As if the weeks of planning, paperwork acquisition, and a minor bomb threat weren’t enough to make the shipping process the stressful pain in the ass that anyone who’s been through it will tell you it is, no sooner than we pull away from the hostel on the morning we ship, then the brakes completely die! Refilling the reservoir with brake fluid deposits its entirety on the ground faster than you can get the van in gear and even need to stop. Not a brake line which we could duct tape, but the actual slave in the caliper. After 10,000 miles of travel with only one spark plug going bad, we cannot believe the bad luck as we scramble to decide on a course of action. (more…)