2015, The First Technical Issue

02.01.2015
Journey: Uspallata – Barreal - Calingasta (171 km).

The second of January has been like always the second of Januaries. As usually – the cultural program of the morning, and then let`s see how far can be reached.

The morning's cultural program included first the visit to Cerro Tunduqueral, located 7 kilometres away from Uspallata".


For Estonians Cerro Tunduqueral is a small hill, where one can see several well-preserved petroglyphs or gravings on the rocks








And quite a decent view over the area.


And just next to Uspallata there is a museum , "Museo Las Bovedas".


The building was made in the 18th century by the Jesuits and was used for melting metals.


The museum is small, but here one can find here quite many pictures of petroglyphs of the surrounding mountains.

Next - about a completely different subject. While driving northwards and having made a stop for some times - the left rear axle seemed to be somehow a little warmer. After having found a more shadowy place under a tree - the task was to take the wheel off and try to find out the reason.

And the result of the inspection - the inner feeling had been correct. Inside the half-axis there was a backlash of about 5 millimeters The situation can be described : "All of this has happened before, and all of this will happen again." Now - nothing to think much but to drive to the next gas-station and park the car so that during the next days it would not be on anybody`s way (one can never know how much time the repairs will take), and begin to deal with the case.

The gas station employee said the there was a roadside tire - repair shop about 200 meters from there. Since one picture is better than a thousand words, I took the spare axis with. There was no need for longer talk and the usual procedure could begin. The wheel comes off easily and the brake drum needs more time and skill. After taking off the brake pads the following situation appears.


Locker has turned a little loose, and the nut inside has almost no threads at all.


Probably would not have lasted this way for a longer time.


The ongoing process.


To make the long description short – all the necessary items were changed and at last the wheel was back again.


But now the brakes should be aired. Unfortunately, there is no this kind of a sentence in the Estonian-Spanish pocket dictionary. Nothing of the kind.


After some time this problem was solved too. Namely – during the wheel change more onlookers had gathered and among them there was a man, who understood the problem and knew what must be done. And to be quite sure he gets into the bus himself to pump the brake pedals. Just some minutes and the brakes are back again.




I drive back and will overnight beside the gas station.

The gas stations are open all around the clock, and some food, water for drinking and washing is also available. In the morning it turns out that, as usual, a better and much quieter sleeping place would have been on a hill just behind the gas station.

This time the situation was resolved very well and by the end of the day the car was in order. While driving here one must take into consideration that many roads are extremely dusty here and corrugated and now and then something can get loose. The main issue is to discover the problem in time.

Continued...