Car-buying

After getting our house, furnishing it, opening a bank account and buying a keyboard, we turned our minds to buying a car.  We had been told that the three Luis-es who run the hostal we stayed in when we arrived would be keen to help and they were.  The oldest brother, known as Lucho, took us in hand.

Thinking that we would probably want to get into the countryside (Peru has few paved roads) we said we were after a 4X4, preferably with 7 seats – just the sort of thing we would be too embarrassed to own in the UK.  (The seven seats would enable us to ferry visitors around). Lucho quickly found one belonging to one of his neighbours, but it seemed a bit old, had been round the clock and was an automatic.  Then another friend and neighbour of his popped up with a Hyundai Galloper from 2002, which seemed to tick all the boxes.

 It even had a TV, which Titus found very exciting.  We agreed a price and arranged to take it to a mechanic for an inspection, as is the local custom.  Here the owner started behaving a little oddly.  Despite the presence of Lucho we ended up taking it to the mechanic who serviced it. He said, surprise, surprise, that it was a very good car.  I said this wasn’t quite enough for me and we should take it to an independent mechanic.  When we found one he said we should have the compression checked. The owner got very shirty at this and said he had to go and pick up his daughter, abandoning Lucho and me to taxi home.

By the next morning Lucho had persuaded him that he had nothing to fear from a compression test.  I met them and we set off again.  On the way I was asked to put $4 worth of diesel in the tank.  I complied but felt a little put upon. The test was done, but with slightly faulty equipment.  Although all the readings were low, the mechanic insisted that all was well.  I think he was probably being honest.  We headed back to the owner’s house, expecting to now get on with the paperwork.  As I got out of the car, however, I remarked to Lucho as much as the owner “I suppose the four wheel drive works.”  The owner bristled and started ranting that this was a good car not some banger, that he and Lucho were friends from their youth, that he felt insulted....  He left, rather pointedly shaking hands with Lucho but not with me.

Lucho, a very calm person (and also a psychiatrist) said we should not worry, that he’d talk to the man’s father or we’d have a look around and find something else.  Looking around involved going to a car fair held on Saturday mornings near the airport. Anyone who has a car to sell takes it to this feria, parks up and sits while potential buyers and nosey cusquenos wander around.  We found nothing of much interest but I did learn that every 4X4, however old, has a price tag of a minimum of $12,000.  (This might only be to a gringo or to a Peruvian accompanying a gringo.   Hard to tell.)  While Lucho and I were looking, the boys sat in a stand which was built entirely so people could sit and watch planes landing and taking off.  Titus was very pleased.)

A few days later Martha and I called in on a tour operator called Raul Medina, who is a friend of an old friend of mine.  He was immensely welcoming and whisked us upstairs to meet his wife, also called Martha, and to drink a Sprite. In the conversation I mentioned we were trying to find a car.  “You should meet my cousin, Juvenal” he said.  “He imports cars from Chile and lives in Tacna, on the border.  He’ll be here in Cusco in two days.”  He added that cars in Tacna were 20% cheaper than in Cusco.

Of course it wasn’t two days – there was a big strike in Nazca which caused delays – but about five days later I sat down with Raul and Juvenal, a small grey man of about 55.  Juvenal said I should accompany him that day down to Tacna and we would be sure to find a good car.  We might have to nip across the border where there were lots of cars for sale but if we found something, he could take care of all the paperwork and bring the car up to Cuzco for us. It all sounded quite easy and rather fun, so after a brief conversation with Martha, I agreed. We set off for the bus station immediately to buy tickets for the overnight bus to Arequipa. Rather to my relief he suggested that the ordinary seats would not suit my length so I bought a fully reclining seat on the bottom deck at twice the price of his seat on the top deck.  The bus would leave at 8.00pm and we agreed to meet at 7.30. Titus was very excited about this expedition and wanted to come with me.  When I tried to leave he hid my bag at first and then clung on to me, crying pitifully.  According to Martha he recovered before going to sleep but I set off with rather a heavy heart.

