Motor-Tarrega

The next morning, a young truck driver stops at our warning triangle and immediately looks under the hood. The battery is now also drained from the many startups, and he quickly realizes that he can't help us like this. He calls the grúa again, and now we understand where the problem lies: we don't have tow truck insurance, and even the promise of cash payment doesn't convince the lady on the phone to rescue us from the mountain. The young man makes a few more calls to his buddies and gives us Jordi's number, who we should try. He has sacrificed at least half an hour of his time before rushing off again. But Jordi doesn't answer the phone.

Then Zappa calls the ADAC, which he gave up on after 20 minutes of waiting the previous evening. Today, Mr. Nolte is on the line; he is in Barcelona and knows the location from which the service should come. He is outraged that they let us spend the night on the Col and promises to take care of it immediately. And that even though we are not members of the ADAC!

After half an hour, he calls back and reports that the tow truck will be with us in - once again - an hour. In Spain, when you register a vehicle, you automatically take out tow truck insurance and are suspicious if someone doesn't have it, he explains to us.

It is Friday noon, and the grúa is here, hurray! He doesn't want to take us to Solsona, that's much further and therefore more expensive; we'll handle the problem with the workshop.

So he tows us to La Seu d'Urgell for 140 euros. On the way, he starts talking to the workshop. No problem, even though it's already noon, someone will take a look at the Kangoo at 3:00.

Alright, let's go shopping first, we need bread, what else? The nearest Mercadona is about 2.5 km away, and we walk along the busy N260, which leads from Andorra to the south and where we will be living in the next few days. The atmosphere reminds me of reports from the Camino de Santiago, where pilgrims are often on such routes, and we are just as heavily loaded. And our smell is not far away either.

When we return around 5:00 p.m., the Kangoo is still in the same place as we left it, we didn't expect anything else. The good thing is that there is a young man who speaks German in the Renault Trucks workshop and has to negotiate with us constantly, poor guy!

We have scouted out a path to the Rio Segre and go and wash ourselves. For this, we have to cover another 2.5 km, but there is a hill between us and the desired water. 150 meters uphill and downhill on the other side, and the same thing back again, it makes you sweat a lot.

When we return to the Taller after another 1.5 hours, they have examined the tank. The relay of the diesel pump is broken, the German speaker is a mechanic for Renault trucks and is not familiar with the electronics of cars. We are supposed to go to Renault and make an appointment (with the one who turned me away on Thursday already...), this is a Toyota workshop, they only deal with the big trucks made by Renault! It is just before 7:00 p.m., and I hurry to the cars. My Spanish is muy mal, and it is often difficult to understand what people want to tell me, especially when it comes to car-related talks. But even shortly before closing time, they listen to me, and Señor promises me to call Toyota the next morning to clarify the problem.

We go back there at 9:30 a.m. on Saturday, and they make a phone call. They print out a wiring diagram for the relay, which we hand over to the German speaker. Then we go to buy bread...

When we return, Jamal explains to us that the fuse is not the cause, and we have to wait until Monday, we have already adjusted to that.

The guys here are all really nice, provide us with water, and repeatedly look under the hood on Saturday after work. They now think it could be the diesel pump, la bomba. Well, we are now living right outside their door, and I've also lied a bit and brought forward my first day of work...

At the moment, the robber's cave is out of order at the workshop on the heavily frequented N260. The metal caravan passes by incessantly: motorcycles, motorcycles, motorcycles, tour buses, regular cars, tuned roaring cars, motorhomes, tractors, motorcycles, racing bikes (the quiet ones), trucks, motorcycles... At 3:00 a.m., there can be a few minutes of silence; I will start a traffic count soon.

We sleep with earplugs, walk everywhere in sunny weather and summer temperatures around 30°C (buying bread + washing = 10 km + 300 meters of altitude per day), hope for Monday, and my Spanish is slowly getting a little better.

The Kayak World Championship is currently taking place here, and the spot by the river is far from the sound of engines. I have already looked up a Flixbus connection just in case, Barcelona-Braunschweig in 32 hours, with a transfer in Brussels. But Barcelona has to be reached first...

¡Vamos a ver!