The Car Search

We’ve spent the last few days looking for some sort of transportation. We’ve looked high and low, near and far, done all sorts of research, asked questions of the locals about what is better: manual or automatica, diesel or gasolina, “cual estilo” (which style: “todo terreno” (SUV), cars, trucks, vans, etc.), and what is easiest to repair or find parts for in case of a repair. With the roads here the way they are and the mountainous terrain, we’ve arrived at some sort of todo terreno (SUV) with some decent ground clearance, power, and suspension. Diesel would be nice (cheaper fuel and more fuel efficient) and an automatic even better! We test drove a manual, but the consensus was, “Why make life harder on ourselves than it needs to be?” So, automatic it is!

Actually, it turns out that automatics are cheaper here since the majority of people (maybe 75%) drive manuals. So, away we went. We hit the internet pretty hard searching out ads for cars that might fit our style and budget. Having a handful in mind, we set out for outlying towns to check out what might be sitting in someone’s yard or in an “agencia de vehiculos usados” (used car dealer or agent). A long, rainy day of looking, test driving, and talking ended with one very real possibility and one “worst case scenario” possibility.

The next day, after much moaning and gnashing of teeth, we were able to get the owner of the best one we found to meet us at a mechanic we knew in town. Five minutes later we were apologizing to them for their trouble and saying we were no longer interested (some sort of serious oil ring issues in the engine). So, we were back to square one. Apparently this is fairly typical here when searching for cars. On the way back home, we stopped off at a few more places and, in what took us a whole day the day before, we were able to find two more possibilities within an hour and a half! So, the plan as it stands right now is to follow up on these on Monday. We’ll keep you posted on how these go!