It Was Inevitable 😩// S02E04

Welcome back to Combi Life. We are Ben and Tamara. Apparently find ourselves road tripping through the beautiful wine country of Tuscany, Italy, on our attempt to overland to Asia in our 1973 B-Dub Combi called Boomerang, who, as you're about to find out, obviously does not want to join us on this journey. But you can because you are invited on this adventure too. So buckle up, subscribe and enjoy our suffering. Where are you taking us, Tamara? Off-roading. Good job on driving, by the way. There's not usually so much greenery growing out of the tuff. It's so beautiful though. It just makes it feel a lot more magical, to be honest. There's a fish! Oh, there's a fish! There's lots of fishies. There's two small ones and there's a big one about that big in there. Really? Really? Really, really, really, I promise you. For the longest time on my travels, I've been travelling with these mosquito things. Mosquito repellent bracelets. Pitch and track. Never used them. They've been in the Combi for ages but there's mosquitoes here so I'm going to give it a go. Let's test it out. One on the ankle, I'll report back. Last time I did this, it didn't go so well. You want one? No, I want to see if they bite you first or not. Smells a bit. Ingredients, lemongrass, citronella, that kind of stuff. OK. Pick the blue ones. I'll pick the pink ones. Everyone knows that you can never be alone. What have we got? What have we got? Aww, where are you taking me? On my little wee-wee walk. Don't worry, I'll protect our space from mosquitoes. I went and I found something and honestly it's a fine line but... Do you think we can leave the Combi in the middle of the road? 100%. OK. Can you smell that? Did you fart? It was mosquito. Where is that? OK, now come this way. No, no, no, this way. Can't smell it, right? Yeah. 1, 2, 3. You smell that, right? I do. That's the fig tree. The fig tree smells like that? That's the fig tree, yeah. Smells really good. Isn't it just incredible? I just wanted to show you that. It just takes me straight back to my childhood and being surrounded by figs and climbing the fig trees and trying to bat the wasps out of the way. That does sound like something you would do. Yeah, monkeying up a tree. OK, you going to take me to camp now? Let's go to camp now. It's pretty cool though, right? Yeah, I like that. Yeah, the smell is amazing, yeah. Thanks for sharing. Mosquito, they don't like my youth. Sorry, are they still biting you even with those hair bands on? No, I was protecting you. Ah ha ha ha, OK, OK. Yeah, I can't wait to take you there. We've had some roads now. Third destination, hey? Oh, this stuff looks nice. Maybe we'll park somewhere where there's some sun. Go around the tree. That looks inviting. Here we go. Beside there, look, a huge bird. A herring, yeah. As in the fish? I saw a herring jump out next to the herring. Someone's left us a doormat. Let's go there. Are you ready for that hospital service? Little bit more, and yeah, that'll do. Thank you very much. As always, teamwork. Guys, neither of you sadly didn't take me up on the mosquito repellent. Yeah, I can literally see them jumping off of the water. Let's go catch some fish, come on. Yes, I get to throw fish, yes. This, this is what I signed up for. Yeah? Oh yeah. Could make a fire. With all the fish that we catch, we can make a barbecue. If we catch one fish, it'll be a miracle. I mean this with total respect to all the people, the hundreds of people that I've shared vans with before. This has got to be the best it has ever been, and van life has never been as good as it is right now. I feel totally blessed. We're going to have a go at fishing tonight. I can't wait. We have about an hour until sunset. I'm keen. High five to the Kombi Crew. If you like what we do, please join the Kombi Crew on Patreon and YouTube channel members. It's the best way to keep the Kombi Life videos rolling. There's nothing better than being hidden away at your own private campsite, and there's nothing better than having your internet connection hidden and private too. Mmm, smooth transition Ben. Thanks, but not as smooth as my experience using Surfshark VPN. Jokes aside, I've been using Surfshark VPN for the past five years to help keep my data connection private and secure, both whilst I'm traveling and also in my home country. Having a VPN is an absolute must if you ever find yourself connecting to public Wi-Fi, like at a campsite or a coffee shop or an airport. It helps stop anybody potentially snooping on what you're doing online. One of my favorite use cases for Surfshark VPN is to avoid price discrimination. Did you know that prices are actually different in different regions? So for example, if I'm ever booking travel, and I do this every single time, if I'm