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We stayed at Hotel Westfalia for two weeks until our appointment at Vertigo for our major rust removal job. We struggled with the heat because it went up to 42°C so we had to keep cooling down by going into the pool or just standing under the pool shower! Consequently we didn't get much done but at least we managed to cut each others hair.
We got a WhatsApp from Sonia who confirmed that we'll be able to go in on the 4th February to get our rust sorted out and it would take a week. So we contacted Maria at the apartment we wanted to rent and she told us we'd need to pay in order to reserve. The price is in US dollars and she uses the exchange rate from the day you pay so she sent us the amount and gave us various payment options.
We chose to pay directly into her bank, and on the following day we walked 3km to the nearest branch and then had to work out the system. We needed a ticket to get our turn but to get one we had to have a bank account number! We used Maria's account number and it worked! 20 minutes later we were explaining to the bank teller what we needed to do. No problem, fill out a form, hand over the cash and it was all done. The apartment cost $30 US per night which is really cheap for an apartment in a capital city but expensive for us because we never pay that kind of money for a night. Lets hope Vertigo gets rid of all our rust in a week.
On the way back from the bank we checked out various little stores looking for a solution for our sliding door - the day before, the roller had broken on the bottom part and it was really difficult to open and close. We paid out $1 US for two different ideas but neither of them worked. So we kept having to heave the door open or shut every time we used it. Kirsten remarked that our motorhome is falling apart!!
We rented out the apartment from Sunday 3rd to 10th February and on the day before, we started packing various things. We would need to remove everything from our motorhome because we wouldn't be able to keep an eye on it the whole time. I suppose we could have left stuff in our benches and padlocked them but there's always a risk. If the garage got broken into any thieves would have hours to try and get whatever they could. So I worked on the premise of:- What can we afford to lose? Hmm ... well, nothing really because a lot of the stuff under our benches is tools and replacement parts etc. In other words, expensive or difficult to replace. That meant emptying Winnietwo completely.
On Sunday we drove to the apartment and Maria came out to us as soon as we arrived. She gave us the larger of three apartments that she has and is on the first floor. The steps up to it though are huge and really steep!!! Oh boy ... we've got to carry everything up there!
It was hard work just going up to take a look at the apartment! But at least we had a lot of room and we worked out a plan of sorts as to where we would put stuff and what we would need to bring up first etc.
Then it was just a case of roll up your sleeves and get on with it! The video below shows it all!
I took up a few things whilst Kirsten was setting up the video but then I mainly stayed inside packing stuff up into boxes and getting everything out so Kirsten could take it up. It took us over three hours to get everything out. Then we took off the spare tyre and huffed and puffed getting that up the steep stairs!!!
We also needed to re-park for the night and afterwards we took off the side panelling for the sliding door and the blinds. Vertigo would also be dealing with the rust on both our side windows, one of which is in the sliding door, plus the front door handles.
Once we took off the side panelling on the sliding door we realised that there were blocks of wood attached with silicon around the window. We didn't want to take that all off. Plus we wouldn't be able to get the other side off without removing the child's bed which we now use as storage. The problem is that it is attached not only to the side wall but also the roof. Hmm. It was going to be a bit too difficult so we left it all attached. At least they could take a look at what was underneath the wall panels on the other side to give them an idea. Maybe they could deal with the rust without removing the panel and/or window.
Our new home for a week has lots of space except in the kitchen, which is minuscule. We have far more space to cook in Winnietwo! But at least there is a two ring electric cooker so the first thing we needed after all our exhausting work was a cup of tea! (We also needed to get out our ant removal liquid as lots of them came out to welcome us!! They were gone the following day!)
The size of the kitchen meant we wouldn't be cooking anything fancy so we walked to a supermarket we had seen just around the corner and found a small food court. Nothing like a healthy burger after emptying your house!!!
We had time to relax afterwards and whilst Kirsten watched the most boring Super bowl of all time on the computer, I got to watch BBC World on a huge screen TV! Wow! What luxury! Except it meant we didn't get to bed until after 2am and the alarm went off at 8am the next morning because we needed to drive Winnietwo to the garage.
