Van-life: The End

October 2023

After 11 months of fun, it was finally time for us to say goodbye to our Pedro! 

Back in August, we advertised him for sale on an overlanding Facebook group and quickly found a buyer, arranging to meet in Ecuador in October. We naively celebrated our "last night in Pedro" with a bottle of cheap Prosecco and a cuddle with a campsite dog (see above), blissfully ignorant to what was about to happen. 

The next day, we drove 11 minutes to a Ford mechanic where we had organised to have the coolant system cleaned out before getting a service to check everything was mechanically sound before the sale. However, at some point on this short drive, Pedro seemed to catch wind that his beloved parents were giving him away, and began to make a terrible noise. We made it to the garage, but once the mechanics heard it, they told us there was likely some damage to the engine. Our hearts sank. We immediately knew this was going to be a long and expensive job, if it could even be fixed at all, given it's a UK vehicle in Ecuador. To prevent any further damage to the engine, they winched him onto the back of a pick-up truck and transported him to a different Ford garage in the north of the city that could work on him. Just to add insult to injury, as the van was parked on the road awaiting its tow truck, someone hit the wing mirror, smashing it into a thousand little pieces. Great. Another thing that wouldn't be easy to find spare parts for here. Watching Pedro ride away down the road, we felt very deflated and rather helpless, knowing we would just have to wait for a diagnosis. 

Pedro was eventually diagnosed with "rod-knock" and required an engine rebuild, involving sourcing a huge list of spare parts, either from somewhere in Ecuador or the US. Very luckily, all the parts could be found in Ecuador, but the list of things that needed fixing just seemed to go on forever. Whenever they had fixed one thing, they would find something else and it felt like we would never get to leave Ecuador. 

The main thing was that, although growing a bit tired of getting her hopes up that the exchange would be soon and then it being pushed back again, the buyer was still going to buy him, so it didn’t really matter how long it took or how much it cost. We had agreed a sale price that was the same as we had bought him for in the UK, so although far from ideal, it had been an incredibly good investment and we had had near-free accommodation and transport for a year! 

While he was being fixed, we went to the Galapagos and back, and to Quilotoa to do a multi-day hike, but other than that, there was a lot of staring out of the window and hoping for a phone call from the mechanic with some good news. We spent weeks in the Secret Garden hostel, and as we didn’t know how long we would be staying, stayed in 7 different dorms. The staff began to feel very sorry for us and would ask every day if the van was ready. We got chatting to a few other travellers, but got a bit tired of overhearing people’s travel plans, as we felt like we were in prison. Our mental health was suffering, but Em’s physical health had also taken a plunge. During those few weeks, she had a trip to hospital over stomach problems, really bad covid that lasted 14 days, food poisoning, and a water infection. The stress of the van couldn’t be helping and she just didn’t seem to be able to recover.

Finally, we were given the all clear from the mechanics, paid our ginormous bill, and hit the road. One of the mechanics offered to accompany us for the first 100km, which we accepted. Before he jumped on a bus all the way back to the Quito, he checked the van and everything was good. We stayed one night in Ipiales in an Airbnb and drove the rest of the way to Tulcan, the border town, the next day. 

As we pulled into the road on which we were staying in Tulcan, the hydraulic power steering fluid started leaking. We had finally made it to the border, it was nearly 5pm, we were due to meet the buyer for the exchange in the morning, and now we had another problem. Em was in a bad way with food poisoning and had managed to not be sick the whole day but had reached the point of just needing to be in bed. This meant that, although already stressed up to his eyeballs and tired from 2 days of driving, Justin headed off to find yet another mechanic. Fortunately, there was one nearby that was still open. When the engine had been put back in the van, it had been put back in a way that meant the power steering fluid pipe was rubbing on a piece of metal and had eroded a small hole. By some kind of miracle, they were able to fit a new pipe just before dark, and fix the leak.

The next day was Friday 13th. And trust me, it gets worse. We met the buyer in Tulcan and a very weak Emily managed to stand in line at the border, get her exit stamp and close the temporary import permit for Pedro in Ecuador. We bid farewell to Pedro and walked across the border with our backpacks. 

We were finally in Colombia! We caught a taxi and then a bus to Pasto, where we were due to fly to Medellin. This is where Em took a turn for the worst. She couldn’t keep anything down and it had now been 3 days since she’d started being sick. We decided it was time to seek medical attention, so Justin went to speak to the hostel staff. One of the men on reception kindly offered to phone his sister who was a doctor at the local hospital. He whisked us off to the hospital in his car, and Em was soon laid in their makeshift A&E room on a drip. She was given something for rehydration, an antibiotic, and some other stuff to stop the sickness. There was a guy next to her being an absolute champ as he had something removed from his eye, using some kind of smoking device – disgusting. Amazingly, 3 hours later, we emerged from the hospital entrance and the man who had taken us was still there waiting. It was now quite late in the evening, but he took us round several pharmacies to get her prescription and took us back to the hostel. He wouldn’t even accept a tip to get himself a beer. This was our first experience of the unbelievable kindness and hospitality of Colombians! 

We had to delay our flight to Medellin by a day as Em was too weak to fly, but the next day she was feeling a lot better. However, once in Medellin, after taking the prescribed antibiotics for a few days, she started to get intense stomach pain, so another very kind Colombian at the hostel called two lovely local doctors who came out straight away and told us that the antibiotics were causing more harm, to stop taking them immediately, prescribed some probiotics instead, and told us to go crazy with the electrolytes. This did the trick!

With Em finally on the mend, things with the van sale went downhill. The day after the sale, a check engine light came on, and the buyer then proceeded to accuse us of deliberately hiding a fault with the van. Unfortunately for her, this new issue was exactly that, a new issue, and we had no prior knowledge of it. Thankfully, we had set up the sale using an online escrow service, so the money she owed us was protected. She had already sent half of the money when we transferred the V5C into her name. However, the rest of the money couldn’t be transferred straight away as it was already the weekend in the UK. We sold her the van on a Friday evening, with her telling us she had instructed the escrow service to send the money to us. However, over the weekend, she managed to reverse the instruction and send up 5p, instead of £7,000! What ensued for several weeks was a back and forth with things getting a bit nasty on her side and culminating in a legal arbitration. After 16 days, the arbitration ended in our favour and we were finally paid what we were owed.  

This was a very stressful period for us and not the joyous goodbye we had hoped for with Pedro after a year of such great memories! But honestly, after a tough few weeks where both our mental and physical health were on the floor, we were just glad to be out of Quito, feeling good, and in our final country having some fun again. We also surpassed 365 days of travelling! And finally booked our flights home. 

So, for now, we have 4 more weeks of "Adventures without Pedro", exploring Colombia!