I Love Big Blue

"Seriously?" you say, "this twit has been in Ecuador for a MONTH and his first blog post is about the goddamn car?!"

Yes.

You see, the thing is, I love Big Blue. But its not just that. Big Blue represents the near-completion of a nearly 10 year old dream to get to bump around in the Andes, with me at the wheel, of a capable vehicle.

And capable he is. I´m relieved he's not mine, of course, since he´s a bit of a monster. In a comment on my last post Fuller asked if the Land Cruiser was a hybrid. Yes, he is: half gas, half oil. As Stu (our main local contact, a gringo who´s been living here for over 30 years) put it after the usual cloud of smoke poured out of the tailpipe upon startup, "only the innocent believe he was named for his paint job."

Here´s why I love Big Blue: he´s a dinosaur, you see, a relic of an era of automotive engineering I sorely miss. He`s a 1990 with over 460,000 kilometers - and not easy kilometers, no LandCruiser in the Andes has an easy life - and still going strong. The concept of Grocery Getter just doesn´t apply - the lack of power steering alone is getting me into the best shape of my life.

But he´s not perfect. The previous program leaders regard him as something of an AntiChrist after repeated breakdowns, stranding them in the middle of no where. But to me, knock on wood, he´s been nothing but decent.

Recently he was getting alarmingly bad gas mileage - we went 120km on 18 gallons of gas. And the odor of gasoline was stifling. I had fun going to the mechanic with Patricio. Patricio is a bit of a character - he´s an engineer for a local NGO we work with (I almost wrote out the name, but once again FOG (Fear Of Google) scared me away.) and is mighty useful on all matters automotive. He suggested a mechanic, and I followed him there. Patricio has made it abundantly clear that he does not trust Martìn, Stu´s mechanic, and has made it clear that he doesn´t trust him because he´s Italian.

Watching Patricio´s mechanic work in the street outside his house gives a certain appreciation for the simplicity of the machine, as he used only a bent screw driver, a jumbo pair of pliers, one size of wrench, and a hammer for all the work. (I also learned that "pèlicula" doesn´t mean "movie", it means "film". I tried to imagine how using too-light-weight oil would cause a movie to form in the cylinders and allow oil to enter the combustion chamber and burn. Then I figured it out. Maybe now that I know to use heavier oil ol' Big Blue will re-adopt a more innocent connotation of his name).

Anyway, the new injectors for the carburator should clear up the problem with the gas consumption. Apparently they had widened with time and were shooting far too much gas into the cylinders, and gummed up the spark plugs. All this, and bleeding the brakes so I don´t die on the Panamerican, for $30.

Why does any of this matter? Why am I blogging about car repairs? Because I want to, fuck you. And because the horrific gas mileage was a real concern for Big Blue`s range - we are planning a trip to about 5 hours north on the Panamerican to a town called Rio Bamba. But on the return trip we'll descend to the lowlands on the eastern side of the eastern cordillera and, as long as landslides and other wet-season events don´t disrupt our plans, drive back up via a new road (dirt trail), called the Guamote-Macas road, right through the middle of Sangay National Park. This road, like all others in the Andes/Amazon, will bring hopeless and inevitable environmental destruction. But we´ll get to check it out before it does.

And I get to make the trip, through the tropical Andes, in the wet season, at the helm of my very-own-but-belongs-to-someone-else Toyota Land Cruiser.

I love you Big Blue.