Chilean Bureaucracy

James >> This morning we arranged to meet Dan a tour guide who James found on the internet to help us buy a car. Step 1 was to obtain a RUT (basically a Chilean tax file number). After visiting 3 government offices Dan had the right forms. Then it was off to the Notary where they copied our ID (my passport, his ID card), signed some paperwork and finger printed next to our signatures. This whole process took longer than we would have hoped but that's okay.
Over lunch we looked at some cars on the net and went to a large used car lot. Initially we planned on a Suzuki Carry but there were some Chinese models we saw that we had no idea existed, and they are much newer for a lot less cash. Dan suggested we would get a better price and the transfer to our name would be instant (important if crossing boarders) if we bought from a private seller. With this in mind we arranged to meet 2 sellers. As it turns out tone of them lived a few doors down from Dan. The other was across the other side of the city. Kathryn and I went to see the first vehicle alone, a Haima. It

was in good condition.
We were unable to see the one near Dan's house until 1900 so arranged to meet Dan at a station near his home. Once we headed out to see this car is was in poor condition with dents, holes in the pumper and torn seats. So we decided to pass on this once and go for the first.
Dan invited us into his home, this was a little awkward. But Kathryn got to meet his tiny little dog, picco.
Worth noting (for those train nuts) is that the metro although looks a lot like a train is in fact not running on tracks at all and runs on rubber tyres but still steers itself along the route.