Say hello to my little friend...

Meet Beruška , the latest addition to our little team.

After scouring the classifieds, the internet, and finally the streets of Salvador, for a Toyota Land Cruiser, we became convinced that these cars just don't exist in Salvador and prepared to move on to the next city, by bus.

Just then, guess who shows up - none other than the beautiful Beruška herself, and parked in the parking-lot of our apartment nogal. What followed next was a series of skillful negotiations (with Danilo, Nanda's brother doing most of the talking obviously), a check-up at the local Toyota mechanic followed by many, many hours watching and learning as they opened our baby up, kitted her out, and, it has to be said, discovered some unexpected issues, which went some way in terms of countering the discount we managed to organize on the price.

Nevertheless, some problems with this beast are inevitable - the car is after all a 1981 model - and we are just glad that, hopefully now, most of the issues have been found and taken care of. (Having said that, don't be surprised if we come back home as expert Toyota mechanics as a result of spending many hours under this tractor-of-a-car!)

Footnote: For the record I (Tom) had in mind a different, more hardcore name - like maybe "Brutus the Bandeirante". Anyhow, I let Liba have her way with "Beruška", which means "Ladybird" in Czech. We agreed that, depending on how Beruška treats us, a name-change along they way is possible and may even result in us choosing "Red Devil" instead!

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