chilean food that we were unable to find in any restaurant. For two days George and Metzler worked tirelessly in the driveway in front of their apartment sized RV (that they insisted we stay in while we were there). We all cheered when the motor went back together and started for the first time. After the motor work was done, Silvia insisted she give George a much-needed haircut in the carport with the whole family watching.

As it became time to leave they asked us when we were coming back. It was too hard to say we weren’t – I liken it to telling your Grandma you won’t be around for Christmas ever again. I don’t know if Silvia and Alberto have any idea how much them welcoming us into their family there meant to us. They rescued us. We had an amazing experience while getting Dolores road worthy. As we all hugged and said our goodbyes, and even now as I write this, I got all choked up – there just aren’t enough words to express our gratitude.

It wasn’t all-tearful – Gato grabbed his girlfriend, Macarena, and they headed south with us for a few days! We went to Matanzas that night, stayed at the nicest campground of the trip and laughed around the campfire until the early hours of the morning. The next day we headed to Pichilemu and we all enjoyed ice cream while George surfed. Gato was planning a trip around South America in his restored Land Rover and we realized over the course of a few conversations that we were going to be in Argentina during the same time, so we made plans to see him again - such is life on the road.

It all seems oddly serendipitous – our van breaks in the only country in South America that imports Subarus, right before a friend from the states who loves to fix things comes to visit us, and we happen to be getting gas when a super friendly mustachioed man (with the nicest Chilean family) stopped to chat for a second.