A van called Azulita

Kathryn >> We met Marijn, the morning cold and wet from a torrential down pour - the locals seemed to barely bat an eye lid - apparently it doesn't rain often but when it does, it really rains! Marijn had been staying next to Bicentenario Park - a relatively new, 30 hectare park, with free parking and a toilet for the last 6 weeks. We headed to the vehicle transfer office, before being redirected to the Notario to complete the paperwork, and shortly before mid day, were the proud owners our very own Kombi. Named Azulita; meaning bluey, the registration papers suggested that she had previously enjoyed life as a yellow van, complete with yellow roof racks. Signs of the last two owners are evident; Marijn painted her interior white, put a wooden floor in and had new blue curtains made. A collection of plastic lizards and snakes line the interior to add to the previous French owners' sunflowers. They were said to have painted the roof racks and front VW badge yellow, now coloured in with a permanent marker to black. She is fitted with cupboards, a

sink, table and bed, Westfalia style. At this stage, she is still cluttered with various things and feeling a little self conscious about the fine layer of dirt that covers her interior, so is refusing a photo shoot. Marijn headed off into the city, to stay in a hostel for a few nights before flying home.
We opened up the navigation system in James' phone and began our journey across the city to meet Dan. We stopped at a mall - an absolutely monstrous building, that every family in Chile seemed to be visiting. A trip to Lidor - the Chilean Walmart - found us new sheets, towels and some cleaning supplies. We met Dan, and paid him for his help, he seemed genuinely impressed with our purchase! Wanting to spend one more night in our city apartment, we then drove across the city again to park Azulita at the park she had been staying, supposing it to be a safe place for her to stay unaccompanied. All went well until the very last turn, which just happened to be in amongst extensive road works - a wrong turn saw us driving 10km down a free way and starting to question the reliability of the navigation system Tom. Locking her carefully, we left Azulita and took a train back to the city for the night.