The Vertigo garage was really full again. We reversed Winnietwo towards the large garage doors but we didn't know whether anything would get done that day. We had to explain that our sliding door roller had broken and show them how to open the back doors.
Back at the apartment I set about cleaning various things from our motorhome and generally sorting out whilst Kirsten worked on videos. We went back to the garage later and saw that they'd got W2 inside at least, and they'd obviously started working on him because there was a lot of rust on the floor already!
For the rest of the week we kept going back to check on progress every day and in between we went to a home depot style store with a huge list which included new screws and fittings to replace the rusty ones, new tool box, heat resistant paint and sandpaper so we could remove the rust from our gas cooker and repaint it! Yep, more rust!!!
We had a big list of cleaning and repair jobs. Bit by bit we were getting things done and bit by bit Winnietwo's rust was landing on the floor and he was getting steel sheets soldered on. But by Friday it was obvious that Winnietwo wouldn't be finished in a week and that meant we would need to extend the apartment.
Maria told us we could extend no problem but only for another week because she had another booking. However there was a possibility of getting a smaller one on the third floor if we needed more time. But that meant transferring everything up two more flights of extremely steep steps!! Yikes. We need Winnietwo to be finished by Saturday 16th Feb to give us the rest of that day to get everything back in. Our new check out date was Sunday 17th at 9am.
It also meant paying out far more for an apartment and we guessed that the cost of the repairs would also be more. On Monday we walked to Vertigo only to find that nothing had been done. They wouldn't be working on him that day. One of Sonia's children was also playing on the drivers seat - dirty shoes on the seat!! We were not impressed.
Sonia said "Tranquilo" which means "relax" and seemed to think that all the work would get done by Saturday. But we could see just how much work was left to do and were not at all sure they'd be able to finish on time.
It was not looking good and there was another blow. We had been talking to Blas at another garage almost next door to Vertigo. We knew that Winnietwo's diesel tank would probably need to be taken off so that they could check for rust underneath and deal with it. Our diesel tank has a leak and we can only fill it to the three quarter mark. We've tried to fix it several times and we were successful for a few months until it started leaking again! So we'd been talking to Blas to see whether he could remove the tank and either fix it or replace it. But he told us that he couldn't get a new tank. So our only hope was to get things co-ordinated between the two garages to try and get it fixed.
Well that plan didn't work either because when we got to Vertigo the next day our diesel tank was already off and sitting in the bed of a disused pick-up truck. Sonia was obviously thinking about fixing it herself. Only that would mean even more work on top of everything else!
Our exhaust pipe had also been taken off and Sonia showed us the rubber fittings she said needed replacing. I thought we had one set of rubber rings but when we went back to the apartment to check, the rings we had were either smaller or larger than the ones we needed. We contacted some places that sell parts and checked out a nearby shop but couldn't get what we needed. We did manage to get more money plus a new electric cable, 12v fan and some hanging racks.
On Thursday 14th February we went to the garage in the early afternoon to check on progress. They had started spraying the black rust protection on one side but there was still a lot of mud and dirt on the other side and underneath. I remarked to Kirsten that maybe I should remove some of the mud etc but Kirsten said no, that's their job. Well, yes it is their job. But when we returned later in the evening, they had sprayed the rust protection right on top of all the mud and dirt!!!
Oh boy!! We were soooooo not impressed. They were obviously rushing to get the job finished and messing things up completely. Kirsten told Sonia exactly what we thought of their job quality and Sonia threw her hands in the air and said "That's it! We're finished!" She was literally throwing us out with only half the job done!
The employees stopped working and started putting our tyres back on etc. I didn't mention that our diesel tank was still lying in the back of the pick-up truck because I knew that we weren't going anywhere! We certainly couldn't drive off with Winnietwo half done!
Kirsten managed to calm Sonia down and finally, she agreed to continue the work but at that point no one was really happy. I think Sonia just wanted us to leave and made three crosses on the calendar for Saturday. She would just finish the sides and underneath, but would leave the windows and doors. We could only hope that the work would be done properly or at least as best as they could do it, and finished by Saturday.
