Getting ready… Again…

22 of March we returned to Montevideo airport at 06:00 a.m. – tired after more than 15 hours flight from Barcelona via Bogota to Montevideo. But to our great surprise, Florencia and Ricardo, our friends from Atlántida, were there to meet us, give us a warm welcome, including some breakfast and homemade cookies. And they even took us to UY-Parking where our Land Cruiser had been resting for a year.

As we were about to commence this final leg of our South America journey, the support we got from our Uruguayan friends really warmed our hearts, encouraged us and helped us make up our minds during this critical (due to hesitation and uncertainty) initial part of our back-on-the road story.  

The vehicle had not only been on a 12 months’ vacation, but it had also recently gone through a technical “facelift” including changing oils and filters, checking the brakes, tightening screws and mounting new Pirelli AT-tires. We also installed a modern Garmin GPS 😊 – which, as it turns out, combines very well with Google Maps and my co-pilot’s map-reading and common-sense navigational skills. However, never mind technology, we still occasionally get lost and must consult our old-fashioned paper-maps and seek locals’ support as need be…. It is our experience that long distance truck drivers are excellent people to consult – as professionals they know the road. This is in interesting contrast to “ordinary” local people who often love to help, but frequently have no idea of what’s around the next curve in addition to only vague ideas of geographic distances.  

During the first days, we continued to reflect on how crazy this venture felt and asked ourselves what we were getting into – 9000+ km on often bumpy and curvy roads with a wish of crisscrossing parts of the Andes.  

Nevertheless the 25^th of March, we repacked the Land Cruiser and climbed onboard – feeling good and at “home”.  Knowing (feeling pretty sure) the vehicle was in shape, the co-pilot and pilot were motivated and ready and we finally rolled out of the UY-Parking gate heading in the direction of the closest border-crossing between Uruguay and Brazil.