In October, Mark, Maya, and I swapped Paraguay for Chile for two reasons: to pursue a Vario van for our next adventure and to be able to sell our own Thirsty Bella easier, since Central Chile is the starting point for many overlanders. Flights to Santiago are more affordable than elsewhere in South America, gear is easily available in a plethora of well-equipped stores, and there are companies selling cars to foreigners. Since our car was registered in the US, the transfer to a new owner would be easy, regardless.
(As always, click on or hover over photos in galleries to read their captions.)
After long days of driving across Argentina, we arrived in Santiago, Chile’s capital, for the second time. We had fond memories of urban camping by Parque Metropolitano, which we’d hoped would become our base soon. We only stayed one night, to confirm if this was still an attractive overnight spot (it was), to fix our back window before the next rain, and to visit Suzie Santiago CTW’s office within walking distance. We would hire them to do the paperwork if we were to buy a Chilean Vario. It was all part of our months of research, gathering data, and interacting with potential service providers.
We also checked out Suzie Santiago’s workshop on the outskirts of the city and spent one night at a noisy truck stop before heading south towards Pichilemu, where we would set eyes on a Vario van that had a horrible conversion done to it.
The idea was to confirm everything we were told by the owner—the vehicle was supposed to be in “perfect condition”—and make an offer. Then, we’d start the registration process in our name, bring the van to Paraguay to have it built out by a factory we’d visited and agreed on a quote with, and eventually ship it to Europe for the next chapter in our lives.
Since we couldn’t visit this Vario until Monday, we spent the weekend at a nice wild camping spot on a bluff in Navidad, with a pretty view over the ocean and good walks for Maya. Despite this being our favorite spot in a while, we didn’t return because of the strong onshore breezes, covering our camper with salt water. Since Mark had recently repainted our ladder and jacks, he didn’t want corrosion to return before the sale of our camper.
