2 Diesels, 4 Continents (1 Viewer)

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Greetings Coen, I certainly did get the details. Thanks so much for that. Saddly I ran out of time in La Paz. I am in Copocabana now getting ready for the truck blessing ceremoney tomorrow! Fingers crossed that I won't have any issues entering Peru on Monday

Worried because we are Right Hand Drive and also because we are crossing through a small border and need to get the insurance. Hope I can find it on the border!

Here are a few pics from the trip.

Mika lying in a pile of drying coca leaves

Mika also hadn't had a chance to sleep in the tent. So she insisted that it be erected in the street. At which point she promptly crawled in and took a nap on the mean streets of La Paz.

Here is us crossing the world's highest navigable lake, lake titicaca. Tough to get a good shot because the ferry only holds 2 cars. Can't quite get back far enough to get it all in!
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RHD: to my knowledge you would be allowed to transit (read: temp import doc) the countries. The law that prohibits RHD vehicles is clearly meant for locals importing cheap Japanese cars. You must have seen the shops in La Paz that convert RHD's into LHD's? I expect similar things going on in Peru, although I have not been there yet.

Keep us posted!
 
So we made it into peru just fine and have been here for a week.

Just got our windshield smashed by a rock from a passing bus. Is it normal for the entire thing to shatter like it did?

Of course we were in the middle of nowhere and driving in a convoy of 18 wheelers through a mine...

Had to drive with my head out of the window until we could find a safe spot to pull over.

Made the executive decision and cut a hole in the window...
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Here is the handy work and the way we drove for the rest of the night...

oh, btw we were at 14,000' and it was cold as h***!

And then we came across this gem of a bridge... When it rains it poors

The next day we pulled the rest of it out. We had to drive 200kms with no windshield.

Just Raybans and headsets. to be honest surprisingly little wind comes in, less than if the windhsield had been there and you had the windows down. Sure your still pulling bugs out of your teeth but it wasn't as bad as you would have guessed.

Now we are in "town." 6,000 people can't be wrong right, well. Its sunday, we found a glass shop and will be there first thing in the morning. Its a building supply glass shop, hope they have tempered glass. Can't roll around with a plate glass window...

Would be great to find some polycarb but I'm not hopeful...

Any thoughts would be much appreciated!
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yes, i have seen that on a 70 sereis windshield that Ratpuke owned.
before then i had thought it was all a wives tale, first time i seen it on a 40 shield since usually it is just laminated flat glass...
 
Been there done that. Like Crushers mentioned, the window in my BJ73 shattered like that. I drove home in a Spring snow storm (1.5 hrs) and was impressed that the windshield wipers functioned semi-well over the shattered glass. Everything remained intact until I parked, got out and shut the door. The pressure on the windshield was too much and it finally broke - getting glass out of the vents proved to be quite difficult.
 
Hey guys, just a quick update. Drove another 160kms without the sindshield to the major city of Arequipa, Peru. The price for the windshield (installed) started at $35 but after two price changes it ended up being $88 USD. At the end of the day its fine, they did a good job and its better than it was before. I mean before it broke :)

What is amazing is that the overly attentive Peruvian police let us through multiple checkpoints sans-windshield. This never happens!

Being a foreigner and driving in Peru, so we have been told, equates to common bribes.

Add to that driving your own vehicle

Add to that your vehicle is RHD

you get the idea...

Somehow, being a gringo, driving your own RHD rig with no windshield... they stopped us, asked us where we were going and didn't even want to see our paperwork, just waved us through. It was like Star Wars "These aren't the droids your looking for," (wave of hand)

Not to jinx it, but we are 17,000kms into a 20,000km trip through south america and have paid exactly $0.00 in bribes. amazing!

How do you do it, as Coen can tell you, got to hit the truck blessing ceremony in Copacabana, Bolivia! I let my mom jingle out the truck for me, she's a fan :)
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^^^ Ageed!

I just "act" really dumb when they pull me over and keep saying...que...que to the policia and eventually wave me through. :D

-Daniel

Sent from deep in the mountains of Honduras using only sticks and rocks.
 
Great, so I see your mother enjoyed Bolivia as well! Nice work on the windshield. I see some guys driving around with wire mesh or chicken wire, in the hope of not catching a stone. Madness I tell you. That's when a stone for sure will hit your headlights or the radiator or something worse... ;-)

Adventurous greetings,
Coen
 
South America = A Continent?

Greetings guys.

So here is a question.

I was always taught that South America was a Continent, as well as North America, Europe, Asia, Australia, Africa and Antartica, in total that makes 7, right?

...

Well, My Co-pilot (German) and several people here in Colombia have told me that there are in fact only 6 continents, that North and South America are in fact one continent.

This became a bit of an issue when we made our way to Punta Gallinas, the Northernmost point of South America...

Since, it seems, that only North Americans view South America as its own continent, that many people don't see a point in making the trek to the Punta Gallinas. I mean, it would be like going to the northern most point of say... Ohio, who cares right?

Add to this the fact the NE Colombia is notorious, even by Colobian standards for being wild and lawless. Full of indigenous people and crap roads.

Well, we found the indigenous people (Very nice) and the crap roads, (Got Stuck) and finally made it to the top, a day late.

So let me know, am I the only one that thinks South America is a Continent, or are there only 6?

The pic below is about 5 min before I got REALLY Stuck. A real sleeper of an obstacle, dry and dusty on top, then patches of super thick clay and super dry sand. So while two Mud Terrains were busy spinning on the clay, the other two were digging a hell of a hole.

What I needed was an anchor to get out, Would have been great holding in the clay, and the winch would have had me out in no time. Trying to dig a hole big enough to sink the hi-lift or the spare...

I tried, but by the time I got started on the clay I had attracted a critical mass of locals who pushed me out. Then asked for money, Auspiciously I had just bought 10 beers so we were all good.

Oh, and here is the kicker. I was frustrated and was thinking of calling it a day and heading for a near-by beach town when my co-pilot said:

"Hey, nothing happened, we didn't break anything, we just lost 3 hours, lets keep going!" Tough to argue with that logic. Especially from a chica!
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yeah, I am so subscribed to this
 

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