A big, fully-reclining seat is a wonderful thing but it was accompanied by trashy films with the sound turned up high, a heater turned up to 26 degrees and a very windy road.  I slept very little in the eight hours to Arequipa.  There we had some hot chocolate and dry biscuits while we watched the dawn light up the big volcano that sits over the town.  The newspaper headlines said all the hospitals would fall down when the next earthquake came.  After three hours we boarded a bus to Tacna.  More obligatory film watching and the steward made me very angry by closing all the curtains just when I wanted to look at the scenery.  Luckily the old man sitting next to me did not want to watch cheap American films either and opened his curtain.  I saw terraces and lots of desert of varying colours and shapes – often very beautiful in the fierce sun.  At one hairpin bend we were delayed by a crash.  A lorry carrying live chickens had turned on its side and almost gone over the edge. As we inched past, the chickens, in their cages, were being loaded onto another lorry.

We arrived in Tacna, a sort of oasis town, in time for a lunch of chicken and chips.  Then Juvenal took me to the room he rents to freshen up.  It was just a room, a very bachelorish room, with a bed, some old exercise machines and various boxes all covered in a thick layer of dust.  There was a small bathroom off it where I splashed water about, brushed my teeth and changed my shirt.  Juvenal did much the same.  It was a very sad little room but I felt rather flattered that he could take me there.

The next step was to visit a customs agent so Juvenal could check some rules.  We went to one and he asked at the desk ‘if the chap who played tennis’ was in.  The girl went off to find out who this might be.  Juvenal said he played tennis with a customs agent and although he could not remember his name, he was sure to be very helpful.  Juvenal didn’t recognise the man who appeared from the back office.  In the explanations that followed it turned out that the man played table-tennis, not tennis, but could he help us all the same.  It turned out that Juvenal, who had been sold to me as a professional importer of cars, had little idea of the current rules.  The agent said normal cars would incur duty at 60% plus.  However, ceticos or cars that come in for repair, only pay 35% on the shipped cost, plus some extra 2%.  (The idea is that Peruvians can import damaged cars into certain duty-free zones where workshops staffed by Peruvian mechanics can put them to rights.  In reality some people just buy a perfectly good car and tap the windscreen with a hammer. Or cars that have been written off in Japan are somehow made saleable again.)  Furthermore diesel cars (and we were after a diesel) over two years old are no longer allowed to be brought in.  The agent was quite clear that it would be far better for me to find a car in Tacna than go through the rigmarole of importing.  After doing some quick calculations I agreed with him.

Juvenal now took me to a feria in Tacna where people seem to leave cars they want to sell.  We had a brisk look around in the blazing heat and saw nothing likely except some Fords, but we ignored these because Ford is not a brand much seen in Cuzco.  Juvenal now tried to persuade me to pop over to Iquique with him that evening – just over the border, a mere six hours away.  He had to go that evening with a friend from Lima.  Hot, short of sleep and disillusioned by the idea of importing, I declined and checked into the best hotel in town.  I had a disappointing pizza out in the town – which was buzzing in the pleasant heat of the evening – and retired for a very long sleep.

The next day, on the advice of Juvenal, I went out to a duty free industrial zone to look at cars.  It was vast and I tramped round to see what was there.  It soon became apparent that there were very few cars of the type we were looking for. (This zona franca used to be where they bought in the damaged cars under the ceticos regime.  However, it has lost its duty-free status and no fresh cars are arriving.)  However, I did find two – a big Mitsubishi and a Nissan X-Trail which is a sort of girls’ 4X4.  I thought I would come back the next day and look at them with Juvenal.

Back in the hotel I rang Juvenal on his Chilean mobile a few times but could not raise him.  But just after lunch my phone rang and it was he.  No, he wasn’t in Chile.  His friend’s wife hadn’t had the right documents at the border so they had come back.  He was now going that night.  I arranged to meet him and we went whizzing out to the zona franca.  He quickly dismissed the X-Trail, pointing out that it had been rather badly converted from right hand to left hand drive and that it wasn’t a 4X4 version.  He was kinder about the Mitsubishi and suggested I should get a mechanic out to look at it.  We also found another Mitsbubishi but, when we drove it, it was very sluggish indeed and he diagnosed problems with the gearbox.

We went to a garage where his son works and then to the next door one where Tacna’s Mitsubishi expert worked.  He was out but when he came back an hour or two later he was persuaded to come out with me the next day to inspect the car.  For this he would charge $50.  He was large and rather taciturn but I was persuaded he was the best man for the job.  I left Juvenal chatting to his son and four other mechanics round a stock car racing shell, and went back to the hotel.  That night I ate chifa, which I had been told was Chinese food.  When my plate was served I found I had a common Peruvian stir-fry but with egg-fried rice...and chips of course.

