Downtown
We’re making one more trip through Buenos Aires with Simon and M.C. before we continue north.
Following our normal procedure, we break down when carrying passengers. This time at a toll booth right in the middle of the city. We literally pushed the bus through the booth and into a median. Since we were a little preoccupied, we didn’t pay the toll. Five minutes later, the toll booth operator kindly walked up to us with a receipt and asked for her money. I thought there might be some sort of exception for human-powered vehicles, but apparently not.
After 30 minutes of fruitless searching for the problem, the bus just fired right up. We had narrowed it down to the fuel pump (which was squirting fuel when we checked) or a mystery short, but just decided to continue into downtown. You can’t fix it if it ain’t broke. Of course, it broke again. Right as we were pulling into a parking garage downtown. Still not fully convinced, we replaced the fuel pump and it’s been running fine ever since. I’ve carried a spare for almost 3 years, so I’m actually kind of glad it wasn’t for nothing.
Anyway, the ladies decided they needed custom-made leather coats. Apparently, this is a thing to do in B.A. It makes sense for M.C., heading back to Canada. Angela is on her way to sweltering Brazil, but I decided to keep my mouth shut. Happy wife, happy life… right?
Even Bode got in on the act when he found one he liked. “I want this!” as he checked himself out in the mirror. He did look pretty cool, but he would probably grow out of it before we even got to Rio.
My Dad’s Bus had a similar problem on a 600km trip just after we had bought the bus. The Bus would run fine for sometime then would splutter and eventually stall, then start again after waiting for some more time! We thought it was the fuel pump, and even got a new electric fuel pump installed along the way, which did not fix the problem. When we got home we found that the old fuel pump was fine, but the fuel line from the tank was completely blocked with rust/dirt!
Loving the VW poster. Sweet. Enjoy BA, its a gem in Latin America especially La Boca and Recoleta.