Last day in Santiago

A quick one before we set off for Mendoza.  Lots of pix to put up before we leave the comfort of 24/7 wifi.  First to announce that we have named our camper Mario.  We told Mario The Man at dinner on Friday night.  He said the name is too sexy for a campervan.  

Yesterday (Saturday 28th) we randomly saw the President of Chile at a firefighters' parade which we happened to stumble upon.  That was pretty cool! 

Then we headed to buy some dollars, as they're in demand in Argentina and we'll get a better exchange rate if we're selling dollars there.  All the money exchange places are clustered together not far from the central square where we saw President Pinera, so you can't go wrong with the exchange rate.

Then we went to the supermarket for some pots and pans, which somehow went missing from our trolley yesterday, and some beers to test Mario's fridge.  I am pleased to report that Mario fits perfectly in to a car park space.

Then we went to change Mario's oil.  Mario (the man) and Paul got to have a look underneath.  

Mario was thirsty.

Then it was party time!  Not got time to write about it.  Don't think I need to though:

Major food!

Last night (Friday 27th) we took Mario, Paula and Masiel out for dinner to say a MASSIVE THANK YOU for helping us so much.  

Mario had recommended Los Buenos Muchachos.  It's a Chilean restaurant with performances of traditional dance and music from different parts of Chile.  Food-wise, we walked past the kitchen to get to our table and saw masses of meat being grilled and served in big piles.  So we got one.

There were two cuts of beef, pork, a curly garlicky sausage and a big fat chorizo style sausage and potatoes underneath.

We also got an interesting salad with hearts of palm, artichoke, asparagus, broad beans and avocado.

Despite eating masses of meat, there was room for dessert!  Paul, Paula and Masiel had this:

An 'Ipanema Cup' with cream, ice cream, strawberries and god knows what else - it was massive.

Mario and I had this:

It was like the middle of an egg custard tart - not as sweet as a creme caramel, but was sitting In a pool of caramel so you could have it as sweet as you wanted.  

It was a really, really nice meal!  Recommended to anyone in Santiago.

Here are some other pictures of food I've not posted yet.  Paul and I had a romantic lunch to share one day:

Eggs, chips and stir-fried beef, chicken and chopped up hot dog (yes, really.)

We had breakfast at a little cafe the other day - neat coffee art:

I had scrambled eggs on toast:

And Paul (who's now been trained not to eat until I've taken a photo) had 'quiche' with salad:

If you hadn't already noticed, avocado features heavily all over the place.  It's abundant and cheap here.  No one can believe how much we pay for them in the UK.

Right, off to the roof party now.  Last night in Santiago!!

Safe as casa rodantes

We've just had a very busy day prepping our van ready for the journey. One of the biggest tasks we wanted to achieve was to fit a safe so we didn't have to worry about leaving documents and electronics in the motorhome while we are off having fun. We bought ourselves a hotel style safe with an electronic keypad and set Mario on the case...

First we removed the driver's seat.

The metal support box the seat was attached to was then delicately adjusted to make enough room for the safe for to open.

The safe was then welded to the box.

And everything was put back together.

The result is brilliant...very inconspicuous and very secure.

(Photo to follow)

We also spent several hours shopping for household items, like bedding and crockery (and an awesome BBQ which I can't wait to use on the Argentinean steaks), and another couple of hours cleaning everything until our hands hurt!

At one point a van selling propane drove past and we took the opportunity to get our gas cylinder filled so we could start using our appliances. We're happy to report that the water boiler, hob, and fridge are all working perfectly.

It's been really interesting driving the motorhome around Santiago, not least because of the crazy, haphazard road layout. Thank god for GPS. Also, we didn't realise how few motorhomes there are in Chile so we have been turning a few heads as we go, especially with kids playing by the side of the road who often excitedly shout out 'Casa Rodante!' (rolling house) as we pass!

Got the keys!

We now have the keys and the campervan is in our possession!  Our first home together lol!  We had to go to another notary this morning (Thursday 26th) to complete the transfer of ownership.  

