#video #drvelazquez and Martu are taking a break from #vanlife and renting a house because for days it hasn’t stopped raining and snowing in San Martín de los Andes, and everything in their pickup truck bed got wet! Their “snorkel” system didn’t work as expected. #DRAINAGE
on 02024-05-01#drvelazquez #video explaining that they use the showers and bathrooms in campgrounds and service stations and hostels and hotels because their #vanlife has no bathroom in the actual truck, and they get 8–10km per liter of fuel (19–24 “mpg”), with an 80ℓ tank. 1.5m² of living space, like living in a tent, with a bed occupying 120cm × 190cm when open. They’ve started using a 6ℓ water bottle as a graywater tank. They’re spending about US$30 per day between the two of them, which seems pretty expensive for #Argentina.
on 02024-05-01Gonzalo Velázquez, the #drvelazquez #vanlife “Vendo Todo: Me Voy a la Mierda” author.
on 02024-05-01Martu and Colo/Gonza (#drvelazquez) live in #Argentina in Martu’s grandfather’s 01994 Ford F100 pickup, with a truck bed cap (“cúpula”). There’s a couch which unfolds into a bed, woodgrain wallpaper, a 12-volt-pumped kitchen sink draining through plastic accordion pipe out the tailgate onto the ground, mounted in a wooden counter painted white, a couple of ultralight portable camping stove burners on the counter (which run off the little spray-paint-sized butane cans), a polyethylene carboy (bidón) of water. The couch/bed bed is apparently two pieces of particle board hinged together so they can unfold to twice the couch’s width, extending up to the counter and eliminating the floor space, presumably supported on parts of the cabinets. Underneath the bed, which seems to be made of 19mm particleboard screwed together at butt joints, is the clothing. There’s enough headroom to kneel when the bed is folded up to expose the floor. The kitchen counter has curtains on cables which slide open to reveal the dishes, foods, shampoo, tiny fire extinguisher, etc. No bathroom, no graywater tank, and I think not even privacy curtains or air conditioning. They have rolls of aluminized polyethylene foam instead of privacy curtains. The water pump and LED lighting are powered by one of those little gel batteries used in motor scooters or home security systems, which they say came from a UPS, and which they recharge with a car battery charger when they can plug in, or just by hooking it up to a cigarette-lighter socket hooked up to the truck’s starter battery, without even a diode. They also use this for a USB charger. When parked they can use a jack to raise the truck bed cap to make enough space to almost stand up in, with vinyl fabric filling up the space. The furniture is built from wood they found in the street, including discarded broken furniture. They’re trying to survive by selling Colo’s book, “Vendo Todo: Me Voy a la Mierda”, author Gonzalo Velázquez. This is the lowest-budget #vanlife #video I’ve seen yet.
on 02024-05-01