Sometimes on the World Race you find yourself in places you’d never expect doing things you thought you’d never do. Yesterday, this was my life.
Our teaching team, Team Nacho Buznass (say it out loud, it’s funny) decided it would be fun to bless our contact, Luis, by taking him to get his car fixed. His front tires were out of alignment and needed to be replaced in a bad way.
Our classes had been canceled because we weren’t placed on the exam schedule, thus the idea for this journey came about. We began our trek around 1130am to Guatemala City.
I suppose this is a good time to tell you that our contacts car’s name is Butch. He asked a former racer to pray over the car and give it a prophetic name – Butch it was.
Naturally, to begin any trip, you start by filling up your gas tank. It’s never a good idea to begin a trip without enough gas, right? Little did we know that the gas we got was “bad” and had little bits of trash in it. So, as we began driving through a canyon-like road full of construction, the car shut down. Luis assured us that it would come back on and explained the whole trash scenario to us. We trusted him, of course, and patiently waited as he punched the gas pedal with his foot and then cranked it over and over as we listened to poor little Butchy putter and stutter.
Picture this – canyons all around you. You’re on a road that’s made out of dirt that’s probably 4 yards wide. And tractors and men in orange shirts are digging like crazy…everywhere. And here you are, in a white, four door, tracker, in the middle of traffic, broken down. Cars can’t pass on either side. And there you sit, stuck. Traffic is ridiculous. Kinda like Interstate 66 around 4pm in a weekday, bumper to bumper. Yikes.
Some workers saw our struggle and came over to push us out of the center of traffic. Luis continued with punching the gas pedal and cranking the engine, Butch didn’t respond. Some traffic cops came up to the car to make sure we were ok, and Luis explained the situation to him.
About 30 minutes into this ordeal, Butch finally started! We drove about 1/4 of a mile, and he shut down again. Stuck in the middle of traffic again, everything that we had just experienced was repeated – punching the gas pedal and all mentally praying. Butch finally turned over and we went about another 1/4 of a mile before he cut off again. Luckily this time, we were able to drift off the road a bit before he turned off.
And there we sat. Luis revving the engine, the rest of us concerned that the car would surely blow up or in some tricky way we weren’t aware of, Butch would just magically start. And of course thinking other thoughts like…there are four white American girls in this vehicle, how safe is this?
After sitting in the car for another 30 minutes, listening to him crank the engine many times, I came to the conclusion that something else had to be wrong.
Many of you probably know by now that I grew up in the middle of nowhere. What you might not know is that for many years, my daddy was a mechanic at his parents Gas Station. So throughout my life (more so when I started driving and “had” to care) I’ve learned a lot about cars. So with the knowledge I had, I got out of the car, had Luis pop the hood and we assessed the situation. I had him check the dipstick, the oil came out blackish brown and the level was about as high as my fingernail is thick. Not good. At this point, 4 police officers had shown up and a guy whose truck had broken down not too far behind us. So, it’s me and 6 other guys crowded around the hood of this car. And me, a white girlwearing a dress is pointing out this and that part of the car. As they ask me questions like “¿dónde está el filtro de gas?. Hilarious.
We closed the hood with the conclusion that the “trash” from the gas was clogging up the gas filter and he needed to get some liquid to clean it out. And, he needed to get his oil changed. And the tires of course still needed fixed.
We all hopped back in the car, and drove to the nearest gas station. Got the liquid. Got the oil. And we drove the rest of the way to get the tires aligned/repaired.
Great day. Just call me Ashley, The Grease Monkey. I’ll be around for any of your car service needs.
PS. Thanks Daddy for imparting me with some helpful and useful knowledge!
Just a few photos I took to document our adventure:
This is us, stuck the second time in the road. The guy walking towards us is the one who's truck was broken down.
Assessing the situation.
Happy faces.
Silly Shanay.
This looks awkward…I wish you could see the other guys that were standing there too. What an adventure.
