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Or some mishaps, more than 3,000km, before reaching Washington we had to change the alternator.
We don't know if it was because of that but we bought a car charger that has two USB ports and two sockets, we went with everything to charge: camera battery, cell phone, powerbang and computer. Suddenly, it stopped giving, we thought it had been our super charger. Okay, we bought another one. But after a short time, the “check engine” light appeared on the dashboard. Damn-break-this-shit! As we were at the nationals it was easy to stop and we asked a kid, just over 16 years old, where there was a mechanic nearby. He was super helpful and told him where it was and even called his father to see if it was still open. It ended up taking us there. The mechanic saw right away that it was the alternator. We went to the nearest village to buy one, the van drove without any problems, we slept there and the next day we went back to the mechanic. He changed the alternator, checked all the fluids, reassured us that the engine noise was fine.
Perfect, we're on our way.
We walked south, our mission was to go to Ashville, North Carolina, and then to New Orleans. Shortly after we passed Washington, we had not yet reached 4,000 km, we felt that the mammoth was starting to shake a lot in the lower gears. As we were doing a lot of climbs, that was scaring us.
It was Saturday, we stopped at a place with several trailers, and a gentleman kindly came to us. We told him what we were worried about and he quickly saw what the “U-joint” was, a piece that helps bring changes to the back. He said that we could go to the nearest village but that we should change there. They didn't charge us anything for the diagnosis. We arrived and bought the part, went to a mechanic who indicated us at the store who changed the part on the same day. But we liked the village, it was small, with several local restaurants and we felt like staying overnight there.
The next day, we took a long time to leave, it was Sunday. We went to lunch some wonderful meatballs and see the life of the village. We got out, and we must have done 10km, the mammoth started shaking all over, we stopped immediately. We saw that it was not going to be possible to continue and that the mechanic had done a bad job. It was exactly the same problem, but now it was even worse, because it wouldn't even let us go, the pipe was all on the floor.
Towing was the solution. I look at the phone: no networks available. Damn-break-this-shit #2! Little civilization, we went to a trailer park, we managed to talk to a gentleman who tried to help us but on Sunday: everything closed. The woman came to call him because we were interrupting their lunch. We only had to walk: 10 km to the village. We tried to get someone to stop, no one.
We started walking, found a health center and went to ask for a taxi to be called: Sunday, there are no taxis, the receptionist told us. There is a gentleman who realizes that we need a ride and takes us to the village. We went to the store where we had bought the part, they try to talk to the mechanic. He says he's not in town. They call us a trailer that first comes to pick us up and then goes with us to the mammoth. We spent Sunday night at the mechanic's door. In the morning, solve the problem for us. It says that the part we had purchased came defective. Promise us it won't happen again. We continue our journey, we forget about Ashville, we want to get to New Orleans. We drive onto the highway and we see it go by: North Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi, ... in every state we leave the highway at least once to see something that makes the miles worth it.
We have reached 5,000 and we hope that the mammoth continues to show its courage.