They wrote a contract spelling out that the old owner was selling it to us.  Both the old owner and Paul had to sign and fingerprint 4 copies of the contract - one for each of us, one for the notary to keep and one for the equivalent of the DVLA (Registro Civil).

Shortly after this photo was taken, the notary realised that he'd only used Paul's passport number in the contract when he should also have included his Chilean tax number.  So they had to redo it!

But we finally got there and the campervan is officially legally ours.  Actually, in normal circumstances, we'd have had to go to the Registro Civil, but because they're on strike, we couldn't - the notary will push through the paperwork for us when the strike eventually ends and we'll be able to get our registration documents via the internet.  Yay for strikes!

The seller, Salvatore, invited us to lunch later in the afternoon, so in the meantime Mario took me and Paul shopping for tools and other man-things for the van (I'll buy flowers and doilies another day...)

Did we tell you Mario's a mechanic?  When we looked at the campervan initially, he said there were a couple of things that needed checking over so he's going to do that this weekend.  Today's problem was finding somewhere to park the campervan.  His parents said we could park it on their drive, but Mario wasn't sure the camper would fit...

His mum was pretty keen for it to work though, so we could climb up and pick the last 2 oranges off her tree!

In the end, Mario's girlfriend Paula negotiated for us to be allowed to park it on a secure car park near her work.  It's not far from Paula's house so Mario can drive the van over to do the work on it.  Thank you Paula for all your hard bargaining!!!

Now time for today's food picture:

This was lunch at Salvatore's: a Chilean dish that was a sort of lentil and rice stew with sausage and chilli oil, served with homemade bread.  Absolute yum!

After lunch, Salvatore handed over the keys:

Then we went to the petrol station:

And had the windscreen cleaned:

Full tank of diesel at 80p/litre cost 38,000 pesos or about £50!!  We're told Chile has the most expensive fuel of all the countries we intend to drive through.

So now we can start building an onward plan.  Eddie, the Chinese salsa teacher, is having a party on the roof on Saturday (Happy Birthday Chino!) so we are staying for that (hopefully Mario and Paula can come too!)  Then on Sunday the plan is to finally leave Santiago and drive to Mendoza in Argentina!  Yay!  

As if he hasn't done enough already, Mario said he wants to drive in convoy with us to Mendoza because his cousin there is a specialist in diesel engines and has agreed to give our camper the once over in his workshop!  So Mario, Paula and his mum & dad are going to join us on the first leg of our adventure!!  Can't wait!

We've bought a campervan!!!

Yay!  We bought the Fiat Ducato!  We asked Mario to make Salvatore an offer thinking meh, and somehow Mario convinced him to accept!!  I literally (ha Marcus!) can't believe it.  Mario had put our offer forward last night and told Salvatore to sleep on it.  This morning he was on and off the phone to Salvatore for about 2 hours until about 9am, when he finally told us he'd managed to persuade him!  He says one of our big advantages was being able to pay up front, whereas he'd normally expect to be paid in a couple of instalments.  

Cue about 5 hours of stressing over how to get the money over from the UK asap.  Luckily, Salvatore was happy for us to transfer to him rather than have us get the cash out.  But we thought a money wiring service would be better than simply doing an international bank transfer, as the exchange rate would be better.  Unfortunately it turns out no one deals in Chilean pesos, so we'd have to send sterling and leave the exchange rate up to the Chilean bank.  That's how our own bank does it, so we just did the international bank transfer.  For info, we use First Direct.  They charge £25 to send the money and we had to call them over the phone to do it, we couldn't do it over the internet.  Their call centre is open 24/7 anyway, so we had no problems - Salvatore even let us use his office phone to make the call!  He was also able to find out what exchange rate his bank would use, so we could transfer a precise amount.

Salvatore was also happy to transfer ownership to us straight away, despite not having the money yet!  It's a bit more complicated here than sending off a slip of paper to the DVLA.  We had to go to a notary to set up a contract agreeing transfer of ownership.  