That evening we made contact with various people and the next morning, after a sleepless night, we enlisted the help of Kris Thiessen who is German but lives in Paraguay. She helps other Germans with all the legal paperwork for emigration, housing and registering vehicles in Paraguay. She sends a lot of people to Vertigo for repairs and we asked her if she could help with translation.
Our Spanish is normally good enough but we'd just had a major problem with Sonia and nearly got thrown out. Kris was really very good and, even though we could have done everything ourselves in Spanish, bringing Kris in to help worked wonders because Sonia got a lot of customers from Kris and it certainly helped our peace of mind. It also meant that, hopefully, there wouldn't be any more surprises and we'd get finished by Saturday.
Part of the agreement with Sonia was that we would help out in the garage by repairing the diesel tank ourselves. We sat outside with the tank and scraped off all the old silicon etc that we'd used previously to repair it, cleaned it, found the small hole where the leak was and fixed it. We also used the electric sander to remove the rust from the spare tyre rack which gets fitted underneath Winnietwo.
On Saturday we went to Vertigo and they were finishing off the back doors. The sides and back had been sprayed with black rust protection but we could see the lines from the steel underneath and all the soldering points. It didn't look perfect but at least they would be finishing today.
Sonia told us that if they removed our windows to deal with the rust around them they might shatter! Hmm, a bit late to come out with that piece of information but at least she told us. The day before she had told us she could get the windows done but not until the following Monday which would mean moving into a different apartment and we didn't want that.
So now we had the choice between buying new windows or keeping the rusty ones. We said we'd have to see if we could find replacement windows here first. In the meantime they finished the rear doors, swapped the tyres around because they'd put the spare on the back left by mistake and we went back to fetch our money.
The final bill came to $670 US. Including the apartment, new screws/parts and an extra can of rust protection we bought for touch ups, the total was $1200 US. In Europe the labour charge alone would have been at least $6500 US but no garage would have taken on the job because it would have cost more than the vehicle is worth!!
We knew before we went in that it was a major job and a hell of a lot of work. So we are really happy that we got it done. It certainly looks better than before and we've given Winnietwo a new lease of life. At least we will be able to continue travelling in South America for a few more years rather than constantly worrying if he's going to literally fall apart on us whilst we're driving! Did I mention the fist sized hole that appeared just a few weeks before we finally took him into the garage??
Of course just driving him away wasn't the end to our working day!! First stop was a petrol station nearby where they had a large hoover. We couldn't wash the outside because the rust protection layer needed a few hours to dry and he was filthy from all the dust inside the garage. But the inside was also a real mess and it took us 2 hours to hoover and clean the inside. The amount of dust was unbelievable!
It was starting to get dark by the time we were finished and our next stop was the large supermarket around the corner from our apartment for a well earned "choose your own pasta and toppings" meal. Kirsten had spaghetti with tomato and Bechamel sauce plus various toppings and I had veggie ravioli with bolognaise sauce. We were really hungry because it had been nine hours since we last ate some fruit for breakfast!!
Back at the apartment we spent the next 3 hours putting virtually everything back inside Winnietwo, this time carefully carrying everything down the steep steps including the heavy spare tyre. It was 10-30pm by the time we re-parked Winnietwo for the night. Then we still needed to do our washing up, have showers and sweep out our empty looking apartment!! What an exhausting day!
Kirsten didn't sleep well because she's pulled something in one of her shoulders - probably from carrying/rolling the spare tyre down last night. She also thought she heard glass smashing at 2am so I got up to go and check on Winnietwo outside. But he was fine, all safe!
The next day we dumped the last of our stuff inside Winnietwo which included our blinds and the sliding door panel that we hadn't had time to fix back together. We had to be out of the apartment by 10am but we left 20 minutes early. We drove to Casa Rica to do shopping for the next couple of weeks and then went back to Hotel Westfalia.
