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Our 7th South America season got off with a really bad start. We had planned to get back to Peru in January but couldn't because the country was in uproar due to a presidential crisis. 3 months later ... just before Easter ... the situation had finally calmed down a little, so we booked our flights for the end of March. But then Germany went on strike just a day before our flight and we had to rebook all our flights to Cusco which cost us 200 US$ more. After finally getting back to Cusco we managed to get our motorhome started after 4 hours but than encounter a really serious problem. Our brakes were not working! One of the back tire brake cylinders had leaked a lot of brake fluid.
Trying to find a replacement turned out to be a very difficult task. Fiat is not a known brand of vehicles in Peru, Ecuador and Colombia. We had problems in these countries before. In the southern parts of South America Fiat vans are very common. In Argentina, Chile and Brazil you see them a lot and there are plenty of part shops around but without the use of our brakes we can't get there, can we?
There are two streets in Cusco where all of the parts stores are located and we ran from one shop to the next. Everybody is shaking their heads and sent us to a different place. At one time somebody even suggested using teflon tape under the rubber rings to fix our problem but then the next shop owner said it won't work. Eventually we ended up at a small shop called Rivas and the very nice owner Joseth had a contact in Lima who might be able to find a new replacement for us. We had to wait a few days to find out. It's kind of nerve wracking but what can we do other than wait and enjoy Cusco again.
Cusco - 360° Panorama
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We were at the end of the rainy season and almost every evening a storm is dumping lots of rain on top of us. During the day it's nice and sunny and we had t-shirt weather. The nights were freezing cold though and during the first few days we were also struggling with the high altitude of 3400 metres. It's been almost 10 months since we left Cusco last year.
The plan for my birthday was to go out for a really nice meal but our bad luck lately seemed to be going on and on. The display of our laptop had to be replaced in Germany about 4 months ago. While checking in our bags in Lima for our flight to Cusco Kirstens rucksack with all the electronics fell off the trolley and when we opened the laptop again in Cusco we only got a white screen. We could hear that the system was working in the background but all tricks to resolve the problem failed and so we had to go to a computer shop in Cusco to find a solution. We should have picked a different day! What was supposed to be done in half an hour ended up taking 4 hours! In the end we had to buy a new display for 100 US$ and by the time we got out of the shop we were not hungry anymore. So we decided to postpone my birthday until tomorrow. A piece of birthday cake will do for tonight!
We finally got our brand new brake cylinders from Lima and put them in ourselves. After cleaning everything thouroughly and bleading the brakes we were full of hopes everything would be working fine but ... no luck, the brakes were still not working. Darn! This time we had to call a mechanic to the campground and Aaron – our mechanic – confirms that the master brake cylinder had bad seals too. Hence the brake system isn't closed off and air is getting into the brakelines. Now we had to find a new master brake cylinder which was much more difficult to do. Every Fiat model seems to have a different master brake cylinder and our research actually showed us two with the same OEM number but different diametres of the inner pistons.
Whilst waiting we took care of some other improvements to our motorhome. Instead of the original licence plates we got some laminated copies done in Buenos Aires almost 8 years ago. The front one looked totally battered and so we went to a print shop in Cusco to get some new ones done ... which actually look almost like the real ones and cost us only 20 US$.
We had several people looking for a new master brake cylinder but the only one that was found in Lima didn't have the right diameter plus the price for that one was 700 Soles, so almost 200 US$ ... 4 times the normal price! I also had the idea of checking La Paz for the part. A bus ride from Cusco is 50 US$ return, but even in La Paz we could only get an imported one from Argentina for 230 US$. So in the end we ask Efrain - our chief mechanic - to try and repair our old one. It took him 2 days to find the right seals. We also ask them to put the second rear brake cylinder in and remove all the old brake fluid from the brake system.
Braking with the pedal definitely worked afterwards but the hand brake wasn't holding on a slope. There are several options to adjust them but nothing really worked. Our books says that they will adjust over time automaticly. We'll see!
From Cusco we had originally planned to go to Brazil via Puerto Maldonado and then down to Uruguay. But because Peru has quietened down in the past 2 months, we decided to drive through Bolivia instead, which is also 2000km shorter in distance to Uruguay. So after leaving Cusco we head towards Puno, a city we visited 21 years ago. We only spend one night here and take a boat trip to the floating reed islands of the Uros the next morning.
That same day the border at Kasani reopened for the first time in months after the protests and so we crossed it at night and arrived in the dark at Copacabana where we take a much needed rest for 5 days.
Copacabana - 360° Panorama
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View from the Ecolodge Copacabana campground - 360° Panorama
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