This was supposed to be a rest day, but did not quite work out like that for some. John woke at 4.00am to realize that Rachael was not in her bed. He immediately began to worry that something had happened and tried to ring her mobile without success. Fortunately she arrived shortly after to say they had spent the last few hours at the police station.
After the night out in St.Louis they had been waiting for a taxi to return to the camp site, when Mike, on the left in the photo, of Kiss the Gurus, a solid lad, leaned against a shop window and cracked it. This caused the locals to go wild, all claiming the shop was owned by a relative and that he had to pay to mend it. The owner couldn't be found so they got in a taxi who drove them, not to the camp site, but to the police station, where he was locked up for the night. To cut a very long story short, the owner was eventually found and after much haggling Mike had to pay him €200 for the repairs to the glass. He was then free to go, but did witness the shop keeper paying a lump of his cash to the police. This place runs on corruption!
Back to the car. We gave the head a final tighten down, then reset the tappet clearances, put the carburettor back on and finished the rebuild by noon. We wanted to leave the gasket at least 24 hours before starting the car so left it until 5.00pm. Then with the help of a little quickstart straight into the carburettor it started. We were elated and drove the car round the camp site, only to find white smoke coming from the exhaust. This was water vapour, which meant our gasket had failed. So, to bed to think on what to do tomorrow.
