Merry Christmas everyone! We are celebrating Christmas in Santiago as we are a bit stuck here at the moment (more about that later). A couple years ago we organised a Chrismas potluck for ‘orphans’ in Wellington and we have found the same event being organised in Santiago! So tonight we are joining a random group of people for a meal on the rooftop terrace of an apartment building. Everyone also has to bring a Christmas card to exchange.

We have no plans for Christmas day, but we will probably walk around the Bellavista area a bit and take photos of the graffiti art that all the buildings are covered with, it really makes it a very colourful neighbourhood.

Since are last blogpost we have spent a lot of time on trying to find the right car. We did eventually find what we were looking for at a Suzuki dealer in Bellavista. He had two Suzuki Grand Nomades, which we both liked. One of them had a rattling sound in the engine, which I suspect were the valves. The dealer said it was not a problem, but we moved on. The second one sounds so much better, it was a couple of years newer, but with more km’s. Unfortunately out of our budget though. We made a loose offer and after the weekend we heard that he was prepared to go down to what we were willing to pay! This was last week Monday, the 17^th. We went over, discussed the deal, checked the paperwork and promised to come back on Tuesday with the cash. As we are not allowed to open a bank account here, we took a large sum of cash money with us to Chile and hid it until we needed it. It was in US dollars however, so on Tuesday morning we hit the streets with it to go exchange it into Pesos. That was interesting… It all went well though and we got an amazing rate, very happy that I never picked up the Pesos I had ordered via Travelex at Auckland Airport, saved 1000 NZD!

So we went back to the dealer, our third visit to finalise the deal (or so we thought…). We also needed five new tyres and windows tinted. We got quoted 2500 NZD for the tyres I wanted, but luckily Rosita came to our rescue. She works at the dealership and speaks English and has been great in helping us out whenever we got stuck with the dealer. She made a few phone calls and managed to find us a way better deal, so now we were getting Bridgestone Dueler A/T 694 tyres fitted.

The dealer wasn’t exactly around the corner and as soon as we were back in our apartment, there was an email that we had to come back as he had forgotten that we had to sign a document. Back again, fourth visit, signed the transfer document (all five copies of it) and finger printed it as well!

We were going to be emailed on Thursday which was when the car and paperwork was to be ready for us. I didn’t hear anything so emailed them and reminded them that the central locking needed to be fixed. They had forgotten about that, so we had to pick up on Friday as they were going to install a brand new alarm for us. So we went on Friday, the car looked good with the tinting and tyres! Upon checking the paperwork though, we found that it only had my first name on the official ownership papers and that the transfer document had my names written several different ways throughout. Even ‘Santiago’ was misspelled! So we couldn’t take the car, although they said it wouldn’t be a problem. I think that at the first police checkpoint where the ownership papers wouldn’t match my passport, I would have a big problem! This all meant that we were not going to leave Santiago on the 23rd as planned and camp.

So now it is Monday and we were promised that it was going to be all sorted this afternoon, so far no news. I really hope it is going to happen so we can leave Santiago by the 26^th, but I am doubting it. It is all a bit frustrating that it is taking this long, but it also makes you appreciate how easy and efficient things are in New Zealand where you can do what we are trying to do in seven days, online in 15 minutes!!  Anyway, we are very keen to leave Santiago behind us and go camping at Siete Tazas National Park. So that is something to look forward to. The freedom of a car will be great as we have found many places already that we would like to visit, where you wouldn’t be able to get too without your own transport.

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There have been distractions from the car stuff. Earlier this week we went to see The Hobbit, which was weird as a couple weeks ago we were at the World Premiere in Wellington and now we were seeing it in Chile with Spanish subtitles. We’ve also walked up the largest hill in Santiago to see the views, which was quite spectacular despite the heavy smog and we have been running in the mornings in a nice park just across the road from where we are staying, sometimes followed by a swim in the pool.