09-01-2006 Freezers


Just a small story about our freezers.
In July David had bought us a small super freezer that could work on 12, 110 and 220 Volts and on gas as well. Unfortunately the freezer never worked and we left it behind in Macae (Rio Janeiro). It took some time before it was send back to the supplier in Brasilia and the supplier took some time to revise it. Just before Christmas they promised they would send us a new one. Relieved that that item on my things-to-do-list was dealt with I left for a Christmas break. When I came back there was no freezer. We called the company various time per day, but nobody picked up the phone for the entire week. By Thursday (we were to leave on Tuesday the next week) I decided we could no longer wait; I had to buy another one. I had already found a shop where they sold freezers of 90 liters and on Monday they still had 5 in stock… Tadadadaaaaaaa guess what: when I went there on Friday they were all gone. I raced trough the city to find another one, but all small freezers were sold out. I could only find one of 145 liters, and they only had 1. If I wanted it I had to buy it on the spot. Gige – in Montevideo – could not participate in the freezer hunt at that moment because it was a national holiday in Uruguay and everything was closed until Monday. Working without a freezer during this last part of the expedition was not an option because of the large distances we had to cover (some of our samples have to stay frozen all the time). I felt there was nothing else to do than to buy the freezer although I did not feel happy with it.

Anyone who has seen our pickup fully packed (life or on pictures) knows that there is actually no space for anything extra let alone a huge freezer and when Gige found a smaller freezer on Monday we decided to buy that one as well. The 145 liter one would stay in Montevideo to store some of the samples of the previous lakes and the 90 liter one would join us on the trip down South.

I better not mention the fact that the supplier of David's original super freezer contacted him on our day of departure asking if the freezer had arrived. Apparently they had actually send it before Christmas and had tried to deliver it on the 27th but because the transporter couldn't find David they had taken it back and brought it to a deposit somewhere in Porto Alegre. If they only would have left a we-did-not-find-you-at-home-note saying where we could collect the freezer we would have saved a lot of time, stress and money… Well we'll just have to see it as a SALGA contribution to the local electrical appliance stores :-$



This picture is for Caique .. imagine the car was stolen but the bird is still in place!


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