Valparaiso and the wait

On the Tuesday 11th April at around 21.15 as John took a break from his teleconference meeting The good ship NKY Leo came into Valparaiso & berthed. On board lots of Red containers and one in particular with an Earth Cruiser inside.


Wednesday was just a day to wait as unloading was happening and it’d be at least another day, so we decided to lengthen our accommodation booking for another day, hoping that sometime on Thursday we’d have the vehicle.
Our shipping agent PAL who had just merged with Tradewings gave me their agents contact details for helping with the receivable process.



I duly rang Eric and his English was poorer than my Spanish so a WhatsApp to our new friend Mario who had befriended us in the markets. Mario rang Eric and arranged a meeting in our accommodations foyer.
They both arrived and with Mario translating we found out that it would be Monday at the earliest before we saw EC22 as the container was still not cleared, and Friday was Easter and nothing would happen for the whole weekend. Although sad we were ready for that info. More waiting
We went to lunch with Mario and had a meal in a local restaurant.
An email from our agent saying that the bill must be paid before we can pick the vehicle up. We set up a international payment hoping that with Good Friday etc. the payment would still make it by Monday.
Next to lengthen our stay in our apartment till Tuesday. Sadly our lovely SW apartment on the 20th floor over looking the port and town was unavailable. After a little search we found another apartment in the same building, this time on the NE corner on 13th floor so all good. We did have to pack but we did get clean sheets and towels and another lovely view. We could still see the port and the northern parts of Valparaiso. Back to waiting
The waiting was hard.
Good Friday, we had a wonder around town, a lot of palm frond icons and little baskets were being sold for Easter. The local cathedral was packed impressively/depressingly full.
On Saturday after creating a shopping list we went out to several supermacados just to see where we could buy the provisions we required.
We found all of it between two large supermacados. Back home to twiddle our thumbs.
More waiting
Finally organised Maria from Arequipa to post Johns glasses to Puerto Mont. They will take 16-20 days to get there.
Back to the waiting.