The Explosion and The Screeching halt!

It's funny how the enthusiasm with which i set up this blog all seemed to be based around the excitement of setting off on that Epic road trip and how once things went wrong all of my enthusiasm evaporated! I have to admit that im disappointed in myself for not being more resilient especially considering that when things went wrong they didn't really go all that wrong. I guess it's all about expectations and when things didn't go as expected I found it hard to maintain that enthusiasm for writing.   

The first thing I'm going to do is actually explain what went wrong.

Leaving Etosha everything was on track, we had a tough mileage target but we were doing well. We were right on time. I'd been driving for 3 hours or so and we were very low on gas. How low is hard to say because the fuel gauge in the van doesn't work properly but after pushing on for about 200 k's after the gauge said empty I was getting a bit anxious. At our planned fuel stop they were out of gas so we had nno choice but to push on with no idea how much gas we had! I guess that's Africa for you! Eventually we made it Grootfontein a tiny little town on the Namibia Angola border, we gassed up and took off again. his time with Ezan driving and me taking a little nap. 

After the early morning and the crazy time pressure we were under it felt great to be on target and to get my down and get some sleep.
Im not sure how long  was asleep for but i was woken up by what sounded like a massive explosion. I was sleeping with my head right above the engine bay and  something had gone horribly wrong. I jumped up and shouted to Ezan, pointless really because obviously everyone heard the same explosion. Ezan shut the engine down immediately and pulled over. At this point everyone was excited and nervous but still very hopeful that it was something minor. My first thought was that the fan belt had broken. 

We flung open the engine bay and were blasted by a cloud of hot stinky smoke and steam. I didn't want to freak out just yet but it looked bad. I was still hoping that we'd thrown a fan belt, the engine had overheated and burst a hose causing all the steam.I tried to stick my head in to see what was what but it was just way to hot and smokey in there to see anything. We waited for everything to cool down a bit and tried to reassure each other that it was ok, it wasn't. Staring at the engine it was obvious that this was fairly catastrophic, everything was covered in oil and the distributor seemed to be missing. I'd never seen anything like it and was totally confused.  The distributor had completely disappeared and there were strange very hot pieces of metal littered about.  I've been working on cars with my dad since I was a little  kid but this was a new one. It really took me a while to figure out what it was. Ezan and I went searching down the road for  the missing parts and what we found blew my mind. About 50 yards behind the van laying in the middle of the road and sizzling hot was a piston!
Somehow a Piston had blown straight through the side of the engine. The forces needed to make something like this happen are massive. A cars engine block is made out of cast Iron so for something to explode through the side its gotta be powerful. Im still confused as to how the mechanics of this happened. The bent a twisted shape of the Piston suggests it broke from the crank shaft and went smashing around inside the cylinder before bursting through the side of the engine.
If you look at the above picture you'll see the engine laying behind the van, look at the bottom left and you'll see a dirty great hole! That's where the piston came through, that hole is about the size of soft ball or just bigger than a cricket ball. I could easily fit my entire fist in. 
It really took a while for this to sink in but when it did it hit hard. At this stage we didnt know exactly what it meant, we knew it meant a new engine but how much that was going to cost and how long it would take we had no idea. We just knew our original plans were out of the Window. Matt and Ezan had far more to worry about than me. Matt because he was on a seriously tight schedule and needed to catch a flight back to the states. Ezan because he owns the van and as much as I wish I did, I just didnt have the money to help him out.

The Namibia Angola Border. Separated by the Okavango river.

In a situation like this its easy to get very emotional, it's very hard not too but it's the worst thing you can do. Your thousands of kilometers from home in a very isolated part of Africa you have very little idea how safe or dangerous the place really is. We all read the horror stories in the media and it's easy to let your mind run away with you. For us though we just knew we had to chill out. I can only speak for myself but at this point my mind was running through hundreds of different scenarios. What could and was likely to happen? I figured that at worst we'd be camped out for a few days by the side of the road and that really wasnt such a bad option. We had plenty of food water and shelter, the basics and essentials were covered. We were really ok. All that lay ahead of us was a bit of stress but we werent in any kind of danger. I know that may sound obvious but it's actually very reassuring to consciously think to yourself.
From here we need to get the van into the nearest capable town and figure out how to get a new Engine. We put together a help sign and began trying to flag down cars. Lucky for us the road we were on is frequently traveled and after a few cars just passed us by one finally pulled over.
What happened next was really bizarre. I jogged over to the drivers door and as the window rolled down and the driver spoke i couldn't believe what I was hearing. The unmistakeable easy going 'Hey how's it going?' of a Canadian! Far from any sizable town in the very far reaches of northern Namibia the first car to pull over is being driven by a Canadian!
I couldnt help but laugh. This guys name was Peter and he was from a little town in Southern Ontario called Woodstock. I cant imagine what the odds of that one are. I lived with my family in Woodstock as a small kid and remember it well. 
Peter was a brilliant guy who did his very best to help us, He made phone calls to try and get us a tow and even asked a coupe of his buddies if they could help. Non could be Peter tried his best. Peter is an agricultural consultant to the Namibian government and has been living up there for a number of years. It was really great to meet him and he really made me proud to have lived in Canada. Peter was in that moment everything that is great about all the stereo types you hear about Canadians. He was totally unflustered, immensely kind and went a long way out of his way to help us.
In the end he couldn't really do allot for us but he tried his very best!
Eventually we did get a tow from a passing Dutch couple in a brand new 4x4. It was a long way to the next down and the trip would be far from without incident.

I think that's enough of the story for now. The excitement and drama is far from over and i'll pick up the rest of the story soon!

Cheers
Terry