Daniel, the large and surly mechanic, turned out to be a charmer and from Cuzco.  Everywhere we went he was greeted by people.  When we got to the zona franca he said he remembered the Mitsubishi.  It had had a problem with its computer and he had soldered it back in November.  If it went wrong again, he said, we would have to get a new computer.  “Would that be easy?” I asked.  He said he could probably find us one – in Chile.  Otherwise he said it was a good car but would be very hard to sell in Cuzco where everyone wants Toyotas and Nissans.  He thought there was perhaps a Nissan out in the zona franca that might be worth looking at and we went off in search of it.  It turned out to be another X-Trail but this one was in good nick and was a proper four wheel drive.   The only trouble was that it was more money than I wanted to spend and had a petrol engine.  I said I would call the owner in a couple of hours after I had thought about it.

It didn’t take long for me to persuade myself – and Martha – that it was the right car for us.  I summoned the owner, Atilio, to the hotel and we struck a deal.  It was now about 11 am on a Thursday and I told him we would have to do all the paperwork that day so I could be back in Cuzco the next evening. (At 6.30 am on Saturday we, the family, would be leaving Cuzco for the rainforest.)   He had the car and a driver with him.  We whizzed to some local government office where he paid $3 to prove that the car had no speeding or parking tickets etc.  Next to some suburb to get his parents who were the nominal owners of the car.  They seemed delighted by the whole adventure and climbed up into the back seat with me. Now to the notary.  Here we met an obstacle.  The girl at the desk said I could not sign a contract if I was on a tourist visa.  We sought clarification from the more important people upstairs who confirmed this but said all I had to do was get a special permiso from Immigration.  We left the parents sitting on a bench and zoomed off there but the lady in charge of permisos was out.  She would be back at 1.00.  It was now 12.30 so I suggested we had lunch.  Rather to my surprise we went back to the centre of town.  I think they thought a local restaurant might insult my delicate sensibilities.  We had a good and quick lunch and made it back to Immigration by about 1.45.  The lady had not come back and would not be coming back that day.  No, no one else could do it.  Tomorrow.  Not quite prepared to admit defeat, Atilio suggested we should go to another notary.  However, this one had the same interpretation of the rules.

I had already missed the direct bus to Cuzco and was now anxious to start my journey back.  I told a disappointed Atilio I would try to work something out with Juvenal and set off to collect my bag from the hotel.  An hour later I was speeding through the desert in a combi – a minibus that leaves only when all the seats were full – to Moquegua, a small oasis town two hours north.

 In Moquegua I hoped to find a bus to Cuzco or Puno but they all left after 8.30 at night and would be rather slow.  I put my name down for the last combi  to Puno, about five hours away.  Unfortunately it took two hours to fill and it was 7.30 before we left. (In fact one seat was left unsold to the great annoyance of the driver). I was in a row of seats with two other burly men and as we steered round the curves in the mountain roads, first one way then the other, our shoulders all got to know each other rather too well.

At some point I dozed off but woke to feel the van sliding across the road.  Opening my eyes I saw that we were in wet snow.  It continued like this for two hours but the driver, to do him justice, drove very competently.  At one point we stopped to check a pick-up which had come off the road and was on its side, but luckily the driver and passengers had already been rescued.  We arrived in Puno an hour late.  Using my phone I was able to wake up the staff of a cheap hotel only fifty yards or so from the place the bus deposited us. The next morning I found a bus to take me back to Cuzco and was home by 2pm.  +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

It is now some two weeks since I set off for Tacna and we made no progress at all until yesterday when Juvenal appeared in town. I had not been able to contact him in the last two weeks because he had lost the SIM card to his phone and had a new number. I met him and his cousin Raul and discussed possibilities.  It now seems possible – I daren’t say likely in Peru - that Juvenal will buy the car for us and bring it up to Cuzco next week.  He’s also going to try to renegotiate the price so as to justify his commission. If all goes well Raul says he may buy it from us when we go.

In our discussion I mentioned that the car had low mileage – about 35,000 km are showing on the clock.  “It will have done about 60,000” said Juvenal.  I replied that I thought the cars were checked when they came into the country.  “Yes” he said “but you can always do a deal.”  He then added that there were lots of Peruvians working in the car export trade in Japan.  “They know how it all works here.”

I also asked Juvenal how business was going.  Great he said.  He had just bought two cars for people in Lima.  “Where?” I asked. “ In Matarani, about two hours from Tacna.  It is stuffed full of cars.”