I have never seen so many ATMs in one city, and they are constantly being used by people. I attempted to pull some money at the mall on Sunday, and the machine said it only had bills of 2,000 pesos (roughly about $4 US, so it would have meant a whole lot of bills if I tried to withdraw $200 US.) Now granted we're temporarily residing in the financial district of Santiago until we get a house, but after we opened up a bank account today, I learned that only about 10% of Chilean citizens actually have bank accounts. This seems odd given all the banks around. Talk about old school - a lot is done on a cash basis, which could explain why the Chilean economy is doing so well.
Everyone here has to have a "rut" (route) number, too - it's sort of like a Social Security number, but not nearly as protected. Apparently there are very difficult to get if you aren't a citizen, so Dave has been pretty lucky to secure one for the business.
Some things are just ridiculously expensive: gas is about $6 US per gallon, but a whole bag of fresh bread is about $1 US. A good bottle of Eucerin lotion cost me about $14 US the other day, but Dave and I stocked up on some excellent 2004 wine at about $4 US a bottle.
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