Friday, 20 September 2013

Anyone selling a campervan in Santiago?

Today (Friday 20th) was our second day of actually going to see campervans.  Mario, now recovered from his illness, had spotted a camper in the industrial area he'd taken us to on Monday.  He'd tracked down the owner and arranged a viewing for this morning.  This is what we saw when we arrived:


My camera was on the wrong setting, but it's basically a big campervan in what appeared to be a car graveyard.  The owner, Carlos, had told Mario on the phone that it was in good condition and within our budget, so we waited patiently.  Carlos eventually arrived an hour late.  And pretty much straight away, he said he thought Mario had been talking about another camper that he'd had, but had sold already, and this one was suddenly more expensive.  Turns out it's too big for us anyway (for 8 people) and would cost us a fortune in fuel.







So then Carlos told Mario he had another camper at his house nearby, and he was in the process of fitting cupboards.  So we agreed to follow him to his house (which was NOT nearby!)  Waste of time really...


It had no kitchen. And the whole thing was just grubby.  Fine if we had time to refurbish it, but we don't.





My wide photo of the exterior is really dark, but this is the back:


It's been a little bit disheartening.  We would have loved for one of these to have been the one! Especially because many of the classified ads are turning out to be scams.  Mario contacted the owner of a Fiat van we were interested in.  The guy replied saying he and the van were in Denmark, but if we transferred him the money, he would ship it to us.  (Yeah ok!  What are your account details?)

We've decided against that Kia conversion we saw on Monday because we will probably have to do a lot of work to it (bigger water tank, water proofing, sound system in the cabin etc).  We never did check the engine out because Mario was ill on Tuesday.

Anyway, we are going to try and arrange some viewings for Monday.  Hopefully, once the Independence Week holiday is over, we'll be able to see more.