Sounds like an awesome vacation!

Chris.

Wysłane z iPhone'a

Dnia Mar 13, 2012 o godz. 9:54 Ken Wilford <kenwilfy@COMCAST.NET> napisał(a):

> One of the list members asked me to share my experiences with our latest
> trip to Belize. Since it is very much Vanagon related I thought I would
> save some time and just post it here. Enjoy!
> 
> Driving a Vanagon across Belize!
> 
> As many of you know, my wife and I had a wonderful trip to Belize in
> Central America last winter. In fact we enjoyed it so much that we took
> another one this winter from January 9th to the 19th of 2012! We stayed
> in the Placencia area again which is the southern shore town of Belize
> and became beach bums. In this area of Belize there is many, many miles
> of beach along the shore and a lot of it still doesn’t have homes or
> resorts along it. The Belizean government has wisely designated the
> first 60 feet from the beach inland as public land. So if you wanted to
> you could walk the entire beach from Maya Beach area all the way down to
> Placencia Village at the end and no one could legally stop you. I think
> it is 15 miles of beach!
> 
> Of course the excuse for coming down to Belize again was to work on a
> customer/friend’s 87 Wolfsburg Vanagon. The van wasn’t even running last
> year if you will remember and I had to fly down with a bunch of parts,
> really just guessing at what could possibly be wrong. It wound up being
> several things but the most messed up thing was the gas tank. It was
> full of really fine rust particles that were passing through the fuel
> filter and clogging up the injectors. When I was here last year we
> priced out just the shipping on getting a new tank down to Belize and
> the shipping alone was something like $900! I wanted to get the van up
> and running while we were there last year but even paying that much for
> shipping the tank wouldn’t have arrived until I was back at home in the
> US. So I wound up waiting until I got home, packing up the new gas tank
> and all of the other parts we would need, and shipping them down slow
> boat to Belize. My friend Thorsten Kahl (a transplanted German) who runs
> a VW shop in Spanish Lookout area of Belize took the new parts and
> brought the van back to life! The customer was overjoyed! He came down
> back in April of last year and got to drive the van while on vacation.
> However the Air Conditioning wasn’t working and in a place like Belize
> where the humidity is a living thing that embraces you the second you
> step off of the airplane, you really need AC.
> This year, that was our mission. Get the AC up and running, put some
> leak detector dye in the system in case there was a leak somewhere, and
> install a new set of front shocks.
> So we flew down all the way to Placencia this time instead of renting a
> car in Belize City and driving down. We got to ride on a “puddle jumper”
> from the international airport to the Placencia Air Port which has a
> really, really short runway and is terminated on both ends by water
> (ocean on one end and lagoon on the other). We flew Tropic Air and
> beside some wind shear taking off rocking the tail back and forth a bit,
> we had a smooth flight.
> Again we were staying at The Placencia Resort and Residences. The van
> owner also owns a residence in this resort which is a three story
> mansion. I think it has 6 bedrooms and three and a half baths. With just
> my wife and I there, it gets down right creepy at night especially when
> the icemaker in the basement comes on and makes noises that sounds like
> someone is skulking around the house. It loves to make ice about 3am too
> just to really freak you out!
> The van was parked inside a garage that had marble floors! And you know
> the funny part. Even though this engine was rebuilt by the evil GEX, it
> doesn’t leak any oil whatsoever! Isn’t that shocking?
> So I had the owner’s squawk list for the van and what we would do was
> get up and 6am every morning and try to watch the sunrise (was cloudy
> every day though so that didn’t really work out). Then we would eat
> breakfast, I would slip into my jumper and do some work on the van for
> about an hour. Laying on a marble floor under a Vanagon is surreal
> experience believe me. Then we would go over to the resort and use the
> internet ($50 per week!), to stay in touch with everyone at home plus do
> orders, etc. for the business. That would usually only take an hour. Now
> it is 9:30-10am and we would do whatever we wanted. Maybe we would go to
> the beach. Maybe we would drive the van down to the village and get some
> stuff. Maybe we would go to a cool place we found last year called “The
> Shak” which is right at the end of the road in Placencia Village and
> also right on the beach. It was a very relaxing vacation. I am usually
> one of those people that gets restless if I don’t have anything to do,
> but after the first three days, I finally let that go and really started
> to enjoy our time.
> I told you folks I saw another Vanagon there last year sitting at the
> end of the road in Placencia Village and it looked like it hadn’t moved
> in a while. This year, someone must have fixed it because I saw it a
> good bit away from where it was last year in Seine Bight Village. That
> was good to see that it wasn’t just sitting there rotting.
> Finally we got down to our last few days and I had to take the van to
> get the AC work done. I had shipped the tools we were going to need to
