When Gear Fails, There are Helping Hands Karin-Marijke Vis & Coen Wubbels

When Gear Fails, There Are Helping Hands

“We have roadwork to do and will close off the road for the concrete to harden. You either leave early tomorrow or you will have to wait ten days,” a road worker told us.

That was an easy one. Who would like to be stuck in a small Land Cruiser parked in a meadow in the middle of nowhere when days of rain have been predicted? We had arrived on one of the few gorgeous autumn days and had made the best of it with a beautiful hike into the Kaçkar Mountains of northeastern Turkey. However, with this weather forecast it was time to move on.

The day didn’t start well. We overslept. When we got up, we spotted the workers getting ready to fix the road surface, right in front of where we stood parked. Like a bat out of hell we took down the rooftop tent, broke camp, and Coen fired up the old diesel. Within the first foot of driving, the left side sank into the swamp caused by a night of torrential downpour. Fountains of mud churned up behind the Land Cruiser and the wheels clawed deeper into the sludge. The car wouldn’t move an inch.

The purchase of the Land Cruiser, a couple of months earlier, had come with a winch. We hadn’t taken the time to check how it worked, let alone test it, but Coen exuded confidence that he knew what he was doing. He unrolled the winch-cable, hitched it to a telephone pole and set himself behind the steering wheel. He then pushed the button of the remote control, took up the slack in the winch cable and the Land Cruiser inched forward.

Pang! The winch emitted a tiny whirl of smoke. We had no clue what just happened but that was the end of the winch. The road workers had finished their first stretch of

resurfacing and lent a hand. They pushed and pulled the Land Cruiser, creating space underneath the wheel. I filled it with rocks I had collected at the nearby stream. It was to no avail. The car sank deeper into the quagmire and tilted even more. The workers gave up and offered to organize a tractor for 200 US dollars to pull us out, saying it was impossible to do it on manpower alone. We rejected their offer.

Using the hi-lift and the shovel to dig the left rear tire free, I could add more stones under the wheel. Two elderly men appeared, we assumed from a nearby village, who helped me gathering rocks from the river. The Land Cruiser’s angle was frightening and I feared it would topple over. Coen, on the other hand, was confident as he took his place behind the steering wheel. He revved the engine, put

it in gear and powered backwards. Clouds of mud flew up and the Land Cruiser freed itself.

A moment of triumph, which we celebrated with shouts and hugs. There was a minor detail thought, we still stood in that field. We figured there was only one option left, which meant Coen would have to drive through a narrow, uphill passage with high boulders that could easily smash the roof rack if the Land Cruiser rocked too much to one side. With confidence Coen went flat out and tackled the slope. Our home on wheels reached the top undamaged. More shouts of joy.

But now what? A fresh layer of concrete lay in front of us, the road workers since long gone. Our kind helpers told us to drive through it; they would fix it afterwards. We shared a tea and bade them farewell. The puddles in the road rinsed the tires before the concrete on them hardened. Half a mile down, workers had just poured the second batch of cement. They let us pass, staring in disbelief. We triumphed.

As so often happens on our journey, when gear fails there are always helping hands to get us back on the road. Beautiful people abound, all over the world.

Karin-Marijke Vis and Coen Wubbels

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