Replacement vehicles

December 24 afternoon/evening

For context, please read "The day we almost went to Salzberg" first…

Let me preface this entry with my thanks to Donovan for being our primary translator throughout this ordeal. While some of the customer service people on the phone spoke excellent English, the gas station attendant, two truck driver, cab driver and car delivery people did not.  He spent hours on the phone and in face to face conversations helping us work through this.  Danke sehr (thank you very much) Donovan!

We've now returned to the house sans our vehicles.  Given that Germans celebrate Christmas mainly on the 24th, we expected our prospects for getting a quick resolution slim to none.  We had sufficient food through to Tuesday morning, our planned departure day, so we began to think about contingencies.  If we couldn't secure new vehicles until Tuesday, we could see about extending our stay in Bödldorf and just waiting out the holiday.

I went next door to talk to Silvia and Gerd to see if that was an option.  A quick check of the board showed the place was vacant until Friday, so we could stay for up to three more nights if needed.  We had a quick pow wow and decided that we really liked it here and whether or not the vans were replaced right away, we would enjoy staying longer.  After double-checking the cancellation policy at our next stop, I sent a note to that Airbnb host explaining that we would be changing our arrival dates due to mechanical problems and formalized the Airbnb reservation changes.

We were just about to drop the matter for the evening when Donovan realized he had a missed call on his phone.  The main room of our house is deep inside thick brick walls and has no cell service.  He went outside and returned the call. We then learned that replacement vehicles were being arranged and would arrive this evening.  Given the holiday, we suggested that they not worry about it until Monday, but the agent on the phone said they could not guarantee which vehicles would be available by Monday, so it was better to do it tonight.

Two Mercedes vans become a VW van and BMW wagon.

The only problem was that our two Mercedes vans with a combined seating capacity of 17 were being replaced with a VW van (seating 8) and a Mercedes station wagon (barely seating 5).  While technically enough room for all of us, when our luggage was added into mix, we didn't think we would have enough room.  They explained that we could take the BWM back to Munich on Wednesday and there was a high likelihood that we could exchange it for a larger vehicle.

The VW van showed up around 7:30 pm.  The good news was that it could actually seat 9 and had a cargo area significantly larger than the Mercedes.  Whereas we could only put four of the large checked bags in the back of the Mercedes (standing on end), this one appeared deep enough to lay them flat, and by stacking 3-4 high, we should be able to get them all in.

The wagon arrived about an hour later.

Now with two vehicles capable of hauling our crew, we can potentially move on to our next destination and in the meantime make another attempt to see Salzberg.