Wings no longer clipped...

We should catch you up on the car story. At the end of week two, when the Ford Explorer fell through, we still had one other lead on a car. The landlady's son, David, is the General Manager of a Chev dealer in Quayaquil (the port city which is a 6 hour drive from here). She had instructed him to offer us a car for his very best price. Well...ta da... here it is!
Ole had been in contact with David via email and phone. He also visited a local Chevrolet dealer and had a look at a similar car. On the good advice of our RBC bank advisor before we left Canada, we gave my mother power of attorney over our Canadian bank account, which turned out to be a good thing, because although our bank advisor can do most of our banking with an email from us, transfering $18,000 to a bank account in Ecuador does require a signature, so my mom went into an RBC in Kingston and sent a wire transfer to Quayaquil.
Last Monday, we got an email informing us that the car was waiting for us at a dealership in Quito. We went there, signed a receipt and drove away in our new car. The only problem was that nobody there spoke English, but they clearly indicated that it was no problem to drive the car away with the registration still in the former owner's name. Tuesday, we got the car insured, through an insurance company used by the school. This required lots of pictures. Fortunately, Ole has all the time in the world to deal with these details :).

The final insurance papers were delivered to the school on Friday, when they also told us that, despite all the photos already taken, we still have to take the car somewhere (?) for more pictures and "identification" within the next 15 days. David has also assured us that the ownership in my name will be delivered to us early this week. Once we get that, we also understand that we have to take it for another government check. Emissions? Safety? We aren't quite sure. The whole procedure has been somewhat complicated (also by the fact that our Spanish is limited).

It's a great car! It is more than we wanted to spend on a car, but it is a 2012 Grand Vitara, 5-door, standard, with 11,500 kms, and two years warranty left on it. We figure that, given the deal we got (about $3,500 less than the market price), and its resale value in 2 years, that it really won't cost us much to have this car.

Funny thing is though.... two days after we picked  it up Ole went to fill it up. The attendant alerted him to the fact that there was no gas cap on the gas tank. It had been stolen somewhere between David and us. So Ole had another opportunity to develop his Spanish when he went to buy a new cap (for $35). The spare tire is locked on and there is no key and the fob on the extra set of keys does not work, but OTHERWISE it IS a great car.

Ole no longer feels his wings are clipped, now that he has wheels under him. We downloaded the Ecuador maps for  our Garmin GPS - so we are good to go. Our first road-trip is planned for this weekend when we will go back to Papallacta to hike in the mountains and soak in the hot springs.