booking flights, ferries, car hire, accommodation, any of those things, I will always put my Surfshark VPN on, jump to a different region and check out what the prices would have been. Honestly, I have saved over the years so much money, hundreds if not thousands of dollars, just by doing this one simple trick. For that reason alone, it is worth having Surfshark VPN. It has literally paid for itself many times over. Another great use of using Surfshark is that it helps me unlock content in other regions. Or perhaps if I'm traveling, I can watch a show that I was watching back in my home country. It's amazing how much content is only available in certain countries. And the best part is, it's super easy to use and intuitive. It just sits in the background, doing its job and doesn't get in the way. You can use it on unlimited devices. So we have it on our laptops, on our phones, even on the projector and the TV. Since I first started using Surfshark VPN, it has evolved. And now, in addition to what I consider to be the best VPN on the market, you also get other security features like malware protection, antivirus, data breach alerts, and blocking of those annoying popups that come up on the screen. If you haven't got a VPN, Surfshark is very inexpensive. Hit the link in the description below and you can have a 30 day money back guarantee to try it. Plus, if you use the code COMBILIFE at checkout, you'll get four months extra for free. What a sweet deal. Thank you so much to Surfshark and thanks to you guys. Morning. It's a new day. I've got a lot to do today. I've got to fix the car, some problems with it. I've got some editing to do, but I can't get on with any of that because Tamela is dragging me out to go and find bait. Yeah, you've got work to do. I, on the other hand, am prioritizing here. Come on, let's go find your bait. Here then, is it? You want a hole here, do you? What am I looking for? Worms? Oh, found a worm. We're in. Here's one. There, little guy. There. Boom. What have you got in your packed lunch so far? You've got cucumber, bread. Honestly, this is gourmet for the fishies. So, we're going to throw some bread along the different parts. Wait a minute, is that my lunch? Is that my sandwich that you're ripping up there? Honestly, could actually make a sandwich with what we've got. This is a bit of a gamble now. We're gambling lunch on... Dinner? On dinner. For dinner. Correct. Lovely carp. Funnily enough, I just saw a snake go across the river here, so I kind of followed it down the bank and then found these two local fishermen who spoke not a word of English, which matched my not a word of Italian. Same here. But we've managed to have a little conversation over fishing and how terrible we are at it. Yes, and how unprepared we are. But, thanks to their kindness, not only have they lent us this box, but also they have given us some maggots. This is better. This is the recipe. How do you say maggots? I'm very excited to go and try. And they've even told us how to apply them onto the hook as well. Yeah, put two on and leave one wriggling at the end. I understood that much. They have some really big fish in their bucket, and it's not carp. That's the thing, because it means if we can get the same thing, we have dinner sorted. The guys next to us have lit up the barbecue, so we don't even have to faff around with that. We just literally have to now throw the thing in the water. Let's go. Favourite part was where we opened our bait box and took out the cucumber and then looked at both of us and threw it in the water. Yeah. And then he picked up the bread and the salami and looked at both of us and then threw it in the water. He was like, what? Such a funny moment. That was such a grandad moment. Yeah. He was like, what are you guys doing? Apparently, amongst all the bad luck, which we'll tell you about in a second, our good luck doesn't stop because I just got approached by one of the people here that are having a barbecue and they just gave us free food, free warm food. And it's off the barbecue. It smells absolutely delicious. And honestly, I'm struggling to keep holding this plate in front of you guys and talking about it because I'm so ready to dig in. It's dinner time. We've got to take out our dinner in time. And it's currently defrosting on the table in the shade now. I thought you were catching dinner anyway, not defrosting it. Does it come to that? Like giving up on catching it and now you're defrosting it. That looks amazing. I know, I know. Enjoy this because after you've had this lovely experience, I'm going to tell you about what a disaster is happening in the engine. Seriously? The fast food. Okay, you heard. Fast food. Dig in. This is really good. I'm really appreciated. Locals are really nice, aren't they? I think