The adventures of a blonde and a very old car...
“You gotta be kidding me, right..??!”
Ok, truth be told, my red haired would-be co-pilot might have used a few other choice words not suitable in good company, but her feelings about my suggestion was crystal clear. She did not approve.
Mrs J liked package holidays. She liked 5 star hotels she had seen recommended in glossy lifestyle magazines. To her, the Middle East was all about wearing pristine white (organic) linen shirts, sipping cardamom flavoured tea (organic obviously) resting on soft cushions in a light breeze. Well, what can I say; sometimes reality slaps you, right?
To this day I am not entirely sure how I convinced her. I might, just might, have promised her soft cushions and cardamom tea, like an Irish pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. But let’s not dwell on my methods here. The fact is, Mrs J packed her pristine white shirts and agreed to join me on a road trip in Ol’ Martha, my Pajero, still stuck in 3rd gear. This was the stuff adventures were made of.
The car had been to see a mechanic in Wadi Kabir. He had sucked his teeth and kicked the tyres like a true professional, so I was full of confidence.
“It’s gonna cost you”, was his final verdict. “The car needs a new gearbox”.
I watched him patiently waiting for him to crack and admit he had just been joking. It didn’t happen.
“But Mrs J is already packing…” I tried.
It would appear that Ol’ Martha needed a new gearbox to be able to get out of 3rd gear. It wasn’t possible to just fiddle about a bit and pop it back like a bicycle chain that has come off. Who knew? The mechanic got out his over-sized calculator and tapped on it like a concert pianist after too many espressos. The result brought tears to my eyes.
“And this assumes we can even find a secondhand gearbox… which might be tricky for such an old model”.
I felt the insult lurking in the shadows. “But she runs kinda
OK in 3rd gear” I explained. The mechanic had already lost interest and his gaze was fixed at something behind me. “Sure, just don’t go faster than 75 km/hour” he called back over his shoulder as he quickly walked towards a shiny new Mercedes with a tiny crack in the headlight. We had been dismissed.
“Fixed?”, asked Mrs J when I got home, her enormous suitcase packed and ready. She knew less about cars than me. “Sure”, I smiled “let’s do it!”
It took both of us to lift Mrs J’s suitcase into the boot of the car. I noticed she already had a small black stain on her white linen shirt, but thought it best not to mention it. Why shatter her illusions so soon? Since Mrs J wasn’t a camper per se, or who am I kidding, a camper at all, it was a bit of a shock to her just how much stuff one has to bring when going camping. “Do we really need all this?” she complained. “Well, we could always put it on the roof”, I nodded towards the recently bought, well used roof rack, which didn’t exactly fit my Pajero, but it would have to do. You can’t buy the world for RO 25.
Sweaty and happy we looked at the suitcase perching on top of the car, and the guy who had taken pity on us and helped lift the heavy load, quickly left for the nearby coffee shop with his RO 5. Everything has its price.
The road trip had started. Adventures awaited. Once again I had to remind myself that it doesn’t matter how slowly you move forward. As long as you keep moving. Whoever made this into a slogan obviously had never driven to Salalah in a Pajero stuck in 3rd gear…
THE ROAD TRIP HAD STARTED. ADVENTURES AWAITED. ONCE AGAIN I HAD TO REMIND MYSELF THAT IT DOESN’T MATTER HOW SLOWLY YOU MOVE FORWARD