Woke up a little too early, A had a second interview for a prospective job and had needed clothing from the room I was crashing in. Was ok, though, at least I’d be able to get some things done before everything was closed. The mission today: connectivity and perhaps an apartment.
A lookup of the, less expensive, HomeChile agency’s address showed it to be lost far on the outer eastern edge of the city. I’d need to take a cab and can’t say I’m all that comfortable with taxis in the middle of nowhere around here. My suspicions confirmed by Zule—”yes, the taxi will know you’re a foreigner and fuck you up, be careful”—I decided I’d be better off starting at the ContactChile agency, in Providencia.
But first, I needed to complete the RUT thing, in order to open a bank account, in order to avoid getting taken by the rental agency. So I went back to Irarrazaval, took a bus east and found my way to the SII offices.
In order to get service there, I needed a number for the line—the guy at the front desk indicated that I should get it from a security guard posted next to a big ticket-dispensing machine. When I got to the guard, I asked for a number. He asked me for my RUT. “But I’m here to get a RUT, I don’t have one”. “But you need a RUT to get a number, what is your RUT?”… and so on about five times. Finally, he asked a clerk who indicated a magical RUT to feed to the machine (1-9, fyi, which is funny because in spanish it sounds a lot like saying un nuevo… a new one!) in order to print out a ticket.
The rest of the experience was a lot easier. The clerk I got was helpful and curious as to where I was from, why I came, etc. We had a little chat, he scolded me a little for my terrible handwriting (it’s the computer age—I can hardly hold a pen, I said), and finally gave me a temporary RUT that lasts up to three months. They’ll be sending the real one to Nunoa, in 1.5 – 3 months, but I won’t be around and am unsure of how safe that’ll be… don’t really want to owe backtaxes in Chile. Guess we’ll see.
Hit the road and got off in Providencia, at Los Leones metro station. The ContactChile offices were a bit hard to get into to—there are plenty of indications that you’re at the right place, just nothing to tell you what number to ring at the big gate (2, fyi)—but are very nice and have a friendly multilingual staff. I was initially spoken to in French, which was a surprise.
The short version is that, whether because it’s the end of the season and they are a bit disorganized, or because a look like I have the cash (really?), the list of available lodgings was a lot different than what was shown on the website. And happened to be kinda expensive. When you add it all up, I was being asked to plop down upwards of $1400 for a (less than) a month’s rent—a chunk of which counts as a deposit, which is to be returned to me at the end.
Since “the end” is normally when you are leaving, and since multiple people had warned me to negotiate the deposit down because they would find a reason to keep it either way, and since I hate negotiating, I pocketed the business card and left. So things wouldn’t be so easy apartment-wise, but my real focus today was connectivity.
Went to the Paris—the chain where I’d originally purchased the mobile internet device—to see if they could revive mine, or sell me a new sim card (un chip). Wrong Paris, had to backtrack down Ahumeda and find the “techno Paris” I’d passed on the way. This was one of those underground deals, with only an entrance, a greeting-security-guard-guy, and an escalator to the depths. There the uninterested Entel girl told me they didn’t sell chips, and I should go to “Machivelli”… hum, that didn’t sound right but after three repeats she was getting tired.
After a bit of searching in the generally correct direction, I finally stumbled upon it and laughed: Mac Iver. The MacGuyver song popped into my head, at least now I was certain they could fix anything.
The Entel guy in the actual Entel store had more of a clue, but told me that the device had simply been terminated after 3 months of inactivity, and there was no way for him to reactivate it or sell a stand-alone chip. The data SIM cards come with the USB modems, and that’s it. Ugh, that device had cost about $100 bucks last time.
He was really helpful though, and directed me to another Entel store, further along Mac Iver (440, fyi), where people pay bills and get stuff done, so they might be able to revive it. I needed a phone, too—people really give you a look when you say you don’t have one, in these parts, even knowing you’re a foreigner and I needed to be able to apt hunt easily—so I enquired with my Entel pal.
He hooked me up with the cheapest, smallest, device available—a tiny prepago (prepay) Samsung—that came with 10 lucas worth of time, and so was basically free but every call comes out at about 20 cents a minute.
The Entel shop I’d been sent to couldn’t help me either, saying that there was no way to reactivate the USB device. It’s hard to tell how true that might be, because employees here often seem to know little and care less. They’ll sometimes just invent something either to make a sale or just so you’ll go away. Bought another device, newer and at about half the cost of the first time.
I dropped by our favourite hostel in town, La Casa Roja, to see if they had or could point me to good sources of, temporary furnished apartments. No luck there, but it was nice that even after hosting a year’s worth of travellers, the staff actually recognized me. After a little chat, I stopped by Chucrute, on the corner of Agustina and Brasil, for a classic liter of Escudo.
The weather was so-so, and the bar empty. Talked a bit with the only-semi-interested barmaid, who basically indicated I should walk around BellaVista and ask in apartment buildings. The new internet conn initialized fine, using the hackintosh, and I was glad to have a RUT this time to enable it. But my getting-long-in-the-tooth version of Ubuntu only recognized it as a storage device and I couldn’t get connectivity under Linux. Bummer.
The beer impacted me a little more than it should, again, and I subwayed to Baquedano to check out the scene and any buildings I might encounter. Was getting late, so I ended up at Bar La Nona for another litre, this time inside as it was getting cold.
I saw my first rays of sunshine since my arrival, through the window in the smokey bar. Started up a conversation with a couple seated at the next table, again to ask about apartment hunting. They were both very nice, offering to ask around their places and message me should anything come up. We talked a bit more, turns out they were from Punta Arena (I think… somewhere way down south) and were accustomed to lots of snow. On the subject of interesting bars to visit, the definite response was someplace near Los Heroes and they offered to take me out on Friday night.
I finished up my beer and caught a bit of the remaining sunshine, heading back to homebase tired and unsure how things were going to turn out.