Day 06: 145 days left.
Day 07: 144 days left.
Before I start, I would like to mention that you may experience a few format and grammatical errors. I am doing my best to put my best English forward, but I simply do not have the time to thoroughly edit/review everything I type...it would take too much time. In advance, thanks for understanding.
Day five and six were 'fin de semmana' or the weekend. Given the events that happened on Friday, I was ready to do nothing. So, true to my word, I did just that, nothing. However, on day 07 (Monday- Lunes), I was ready for an adventure and a new Chilean experience.
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| Saturday/Sabado evening walk. That's a good looking Fire Station-Bomberos. |
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| Sunday/Domingo evening walk |
If you recall, last Friday I discovered that my license plates were stolen, one truck tire was destroyed and someone had either cut my brake line or syphoned the liquid from the reservoir, all while in transit from the USA to Chile. So, the goal for Monda... buy a new tire and brake fluid. How to do this in a foreign country without having personal transportation to ge met from my hostel to the tire store, well, that's adventure. So, after a wonderful breakfast of cereal and fruit, yogurt, and tea, I was off on my adventure.
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| Santiago Metro |
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| Santiago Metro...Super Clean. |
Step one, literally, walk to the metro line (subway) and buy a ticket. For $610 CL Pesos, or about $1.25 USD, you can travel and make transfers throughout the entire Santiago metro line. Considering the distance I had to travel, this is a supper deal. A taxi would have cost me more than $50 USD, round trip. Before I knew it, I was at the end of the metro-line and now I had to figure out how to catch a bus to the Movi-Center. Before moving on, it should be noted the metro-line was clean, very clean, with no graffiti, etc. So, I thought buying the bus pass would be more difficult, but you simply buy a bus pass at the metro-line for $1,000 CL Pesos ($2.00 USD), walk out the door and catch the bus (B-16, to be exact). Of course speaking a fair amount of spanish helps, and pre-trip planning via google helps. Within minutes, I was off the bus and walking into this place called the Movi-Center. What the heck is a Movi-Center? The Movi-Center is an area completed devoted to selling and fixing cars...much like a mall, an outdoor mall. Initially, I thought this was weird, but it turned out to be pretty cool.
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| Movi-Center is about the expand...wonder if Jewett Construction is the contractor? |
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| Me and my new Neumatico |
I walked across the rows of used cars for sale, before meeting my final destination, the tire shop. I probably should have shopped around, but the first guy I spoke with was helpful and he had the tire in stock = SOLD! I bought a Pirelli LT265/75 R16 tire, or as they say in Spanish, neumatico. FYI, a tire rim is called llanta. The bill came to 1,400,000 CL Pesos = $300 USD. Later that day, I was told that I could have probably found a tire for about $190 USD (oh, well). Back to the price; I don't normally carry this much CL pesos around, so I headed to the ATM, which are located just about everywhere. Heading to the ATM, I had to walk through area that is the main waiting room for the entire complex. The following pictures are what I discovered in the waiting area.
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| Play Xbox sitting in an Indy car, while waiting |
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| Look closely, the horse's are made from auto parts |
After I bought the tire, the guys who helped me asked how I was going to get the tire back to the hostel. My reply...con mis manos, or with my hands. They all laughed and said good luck. So, I wheeled my tire back the same way I came, first the bus, then the metro. I had to ask the manager of the metro line if I could carry my tire onto the subway car. She said that she would make an exception, only this one time. I for one, hope this is the last time I have to do this...but what an adventure, and a pretty easy one at that.
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| The people on the subway were entertained with the bald headed, bearded, tire wheeling idiot. |
Upon my arrival at the hostel, and shortly after cleaning my now blackened hands from the tire, I received a Skype call from the USA. Operation LFD (Live Free of Die) was complete and successful! New plates and registration were air shipped FedEx and will arrive late afternoon on Wednesday. I screamed out loud "TENGO PATENTES" (I have license plates). Hopefully, I can wrap this up and have my truck on the road by Thursday or Friday.
I could have not been able to accomplish this without the help of a few key people. You know who you are and a GRANDE MUCHAS GRACIAS to both of you.
OK Amigos, tengo consado, me voy a dormir (I am tired and off to bed I go).
Hope all is well in your world.