This involved Salvatore getting together a load of documents including one saying the vehicle has no outstanding fines and another confirming he is the owner.  We also needed to present a passport and a Chilean tax number which we got when we first arrived (RUT).  Unfortunately there was a discrepancy whereby the notary couldn't confirm on the computer system that Salvatore had paid the import tax when he brought the camper over from Germany.  So we need to go to another notary tomorrow (Thursday 26th) to complete the process.  He's shown us the paperwork that says he did pay said tax, so we're not worried about that.

Another minor hitch is that the equivalent of the DVLA here has been on strike for about a month already, so we can't actually get the documents confirming we own the vehicle yet.  (The Registro Civil also processes passports etc, meaning Javier can't leave the country until god knows when because his passport has expired!)  It also means we need a letter written by the notary and signed by Salvatore saying he authorises us to take the vehicle out of the country - so we have got three embossed, stamped, signed and fingerprinted copies of that!

Tomorrow morning it should officially be ours!

Paul took the opportunity to confirm that the permanent bed is long enough for him.

Salvatore has invited us to have lunch with him tomorrow once we've got the paperwork done.  Then Mario has offered to take us shopping for all the bits we need - kitchenware, bedding, a hydraulic jack and that stuff you inject in to a flat tyre so you can still drive on it!  And he's going to fix a couple of little things that need sorting, and teach us how to change the fan belt!!  Honestly, we have been so spoilt by Mario.  I have no idea how we'd have bought a campervan without him.  Paul has already said he would not recommend going through the process to anyone!

Through the campervan keyhole

Very constructive day on the campervan shopping front.  Saw FIVE motorhomes today!

1. Fiat Ducato

In really good nick, 1.9l diesel engine which means it'll be good on fuel (and diesel is cheaper than petrol here), Mario said its engine is in good shape, while the whole van has been really well looked after.  

Decent living area that converts to a bed.

Big permanent bed above the driver's cabin.

Nice little bathroom/wet room with cassette toilet and shower.

Gas hob, hot and cold water and a 3-way fridge that runs on gas, mains or battery.

Mario offering his advice on the engine!  He's been amazing!  Paul took us all for a test drive in it.  We really like it and got a good vibe from the vendor Salvatore (not like Carlos the joker we saw last week!)

Salvatore was also selling another motorhome.  Ultimately it's too big for us, but we had a nose around anyway.

2. Peugeot Euromovil

Bigger than the Fiat with room for 6 people to sleep.

Nice and clean interior.

Lots of space for cooking meth, I mean, food.

Cute little bathroom with decorations!

After seeing Salvatore, we headed to a place south west of Santiago which had loads of motorhomes!

There were three in our price range.

3. Ford 'Fiesta'

This actually had Ford Fiesta written on it.  American origin I think.

Surprisingly spacious inside.

Permanent bed - one of Paul's prerequisites. 

And it even had a bath.  But ultimately we discounted this one because it's got a 3.5l petrol engine, so will be costly to run, and it's also automatic which will be expensive to fix if there are problems.  

4. Toyota thingamajig (no idea what)

Not been in one of these before.  Surprisingly spacious:

This had also been well looked after, given that it was built in the 80s.  

It had an oven as well as a gas hob, which was a plus.  

But there were wobbly things that gave away its age.  And it had a big petrol engine too, so that was this one out of the running.

Final van of the day:

5. Toyota Dolphin

Not bad nick for 1984.

Decent interior, plenty of space for cooking.

Clean, well kept bathroom.

Even a kitchen roll dispenser!

But it had a problem with water leaking in and it emits too many emissions to be allowed in to Santiago City (it's only got paperwork allowing it on Santiago's highways).  So we wouldn't be able to drive it in the city proper and it would be impossible to sell in Santiago when we get back.

So, we really like the first one we saw, the Fiat.  But, of course, it's over budget!  Decisions, decisions.  

Here are some food pictures to help us decide:

Mixed ceviche from Puerto Esmerelda, a really nice Peruvian restaurant about 5 minutes from our apartment.

Paul had 'something from the land and from the sea' (thank you Word Lens!) - a really tender cut of beef in a seafood sauce with sticky rice.  Yummy!