One of the fun things with being the smaller and lighter one is getting to do things he can’t do, like reaching into tiny spaces with my hands to connect wires he can’t get to. Which makes me feel a little special, because I have something to offer at least, since I’m pretty useless around cars otherwise, to be honest. (Which I’m planning on changing, but still need some studying and practice.)
Another of those things being climbing up on the bonnett this evening to tape it up…
Had I known why he had given me this task I may have hesitated, I only got halfways before my butt and thighs started cramping from sitting like that and it was a little painful to finish it up.
Because after pimping the car up all nice, Brian was now going to cut a big hole through it! This made me a little nervous since I was brought up taking very good care of my belongings. I hardly even put posters on my walls after getting new wall paper. If I’d later change my mind, there would be a hole. And now he was going to cut a hole through the bonnett of our cruiser! But as you probably have gathered by now, Brian isn’t the nervous type.
Mounting the intercooler was just a first step, for it to actually have an effect you need to add an air scoop to your bonnett. He had been saying he didn’t know how to do this, if he’d have to take the bonnett off and how to cut it out and this and that… So I thought this was a project that would have to wait a bit. This evening I went home earlier and all of a sudden he sends me an sms saying “I just cut the hole!!!”
I’m afraid of spiders. I have a fear of spiders and of the dark, which might make it sound like a not so thought through idea to move to Africa, since you get a lot of both there. Dad always says it’s funny I can’t be around spiders when I’ve patted wolves, walked with lions, do horseback riding and other things, that to a logically and rationally thinking brain would seem much more risky. But that’s life.
We get spiders here in Sweden too, however not quite as big and scary – or dangerous. This one was sitting on the garage wall last night, watching us work by the engine.
That’s as close as I managed to put my hand and if the spider would all of a sudden have moved I would have dropped my phone and screamed. It may look like Brian is watching the spider (one of the two black spots on the wall), but he’s actually watching the light from the headlights since he was in the middle of switching bulbs.
Brian’s mom Debbie sent us a photo a few months ago, of a spider they had in the house in Moçambique. Now we’re talking another size of spider…
They made it walk onto a disc to get the size reference. All I can say is I’m happy I wasn’t there. Here’s one of the nastiest spiders I’ve met down there. Well, it’s apparently more like a cricket, but still. It’s called the Kalahari Ferrari because it moves really fast.
Not only does it look horrific. It also fears light so if you’re out walking in the dark with a flash light, it will most likely run straight for your feet (and your shadow). Horrible!!
Coming back from town this afternoon I joined Brian at the garage for a few hours. The last coat on the boxes was dry and I put them back to see the result. Ready for a new set of stickers now!
Brian wired and mounted the seat heaters we got a while back. Although we’re not planning on driving the car in Swedish winter weather we thought it could be nice with some warm seats anyway. An African morning can be surprisingly chilly.
And he put the buttons conveniently on the front of the center console.
We put on the old seat covers from the previous owners to protect the seat heaters until we get new ones, and then I got to test it out.
Quite nice and warm. Not being dressed to work in a chilly garage I could have happily sat in that warm seat for the rest of the evening…
That’s the thing about being in the garage. It just makes you wanna get into the car! I just wanna get in and get ready and go… It feels wrong to keep that beast of a machine locked up day after day when it could be out digging up some mud! It feels like the car is one of those race horses when they’re kept in the starting line booth just before the race. Lots of muscle wanting to move.
I also can’t wait to make it our home. Packing it full with the things we will need for the trip, for our everyday life living in a car. Planning and trying things out, finding out the best plan where to keep things and how to do stuff. Where’s the best place to keep the toiletries? What’s the easiest way to make breakfast? What should we keep in the back seats for easy access and what can be stored away in the secret compartments? I know there will be days on the road when we get sick and tired of living out of a car but right now I CAN’T WAIT.
I’m still struggling a little bit having to get used to driving a lefthand driven car. I’ve only done it a few times in Africa before we got the cruiser and I’m gonna have to practice a bit before the trip. But I can’t help but wishing all countries drove on the same side of the road! It would have made things just so much easier! I know I will get used to it, but still… We will also be travelling between countries with different traffic, so by crossing a border we’ll have to switch side of the street!
