Lat S 2 18 / W 030 06

Day 12
Today I think of señor Navero who was the Big Fixer in Puerto Eden. In
Puerto Eden, there were no roads only a narrow wooden walkway in front of the
houses around the bay. Since it was almost constantly raining the footbridge
was slippery, except in places where they had attached pieces of tin, perforated
with a star chisel. Despite the village's small size there was a
police office, an armada station, a post office and a school. It was at the school
there was supposed to be internet but that's a different story. Señor Navero,
was an old fox in the dirtiest trousers I have ever seen. Tramping around in
rubber boots, owner of the village's hostel, and also the village's organizer,
he was the owner of the phone. Since we needed gas, we became fast friends with him,
and ended up sitting in his "lobby" where the TV and the stove were always on.
Our first mission was to buy diesel, voy a ver (I shall see) voy a
ver, 200 litros hmm, perhaps on Monday, got a liter price written down on
a small piece of paper. It would also be "microfiltrado" which sounded very
good. For various reasons already on Saturday we got more acute needs for
LPG (one bottle was poorly filled) Up to Navero señor, thought
there was no problem, LPG is used everywhere for everything in Chile.
But ... they all had big bottles and we had a small one, it
there was no one who had a change for filling. The solution to the problem
was to ride the ferry that went on Sunday morning to Puerto Natales,
get a replacement bottle, go back and get to Puerto Eden, Wednesday. Not so
attractive to us, but señor Navero could get someone who did this for
us. It all ended up after a hard evening's negotiations in the lobby,
we would get our old Chilean bottle filled + a new bottle, which we
purchased from an unknown man in the village for a decent price, that would also be filled.
This fits all very well on Wednesday when the diesel will come. Wednesday, would
not diesel come on Monday. No, no, there is no chance. Microfiltrado. We got
tired of Puerto Eden, the days passed slowly and on Wednesday morning, we were
leaving early. We got our gas and diesel, and while the diesel was transported
out in cans with the dinghy I went to the señor to make us debt free.
I thought it sounded a lot, looked at the little piece of paper, but didn't get the
numbers to match up, paid and watched, we were in a hurry to get away
so I thanked him and left. We lifted anchor and then looked
closer on the piece of paper. I can say that he had a premium
the good Navero, 100% on the price for the diesel, okay, he had no guests at the hostel,
and of course needed to raise money to live on. He is
forgiven and it turns into a fun memory of a great businessman.