The first thing I did this week was to test out my new Vivo router at the “rock office”, and it looks very promising for connectivity on the land! I tested it just running unassisted (no amplifier or directional antenna) and although it only got a one-bar signal it was far better than the little USB stick! Although it’s only a 280kbps 2G connection it was very consistent and usable, I could check email and surf the net no problem – even pages such as this one with many images loaded no problem. With the USB modem it was only just possible to use, emails would take up to a minute to send, most web pages weren’t practical to view with images, and I had to turn off the automatic regular email checking in Thunderbird. So the router is a vast improvement already, but after it’s amplified, using the directional antenna and running via LAN cable to the house it should be a perfectly acceptable connection for doing my work from the land 🙂
I got a few more good shots of more wildlife this week including a frog that moved in to our tent a few weeks ago and is still there 🙂
We decided to come back to Canela on Christmas day since we need to get some more things to carry on with our house such as some bolts for the foundations, and a circular saw to cut the many braces in practical time.
Of course Christmas wouldn’t be complete without a car drama! it started with the engine making a bad noise and straining a lot, so we decided to pull over and take a look. It was very low on oil, but even after topping it up the problem persisted so we thought it would be best to take advantage of the free towing available due to the extortionate road tolls we have to pay along that stretch of highway 🙂 The guy dropped us and our car off at our favourite 4×4 mechanic, Fernando, and then we decided to go and have a beer or two at the gas station for Christmas!
Today Beth went out to start buying the things we needed for the house and checked if the mechanic had any news about the car – fortunately the whole problem was just a spark plug! he did tell us that the engine was getting old though and that it may need to be fixed or replaced within the next few years.