A taste of the UK again
Yesterday evening, I went to collect our car from the inland port near Santiago, 5 months after we ordered it (3 for manufacture, 2 for travel time to Chile)! Its not just the ship that is slow, but the port and customs officers had it for a week too! I was very surprised to deconsolidate it (drive out the container) and then be free to drive away.
Almost.
Chile’s main highways, the carreterras, are normally government owned and privately managed and tolled by concessionaires. Those around Santiago are electronically tolled using a Tag system, a box on the front windscreen. This charges you to drive on sections of the road according to the road and the time of day. However, Tags are linked to registration plates. And registration plates are like your council tax bill- you pay for a permission to circulate once a year which pays for all local services. The merits and dismerits of such a system i’ll leave for another essay.
Driving out of the port, however, it dawned on me that we had neither plates or a Tag. Indeed, the registration plates on our car are currently British! If that wouldn’t alert the police or the concessionaire, what would?!
Apparently it didn’t and I drove 30km to our home causing nothing but passing interest because our rear registration plate is square, not rectangular.
It’s was all very British! Sitting in a traffic queue in a city, driving a Land Rover (yes, Chelsea Tractor if it weren’t for the black holes and parallel universes that they call “roads” here), not paying a penny to use good roads… The car even came with fresh british mosquitos welded to the front bumper as it was transferred to port in the UK- the port guys proposed charging for them which neither I or the customs agent thought was funny after a week of customs clearance.
September 5th, 2006 at 5:45 am
Wow — you got it at last!
What engine did you get (is it the V8?!) or the diesel?
When is Rach coming over? Was it sometime in Sept?