Not your average adventure
Saturday in the words of Arkwright was "a funny old day". 3 of the trucks were planning to meet up to travel to the Argentinean Pantanal in case any of them got stuck on the muddy roads. Plan was for the two Drago trucks to meet the Encounter one where they had camped overnight. This changed when Hugo turned up at our campsite with the Encounter gang. For some reason he then decided to drive past Carmen way off the tarmaced road. One slip and the truck was half in a ditch. Almost looked for one horrible moment as if it was going to tip over onto its side when the wheels lifted. Luckily it did stay on four wheels. Everyone then had to be evacuated off the truck through the drivers door whilst Dave the Hat, Hugo, Dan, Josh, & Aimar came up with a rescue plan. Hugo tried to just drive straight out but slid even further down the bank. Thought we were going to have to call in specialist trucks to get him out, but by using tow ropes from Cameron to hold the Encounter truck upright and Carmen to pull her backwards out of the ditch, they got her back on the road. All of that before 09:30 and that was just the start of the day.
We then all travelled south in convoy and stopped at a petrol station to check the condition of the direct road into the Pantanal. Word was that no traffic had come along it at all that day, so decision was to drive the long way round to Carlos Pelligrini. Long drive but Dan ran a quiz for us in our truck to pass some of the extra hours travelling. Then suddenly Josh braked really hard, Dan flew off the top of the fridge (where he was sitting reading the answers to us). Everyone else was jolted forward in their seats, just in time to see the back of Cameron right up close through the windscreen. Then an enormous crash as we hit the other truck. Most of us ended up on the floor (except for those lucky few who were in the backwards facing seats. John, Uttam and myself collected the truck tables right in the ribs on the way. Fran flew over the top of the handrail by the door and ended up with her elbow wedged in the top of one of the bins. Fortunately we were all very lucky - a few cuts and scrapes. Think Dan came off worst - he had a lot of bruises and scrapes. The 3 of us attacked by the table only ended up with bruised ribs. As far as we know, nothing broken although even 2 days later the pain is still there when I cough, yawn, or do anything that puts pressure on my chest. The force of John and Uttam hitting the table on their side was enough to almost pull it off the wall. Only one of five screws was still in place afterwards.
Apparently a truck in front of Hugo braked suddenly so he braked too. Dave the Hat braked and skidded on diesel & mud on the road. All this through mud up onto the windscreen of Carmen meaning that Josh couldn´t see anything. Once he got the wipers on, he saw Cameron only a few feet away and it was too late to avoid the collision. Drivers side of our truck hit the right rear of the other truck. Carmen was looking in a real sorry way - cab on driver´s side is a complete mess, windscreen gone, radiator also broken, door buckled to 2/3 normal size. Cameron luckier with damage to the back and luggage locker but nowhere near as bad.
End result was that we had an extra bush camp just up the road whilst the crew attempted to do as much work as possible before darkness to make Cameron road-legal, and get Carmen driveable to get at least as far as the next town. All of us ended up getting pretty drunk - the girls drank quite a bit of rum between them just to calm their nerves and then we joined them by consuming most of the beer we had on the truck. Hard work paid off and all 3 trucks set off in a very slow convoy yesterday morning. Decision was taken to skip the Pantanal and straight to Buenos Aires. Means we get an extra day in the city. However we had to leave Carmen behind at a repair shop with Dan and Aimar to try and get enough repairs done to also make her road-legal before we leave BA on Saturday. Means all 24 of us travelled to BA on Cameron with luggage stored wherever possible. Mostly on the roof, a few light things in the back locker and then everything else squeezed into any gap on the truck that was left after squeezing all of us in. Hope they can get Carmen sorted out by the end of the week, but I doubt it. Think we may be heading down to Ushuaia with a full truck. The "bad bus" joining up with the "Saga tour". What happens from then on, I don´t know. Apparently there are 29 people booked to travel from there on to Santiago.
As Hugo kept quoting from the Dragoman brochure "Not your average adventure".
We then all travelled south in convoy and stopped at a petrol station to check the condition of the direct road into the Pantanal. Word was that no traffic had come along it at all that day, so decision was to drive the long way round to Carlos Pelligrini. Long drive but Dan ran a quiz for us in our truck to pass some of the extra hours travelling. Then suddenly Josh braked really hard, Dan flew off the top of the fridge (where he was sitting reading the answers to us). Everyone else was jolted forward in their seats, just in time to see the back of Cameron right up close through the windscreen. Then an enormous crash as we hit the other truck. Most of us ended up on the floor (except for those lucky few who were in the backwards facing seats. John, Uttam and myself collected the truck tables right in the ribs on the way. Fran flew over the top of the handrail by the door and ended up with her elbow wedged in the top of one of the bins. Fortunately we were all very lucky - a few cuts and scrapes. Think Dan came off worst - he had a lot of bruises and scrapes. The 3 of us attacked by the table only ended up with bruised ribs. As far as we know, nothing broken although even 2 days later the pain is still there when I cough, yawn, or do anything that puts pressure on my chest. The force of John and Uttam hitting the table on their side was enough to almost pull it off the wall. Only one of five screws was still in place afterwards.
Apparently a truck in front of Hugo braked suddenly so he braked too. Dave the Hat braked and skidded on diesel & mud on the road. All this through mud up onto the windscreen of Carmen meaning that Josh couldn´t see anything. Once he got the wipers on, he saw Cameron only a few feet away and it was too late to avoid the collision. Drivers side of our truck hit the right rear of the other truck. Carmen was looking in a real sorry way - cab on driver´s side is a complete mess, windscreen gone, radiator also broken, door buckled to 2/3 normal size. Cameron luckier with damage to the back and luggage locker but nowhere near as bad.
End result was that we had an extra bush camp just up the road whilst the crew attempted to do as much work as possible before darkness to make Cameron road-legal, and get Carmen driveable to get at least as far as the next town. All of us ended up getting pretty drunk - the girls drank quite a bit of rum between them just to calm their nerves and then we joined them by consuming most of the beer we had on the truck. Hard work paid off and all 3 trucks set off in a very slow convoy yesterday morning. Decision was taken to skip the Pantanal and straight to Buenos Aires. Means we get an extra day in the city. However we had to leave Carmen behind at a repair shop with Dan and Aimar to try and get enough repairs done to also make her road-legal before we leave BA on Saturday. Means all 24 of us travelled to BA on Cameron with luggage stored wherever possible. Mostly on the roof, a few light things in the back locker and then everything else squeezed into any gap on the truck that was left after squeezing all of us in. Hope they can get Carmen sorted out by the end of the week, but I doubt it. Think we may be heading down to Ushuaia with a full truck. The "bad bus" joining up with the "Saga tour". What happens from then on, I don´t know. Apparently there are 29 people booked to travel from there on to Santiago.
As Hugo kept quoting from the Dragoman brochure "Not your average adventure".
posted by Alan at 6:16 pm
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