we've hit a pretty good part of Italy, to be honest. It's just far enough away from the cities that the people are just so friendly. Our alternator is not charging our battery in the combi. Because? Why? I think the regulator might be broken. What does that mean? It means we need to get a part, but also the regulator is inside the alternator, so I can't change it. So we need an alternator specialist or an alternative alternator, which I have back in Jersey. I'm not sure how far we can drive or exactly how stranded we are, but quite stranded at the moment. Seriously? So your fishing skills better get a lot better. Are we stranded because you took stuff apart and now there's no point putting it back together? No, we're stranded because we can't really drive or blow things up or burn things out if we drive. That's what that face looks like from front on. It's always like that. That's not the news I wanted. Yeah, I know. I'm sorry. Morning. 7am. Apparently we've got to get up. The man yesterday said that that's the best time to catch fish, and guess where Tamara is? Coffee? Thank you, mi amor. Good luck with the fishing. I'll be here with the Volkswagen, Volkswagening you. Hope we catch ourselves some dinner. Good luck. So, let me explain about this pickle that we found ourselves in. Approximately 150 miles since the potential fixing of our wheel, we find ourselves in a situation where our alternator is not behaving correctly. The weird thing is, it is actually charging at 14 volts or whatever it should be charging at, but the other terminal here, the D plus terminal, is giving out 17 volts. I don't understand this behaviour. I've done many hours of research on it. Without going into too much detail, I think the alternator is on the way out. Cool. To be honest, I'm torn between getting a new alternator sent down and have one in Jersey, or getting a local person to try to fix this one. Neither are very good options. On the plus side, we do have a beautiful campsite, so at least there's that. We're off on a supply run. We're going to get some supplies while we figure this out. It's come to that point where it might be time to stock up a bit more, because we don't know how things are going to turn out. At least this time we can drive two supplies. At least this time. We've got some reserve battery power, so that should see us through. Muy bien. How should we do? Buenisimo. Buenisimo, si. Right, what do we need? Bread? Milk? Vegetables? A lot, a lot of wine. Hurrah! Wine! That's the face you make when you couldn't get wine. Hurrah! Holy cakes. Damn it. What the hell is this? That's my Spam. There was no Spam. They didn't have a cap. Instead of buying, obviously Italians don't have Spam, so, you know, that's my fishing something. It's called a fish. And I wasn't even allowed chocolate. Yeah. Italians drive like the opposite of American cars. Look at the size of that tiny little Fiat. So cute. It's so cute. I went, Ben, viti, viti, look. Look at the side profile of it. It's so small. Oh, my God. That's what a Fiat 500 should look like. Probably did, didn't it? Couldn't be. OK. Hold on. Put this all up now. Yeah. You good? Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're doing great. Are your feet clean? Have you had a shower today? In the last 24 hours, yes. Today, no. Should I tell him that I'm done, or should I just keep going? You're doing great. We did it. I don't know why I'm doing strong hands. You should be this strong. All right, let's go. Get down. Do the flip flop. This isn't quite how we imagined we'd be giving Boomer a wash. But we're glad he's having a makeover, nevertheless, right? Yeah, it helps with the morale. He needed a wash. We actually haven't washed him since before we left, because we didn't have time. That's definitely time. We've been getting some amazing views at nighttime across the vineyards, across Tuscany, across all of Italy, really. And we've been sleeping with the curtains open. So now we can actually enjoy that view a bit better. Absolutely. Yeah. Italy sure is beautiful. And we were stoked to find this stunning free wild camp. Our intention was to come for the night. But this is going to be home for the next two weeks, as the problems really start mounting up. There was a lot more to share with you about what's going on here. But you guessed it. That is a story for next time. Thanks for watching. And until then, happy travels. Thanks for watching the video, guys. And high five to our Kombi Crew supporters. If you appreciate our content and would like to unlock hundreds of bonus posts, early viewing, behind the scenes, and much more, please join the Kombi Crew on Patreon or become a YouTube channel member. It's the best way to keep the Kombi Life videos rolling. Cheers. And until next time, happy travels.