Oil and Water Project

Well, we said April 1st….and here we are.  What more do you want???

As if we are going to show you these photos of us skinny dipping in the Southern Ocean!  You will have to wait for the movie for that!!!

The last part of the drive has been a lot different then we expected. The Tierra Del Fuego (land of fire) is more of a big flat plain stretching out from the Jagged Mountains of the Patagonia.

We had an all star crew. Pat Camblin was our honorary member for the last jaunt south.

We met Jen and Lucy at our hostel in Bariloche. We all made a great connection, and they decided to join us on our last road trip. It made for a super well rounded team!

The humor was flowing even faster then the wine. The five of us laughed ourselves through the last breakdowns and kilometers of our voyage south!

The girls always stayed positive and provided great entertainment each time we were stuck on the side of the road monkey wrenching on the truck.

Here foxy foxy,

The end was no different…the rig is still drawing in a lot of attention.

As we go plummeting through our last jaunt south, we can´t hide our smitten little grins. We just spent the last week in Bariloche, one of the most beautiful cities in the world.

We will be on the road for the rest of the week, and are planning for our arrival in Ushuaia on the 30th of this month.

Front Seat

Back Seat

We got some sweet views and great company on our way around Lago Ranco from Pucon to run the Nilihue.

We made our first ascent….and descent of the Andes, with our temperature guage in the red!!!

We were greeted at Mcdonalds with a mob of press, Chilean Ambassador Craig Kelly, and our wonderful host Dinah Arnette from the US Embassy.  They had over 200 gallons of nice oil waiting for us….our last fill up of the trip!!

whoosh, N. Argentina is a big place, just pulled an all nighter and are only half way to Mendoza. We are amid a total epic trying to get to Santiago on time via the wine festival in tonight. The Radiator is not giving us much love…we have to stop, de-steam and re-fill every 100 kilometers or so. I guess it wasn´t the thermastat. We can´t find where it is leaking…we might have a blown head gasket…..ouch!

At least we are breaking down is some beautiful places.

And we have Alex to entertain us with her wikid break dancing moves.

This has been a bummer of a setback for us. Instead of stopping off and kayaking in all the spots as we had planned, time restraints have left us driving straight on through day and night…..

Right before we headed into the unknown..we stopped to top off our air shocks and tires.  It was lucky we did, because Tyler noticed a flat tire on the inside of own of our rear duallies.

Ty has officially taken to knitting.

Some folks in Potosi told us that it was 7 hours on a dirt road.  There was absolutely nothing out there….truely Bolivian wilderness.  8 hous later we saw a small sign pointing to Carmargo.

The last bit of light revealed this marginal single laned road.  We spent the night driving a nasty road etched into the side of the cliff, and dropping over 10,000 feet into the desert.  It took us over 16 hours altogether to make it from Potosi to Carmargo.  It was the most extreme conditions that baby has taken on yet, and this is only the beginning of our stint through Bolivia.

Some say that this weekend in Oruro, Bolivia is the biggest party of the year here in Bolivia. We were out mingling in the street for half the night, and woke up early to the parade this morning outside our hotel.

The costumes have been incredible:

The protocol is usually a big demonstration of dancers in costumes followed by a marching band.

Each group just keeps getting better and better.

It is now dark, and the parade is still going!!  The costumes are full of color and the masks are surreal.  The dancing in the street won´t stop until Tuesday I hear.

The team was up EARLY this morning trying to get baby rolling. It was soooo cold (La Paz is situated at 13,500 feet) that the Palm Oil Biodiesel was coagulated rock hard in our tank with no hope to get her to the first event. We got rushed down to the center of town in a government vehicle to attempt to entertain 600 school kids. We broght a kayak for a prop, and Tyler was sliding down a set of 40 stairs as everyone cheered!

Demonstration at Plaza Villarroel, Final Busch, Miraflores

With the use of a trusty new space heater, we got baby fired up for the afternoon event at the top of town, El Alto. This was one among the biggest events we have had. The Ambassador of the US Embassy, Phillip Goldberg (right) and the Mayor of El Alto (left) joined together for our introduction and drove Baby into the event with us standing on the top!

It was nice to have Baby for this one!

Demonstration at Campo Ferial, Ceja, El Alto

The crowd treated us like real celebrities, the girls swarmed and squealed like we were the Beatles.

The day started at 7 am with a pick-up from our hotel in a white suburban with tinted windows.  They first took us to a studio where we did a studio interview talking about the weeks biofuels events.

After the interview and a nice breakfast they carted us over to the university for a meeting with the Minister of Science and Technology, the Director of Science and Technology, and the General Coordinator for Climate Change in Bolivia.  We all agreed to start the ball rolling for some massive national changes regarding the use of alternative energy here in Bolivia.

Afterwards we had a meeting at the US embassy with all the activity co-sponsors.

La Paz local government, El Alto local government, Institute for the Development of Chemical Processes, Nacional University of San Andres, NGO Educadores para la Democracia, and Pollos Copacabana.

We were pretty tired by the time we went on with Juan Carlos later in the evening.  This is one of the biggest talk shows in Bolivia.