Where is the car? – 4/17/2013
Apr 19th, 2013 by rallyadmin
Last night ended early. The trip had obviously exhausted us and almost within minutes of getting to the hotel room John was asleep with me not far behind.
This morning the plan is to try to find the car. All we have is a Bill of Lading (B/L) that is the receipt from the shipping company for the car. It says that the car went to Korea and is to be transferred to another ship and shipped to San Antonio, Chile. Before we left the States, I contacted the shipping company and they tracked the B/L and said the the car had been transferred to the Hoegh Bangkok, a car carrier.
They also pointed me to a website that was set uo to search for ships and destinations. The website search showed the Heogh Bangkok arriving in San Antonio on April 17th. That’s why we ended up here now. The site also had the name and address agents (UltraMar) for the Hoegh Autoliner company and they have an office in Santiago.
Into the car and fire up the GPS. Put in the address for UltraMar and nothing, address not found. Grrrr. Try again. Again nothing. Fire up Google Maps. Success. What’s the deal with the GPS?
I have loaded the GPS with an OSM (Open Street Maps) map file and the Garmin GPS loads it without question. But it can not seem to find a street address. It turns out that Santiago is the general name of a collection smaller towns much like Los Angeles and you have to put in the correct name of the area that the street is actually in. The street address we are looking for is in Las Condes and when I put in the right city name, Las Condes, the GPS finds the street address and generates a route. Yahoo!!
Follow the GPS. Park in an underground garage (they’re everywhere in this area of new skyscapers). Find the address on foot. Up to the 18th floor and start to inquire. Wrong floor. They send us down to the 16th floor.
Oops. Wrong floor, again. Down to the 15th floor. Success. Une momnto. A few minutes later, a man comes out and introduces himself. We follow him into a conference room.
We explain that we are trying to find out what we have to do to get our car. He apologizes. He’s the wrong person. He only handles liquid bulk cargo!? He excuses himself and sends in another who does handle cars.
The first thing the second man says that the Bangkok will not birth today but not to worry, the pork strike will end in a day or two. THE WHAT!!!! We had never even thought of the possibility of a port strike. Apparently, the strike is in its 24th day but has been settled. The port will start operating this afternoon. The man says that we have to go to San Antonio to handle the recovery of the car. We thank him and leave.
Down to the car. Set the GPS destination for San Antonio. We’re off. Wandering around the expressways trying to get headed west to the coast. After a bit of trying we make it out of Santiago and we’re headed down an expressway to San Antonio.
Chile is a very long but narrow country perched on a narrow plain between the Pacific Ocean on the west and fort hills of the Andes on the east. As we head west, the sky clears from the smog of Santiago and it turns into a bright sunny day.
Along the way we stop in a small town, Pomaire, known for its pottery. It should also be known for its friendly, but aggressive, shop owners who stand in front of their stalls trying to encourage you to come in. John says that the small town is packed on the weekends but not o much on a late fall Wednesday. The shop owners try but they haven’t really got their hearts in it. We stroll through the main street and stop in some stores. Then back to the car and back on the road to San Antonio.
As we get closer to the coast, the sky becomes overcast and the temperature drops. The bright blue, sunny sky is replaced by a leaden grey. It’s not raining but is sure dismal.
The water off the coast is very cold. It’s a current the comes up the west coast of South America from far south towards Antarctica. The cold water meets the warm coast air and the result is overcast skies.
We don’t really have any idea where we are going so we go through the town and home in on some container cranes that we can see on the horizon. We pull into the first port access and ask for the UltraMar offices. Everyone seems to know them. We’re in the wrong place. We’re directed to another entrance.
Into the next entrance and ask again. Wrong again. Go back out. Take a right. Then the 4th left. No UltraMar. Ask again. Different directions but the 4th comes up again. We realize that the 4th refers to 4th Sur (south), a cross street. (I don’t speak Spanish and John only some.) We find 4th Sur but no office. We ask in a Goodyear shop and the send us off toward 5th Sur but still no UltraMar. On the way back to the car, John rings a bell for an office and a lovely young woman who speaks excellent English points us down the street about 5 blocks. We get the car and finally find the UltraMar office.
Park. Walk inside. It’s a clearing office for imports and exports. They find a man who speaks English quite well and starts to help us. He’s the brand new operations manager for UltraMar in San Antonio and he gives us the details on the strike and the news that the port will actually reopen tonight. The bad news is that no one really knows when a given ship will get an unloading berth. And there are a lot of ships waiting off shore that are ahead of the Bangkok. The good news is that the auto-carriers are given first priority for berths.
Along the way, they determine that our B/L is incorrect. It doesn’t have the final port of San Antonio. They will fix it. For a small $50 USD fee. This is not an option. We fix it. You pay. Or you won’t get the car. Okey, dokey.
They also find a customs office in Santiago for us to start the clearing process. We thank them and sit down to wait for the ixed B/L. And wait. And wait. They are starting to get embarrassed about making us wait nearly 2 hours for a typo fix. It turns out the the new B/L has to be signed by someone who is in a meeting and can’t/won’t be disturbed. If there’s one thing we’ve learned on this adventure, it’s how to wait. We real paragons of patience.
Finally, the B/L is signed. We pay. Get back in the car. Head back to Santiago.
My phone rings. It’s Patricio from Liberty Insurance. Our policies are ready. When can you stop by to pick them up? When do you close? We’ll be there. Back up the expressway with a mission.
We may have a mission but the evening traffic rush in Santiago apparently doesn’t know or care about it. The liberty office closes at 6:30 and we just miss it, sitting in traffic a few blocks away from the building. We’ll get them in the morning at 9:00AM.
What a day. We have a great pizza dinner with a couple of bottle of a good Chilean cabernet on the Avenida Providencia. And back to the hotel.
Tomorrow, insurance and customs.
Obi-wan