We still had a lot of work to do on our motorhome but needed to wait a day or so until the rust protection dried. Unfortunately it absolutely poured with rain only a few hours after we arrived!!! Despite being under a roof, the rain was so heavy that the spray wet our seat cushions because we had all the doors open! Kirsten was having a shower at the time and I had to quickly shut all the doors and move our motorhome forwards a bit. What was that about parking under a roof to keep dry??? Oh well, S*** happens!!
At least Kirsten's shoulder felt better the next day and once the black rust protection had dried we set about scrubbing the whole of the outside of the motorhome. He was extremely filthy and we used some of the hotels old tables and a bench so we could reach the roof. It was hot and sweaty work because it was between 36 and 39°C!
We took off the panels of the back doors to take a look at the work they'd done and found lots of sand and some rust. So all that had to be cleaned out and we used sand paper to get rid of the rust. Then we re-sprayed the insides and the panels. We had also bought new fabric wall racks that we needed to hang on the walls. We'd been struggling for space to put everything until we got them attached.
We tried various things to fix our sliding door because we can't get the spare part here. That took time because we had to use the car jack to hold up the door whilst we used putty or glue on the roller which needed to dry for 24 hours. Sometimes it worked for quite a few days and other times it only worked for a day! We will need to buy the part when we're in England.
We decided to try and do the windows ourselves and spent hours sanding them down to remove the rust without taking the windows out. Then we used masking tape and repainted. We also dealt with some rust spots on the driver's door. Bit by bit Winnietwo was looking really good!!
Is Winnietwo doomed? The full video of the rust removal.
Somehow we also had time to celebrate Kirsten's birthday - very low key this year but she enjoyed all the emails and WhatsApps. We also got our teeth cleaned at the dentist, and went out for a really good meal at the hotel with Chantelle and Cesar who we met at Hasta La Pasta for the last two Christmases and live just around the corner from the hotel. It was almost our last night here and we really enjoyed it.
On March 4th it was time to say goodbye to Hotel Westfalia and drive to the airport at Asunción to pick up our friends Claudia and Uwe. They had been on a fabulous cruise in the Antarctic for the past three weeks, inspired by the two of us and our fabulous trip in 2016. We had been following them on the cruise tracker online to see where they were and which bays they were visiting throughout the Falklands, South Georgia, South Orkney’s and the Antarctic Peninsula.
Fortunately we realised we were standing at the wrong gate at the airport before they arrived!! Then moved to the correct gate by 8-30am. They were really tired after two flights with not much sleep and we drove them to Casa Rica so we could all go shopping. Then we drove up to Hasta La Pasta where they were reunited with their dog Mia who had stayed there and been looked after by Helen and Peter. I don't know who was happier to see whom!!
Poor Mia was so overwhelmed she couldn't work out why Claudia and Uwe were getting out of our motorhome and she kept jumping in and out of Winnietwo even though there was no one else inside!! We helped them transport all their stuff back to their motorhome and later we all sat together for coffee and cake at Marion and René’s. It felt like coming back home!
We stayed for 11 nights and Mia came to fetch us every morning so that we would play ball! Sometimes she got too impatient because she could here us talking inside so she would bark. Hey, come on you too! It's time to play, Oh and I want my treat aswell!!
Claudia and Uwe showed us the video from their cruise which had been done by the professional photographer on board and they also took us out for a meal in Caacupé along with Marion and René, Helen and Peter to say thank you to all of us for looking after Mia and the motorhome or picking them up from the airport.
Our time there seemed to fly by and we just about managed to book some things for our trip to England before we had a power cut. Unfortunately it rained for 8 out of the 11 days we were there and workmen were trying to repair the road but seemed to be making it a lot worse! We were worried that we might not be able to drive out. We had planned to stay for 2 weeks but left early on Friday 15th March because the forecast was for rain and more rain, sometimes heavy.
We said goodbye to everyone but we know we will see them all again within a year. We waited for the rain to stop for a few hours and then managed to drive out. We drove back to Hotel Westfalia in Asunción where we stayed for another 4 nights.
