Update from Spain (again)

I went to the garage on Wednesday, it’s the Pamplona main Suzuki dealers workshop. I had an interesting episode of charades with Reuven that works there, but in the end, we got there. The radiator is badly damaged, so it’s being replaced, apparently beyond radweld or even repairing at a specialist rad shop. Still not convinced that the rad is the source of the problem, but I guess if I’m taking it into the desert, then the cooling system needs to be in tip top condition. Reuven mimed to me that he couldn’t see any other problems other than the radiator, but couldn’t be sure…. anyway, it’s promised to be fixed by Monday. In the meantime I’m still stuck at this hotel in ‘Transport City’ (it’s as bad as it sounds).

Luckily, the Repsol garage across the road has an amazing deal - last night I bought a 2L bottle of Coke, a 2L bottle of mineral water and a 1L carton of the finest cheap vino tinto (Don Simon) all for a massive total of €4,25!

If the car is fixed on Monday I intend to drive across the Pyrenees to  Llavorsi, where I know I can seek some advice from a few people who are a lot more experienced at this than me. I’ll probably be there for a day, and then continue south-west towards Seville and Algeciras.

It looks like I’m going to have only about 4 weeks to get from Algeciras to Timbuktu and back - ideally all the way back to Faugheen, although at this point in time, realistically - I think I’ll be happy just to get back to Europe, where I can leave the car somewhere safe (to collect later) and fly back home. I have a tight deadline as I have a flight to Brisbane on 4th September for the Postie Bike Challenge.