You obviously get a bit biased from how you grew up and what you got used to when you started driving and the same goes for us. Brian and I have already had this discussion many times, knowing nobody can win, but seriously – why even consider driving on the wrong side of the road when there is a right side? Ehrmm.
A while back a friend, Max, raised the relevant question of why Brian prefers the Land Cruiser to a Land Rover. Which he does. With a passion. I’ll leave it to him to one day elaborate further on the topic but for now, maybe this will give you a hint of the strength of a 4WD Toyota. The vehicle featuring in these Top Gear experiments is a Hilux and that’s the Land Cruiser’s little brother.
…Here’s a good movie to watch! When Nelson Mandela does his first year as president of apartheid torn South Africa he realizes he can use the national rugby team to unite the nation. Morgan Freeman does a great job, as always (here acting as Mandela). Matt Damon struggles slightly with the accent but also does a good job as the team captain François Pienaar. It’s also an interesting glimpse of what South Africa was like at the time. It was fun watching this with Brian, who remembers all of it happening. He’d tell me about things happening and the next second they happened in the movie… Great film, watch it!
Today is a Sunday like any other, a chilled breakfast in front of the tv before we head off to our different horse powers. Me going to the stables, Brian going to the garage. But it’s also September 11th and everywhere you turn there are reminders of the WTC attack. Last night we picked up my brother at the airport. We stayed for a cup of tea and started talking about what we were doing 10 years ago. I can’t believe it’s been 10 years. Can’t believe what the world has turned into in that time.
Now it’s less than a month until our registration inspection! The work that we needed to do on the cruiser is pretty much finalized, whatever Brian does from now on is just bonus material… We just need to prepare it by taking out the back seats and putting in the load bars. It turned out we also need to take off the bull bar since it’s a homemade custom one that won’t pass the inspection. Which we got a little irritated about and started inspecting every car we see on the roads that have bull bars to figure out if theirs would have passed or not. But we’ll just have to do what needs to be done to get the car through the inspection.
Sometimes it hits me how we decided to do this project without really having the wind blowing our way. We don’t have our own garage, or even a garden. We prepare the car in a country with very strict and detailed traffic and vehicle rules, regulations and inspections. We’re very thankful to all the people letting us use their garages and gardens and helping us out in many different ways to make this happen.
The good news right now is that the development organization I mentioned earlier seems to be on board! We just need to sort out the details of the cooperation before I tell you all about it.
Okay, time to head out. Brian is right now working on installing an advanced alarm system in the car. It’s a lot of wiring. As in, a lot. When he gets back we will look into how to watch the rugby world cup on tv – we did a lot of research this summer to see who will show the world cup but got nothing. The other day we were adviced of one channel but it turned out they only show one game every weekend, not all of them. Hopefully we can (well, he can) see more of the rugby. Go Springboks!
I’ve spent the past few weeks doing research on different charity organizations. We’ve wanted to raise money for a development organization that operates in the areas we travel through. We also wanted it to be small enough to feel sincere, genuine and on target, but big enough to be established, well-known and trustworthy. We also wanted it to be a politically and religiously independent organization and it would be good if it had a local office here in Sweden (if it was international).
There aren’t that many organizations around here that live up to all these standards but I found one that felt just right! So today I’ve contacted this organization that I’m hoping will be interested in cooperating with us for this project. It’s a well established organization who work in a very good way, I believe, by focusing on giving people the tools to get themselves out of poverty instead becoming aid dependent. I will tell you all about it when I know more, now let’s just hope this organization will be interested in being involved in our project. Fingers crossed!
In 2012 we're planning on driving our Land Cruiser from Sweden to Mocambique. This is where you can follow us in all the preparations and where we'll keep you posted during the trip. Get in touch with us if you have any questions, thoughts or advice! Take care!
So far, this page unfortunately only exists in English but the plan is to also be blogging in Swedish eventually. Feel free to write us in Swedish or English on the website.
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