> my friend Thorsten Kahl’s shop ahead of time so that he would have
> everything when I came down. Thorsten lives about two and a half hours
> away in a place called Spanish Lookout in the Cayo district. This is
> where a large group of Mennonites live and it is considered to be one of
> the best places in Belize to get mechanical work done. I know it sounds
> weird but where we were there really were no mechanic shops. There were
> a couple of guys who would work out of their house and were “Bush”
> mechanics. That means they can do minor repairs or bailing wire repairs
> to get you down the road a piece but you really wouldn’t want them to do
> something major. For that you have to get your vehicle to Spanish
> Lookout or Belmopan area. We drove the van there and it is always
> interesting. There is a bridge that is being built but for now there is
> a “temporary” bridge across the river which is just some planks that
> look like they could collapse at any moment. Then there are the old
> cement bridges that we had to go over which were crumbling and bumpy.
> Then there was a place on the Hummingbird Highway where a piece of the
> road was washed away by a recent rain and if you went off the road you
> would be going down the side of a mountain!
> The road itself has to be driven on to appreciate. I think the only
> thing I can compare it to is to the test track that manufactures use to
> test cars to destruction so they can determine the build quality of
> their vehicles. It isn’t that bad of a road but if you drive on it you
> vehicle is going to vibrate quite a bit. In the van the front doors were
> rattling and I had never heard a Vanagon make that noise before. When we
> got where we were going I checked out the doors to see if there was
> something wrong with the latches but there wasn’t and everything was
> normal tightness. It is just the road itself that makes things vibrate
> that normally do not. Then you have the “Speed Humps” every ¼ mile in
> towns maybe every five to ten miles on the highway. I hate these things
> with a passion but there is nothing you can do but live with them. They
> are everywhere and sometimes they are painted so you can see them or
> they have signs and sometimes not. They are about a 18” high but about
> four feet wide and they go all the way across the road. If you don’t
> slow down to 15 mph and you hit one you are going to seriously damage
> something in your front end. No fun believe me!
> We got to Thorsten’s shop and we were supposed to replace the front
> shocks and do the AC work. The front shocks needed replacing as you can
> tell because the road had vibrated the lower shock bolt out on the
> driver’s side! I had never seen this happen before. I found the problem
> when we first arrived and Thorsten sourced a bolt and nut so we were
> good to go. New shocks installed we moved on to the AC. I replaced the
> drier and several o-rings, pulled a vacuum on the system for about 30
> mins and then charged it up with R134a. The system held and worked
> great! We also put in the dye. Hopefully it will hold. We should know
> about that soon.
> On the way back we made a big mistake. We stayed and hung out with our
> friend Thorsten too long and got about half way back when it got dark.
> The roads in Belize are OK in the day when you can see and avoid the
> speed humps, etc. At night was Vanagon sad headlights (square), it was
> dangerous. I have poor night vision anyway so my wife told me to pull
> over so she could drive. The lines on the road are faded to nothing and
> the road itself is the same color as the dirt on either side of it. So
> it isn’t super obvious when you come to a turn and we were traveling
> over mountain roads. I was happy to have her drive. Then you come upon
> these black shapes in the road. They could be an 18 wheeler that has no
> rear lights! They could be a farmer bringing his harvest of oranges back
> to his barn with all of the workers sitting on top of the oranges in the
> trailer that he is pulling behind his tractor. It could be people
> walking along the side of the road, or riding bikes (at night). You have
> to be aware of all of these things. I think it is best to avoid driving
> at night in Belize whenever possible. We got back to the house safely
> and were ready to enjoy our last couple of days before we left.
> The van was running excellent the whole trip in spite of having itself
> vibrated on the test track. I was really proud of it!
> I guess that is my report on this year’s trip to Belize. We are already
> planning our next one and I guess we are going to try to take our kids
> down this time if we can. We just enjoy the country so much and the
> people we want to share it with our family. If you ever get a chance to
> go to Belize definitely do so. If you need any pointers I would be glad
> to share what little I know with you.
> 
> --
> Thanks,
> Ken Wilford
> John 3:16
> www.vanagain.com
> Phone: 856-327-4936
> Fax: 856-327-2242
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On 3/12/2012 11:58 PM, Robert Stewart wrote:
>> Hey Ken,
>> 
>> Just wanted to ask how your vacation was?
>> 
>> Hope you and the family are well.
>> 
>> Regards,
>> Robert
>> Bloomingburg NY
>> 
>> On Mar 10, 2012, at 8:49 AM, Ken Wilford wrote:
>> 
>>> Check out my new video about Vanagon Fuel Line Replacement on You Tube.
>>> If you have an suggestions please let me know.
>>> 
>>> http://youtu.be/IEWk7iAnl7U
>>> 
>>> Ken Wilford
>>> John 3:16
>>> www.vanagain.com
>>