We got the car fixed - how much do you think it cost?

Well it was an exciting day on Tuesday, 4th of July for those in the US, but outside the world continued as normal with not a thought to passed insurrections of our northern neighbors. I had a job to do, first we confirmed that it was indeed the axle that broke on the car.

I went up with 'el mono', a young but talented mechanic who, around these parts could be mistaken for my cousin by anyone who didn't know us.

So we started taking everything apart, I learned all about how these things fit together, which is fun for me, I like learning how things work and do pay attention. La campana fits into the platon which butts up to the brakes and has a brake line going up to the front of the car.

And of course the (now broken) axle holds it all together and hooks into the transmission. This side was the 'shirt axle', I guess the other side is longer. But they are not continuous.

So once we figured it all out, unassembled and understood what happened, we made a plan. We could hunt for an axle, first the mechanics called their contacts in Villa Hermosa, we established a baseline price, and then went hunting in a local junkyard.

We found one in good condition, with just a few minutes of hunting. After a fierce negotiation I managed to buy it for 200mil pesos, or about 48.50 usd.

Luckily, nothing else seemed to have been damaged on the car, so it was off to reassemble and hope everything turned out okay....

It was a bit tricky, with the car on an incline and needing to jack it up enough to get the wheel on, put we made it happen after lots of cleber logistics and plenty of pushing and grunting.

I had to buy a new box of lube which cost another 16mil pesos or 3.87 usd.

And in the end, everything worked out alright.

The only thing left was to figure out how much 'el mono' was going to charge me. After all, it was half a day divided over lunch break, 6 trips back and forth on his motor bike, and no small amount of sweat and logistical brain work to get it all done.

I invited a round of beers for him and his father while we figured it out.

In the end, he asked for 95mil pesos, and I was so thrilled, so relieved, that I gave him 100 andivited two more rounds of beer.

Labor 100mil pesos - 24.20 usd
12 beers - 36 mil - 8.70 usd

Plus the 48.50 usd from the replacement part gives us a grand total of.... $81.20 usd!

So if you guessed 'less than $100 dollars' when reading the title, you win the grand prize!

Some days I really love living in Colombia.

Freedom and Friendship