Day 129 | Ai caramba!

Day 129 | Thursday July 21

Today the sun was shining, it was around 22 degrees, when I woke up I could see the reflection of the mountains in the lake, sharp as a mirror. A perfect day. I ate breakfast in my caravan which Kurt has left for me as he needed to leave early. Around 9 I started driving and only 2 minutes later a weird and loud noise was coming from under the hood. I realized this beautiful day was over.

The car was not starting anymore. I called Wim from Costumcars for some back-up and let him listen to the sound of the engine. He thought it was a problem with the gearbox or something between it but of course it’s hard to tell from distance what exactly the problem is. I phoned my insurance and they said they could cover the expenses. I called the Norwegian Road Assistance and they said they would send a guy right away.

An hour and an half there was still nobody here and the callcenter woman told me there has been a mistake. So they would start the process again. An hour later someone called me and ask how I wanted to pay, I told them my insurance would cover it but they needed a prove. Another call to my insurance and now it seemed fixed, they would send someone out. An hour later they called and said they were on their way, it would take just one hour to reach me…

So exactly one hour later and 5 hours since the problems began the road assistance arrived. He didn’t look at it and instantly pulled the car on the truck. It had to be moved to a garage in Alta, which was were I wanted to go anyway. My insurance would cover the costs.
We got to Alta around 18.00 and the mechanics already went home. They told me that they have a waiting list of about 4 weeks as most mechanics are in holiday, ouch.

I had no plugger in Alta but my insurance would cover 10 days in a hotel and I found a room in the center. The owner of the garage was a nice guy and gave me a lift to the center. I’m hoping he can make some time in his busy schedule to fix the car of needed.
Around 19.00 I checked into the hotel and now I just needed to get some food. Next to the hotel was Peppes Pizza who were willing to offer me a free pizza! They told me it was a small 1 person pizza but I actually received a fairly big one which took all my hunger away.

Today was a big shock, the problems seem quite big. The owner of the garage told me they are going to look at it first in the morning to see how big the problems are if it can be fixed at all or later.   I will probably have a sleepless night but I’m lucky that it happened here and not in the middle of nowhere.

Ps. I’m now also on Snapchat for short videos and photo updates from my adventures. Add me: PlugMeInTravel.

Pictures of today