Free again: Land Cruiser is out of jail!!!
First - a quick recap.
After we reached Panama and spent some time there, I decided to bring the truck back to Costa Rica and fly out from San Jose.
The main logic behind is that Panama only gives you a one(1) month permit for the truck whereas in Costa Rica you get 3 months. You can extend the one month permit but you need to be there with your passport.
Also at the time, I wasn't aware of the cheap flights you can get out of Panama (or any other destination in Central America) with Spirit Airlines. So flying out of San Jose was much cheaper.
My good friend Luis had suggested leaving the truck in a governement controled storage near the SJO airport.
He had done that with his Land Cruiser when he came back to the USA a few months ago.
So the plan was simple - drive back from Panama, get to the storage place in San Jose, drop the car, go to the airport and fly out. Then come back later, get the truck out of the storage place, and hit the road again. I thought I had everything figured out.
Well, it wasn't going to be that easy.
I managed to find the place with no problem. Luis had also explained about the 2 offices at each end of the building - the storage company and the actual customs (Aduana).
Then the yard in the back. Well, more like a junkyard.
The first step is to leave the truck with the junkyard guard which keeps the key and seals the whole thing.
Then you go to the company's office and get your permit's status changed to "Suspended" and you get a letter so if the custom agents ask at the airport, you can prove that you did not sell your car.
That's when things started going downhill. For some unexplained reason (let's say incompetency), the clerk at the storage company (we will call him Blondie) changed my status to Canceled instead of Suspended. Technically, that means that I had left the country and that my truck was also gone, and that my permit was no longer valid. Oops. I could see his face changing as he realized the mistake.
To make a long story short, I left the country a few hours later with no resolution and a letter stating that there was a mistake with the program, signed by the custom guy. But I had no idea what will happen next when I will come back.
That was about 80 days ago...
(Find the truck in this picture...)
I flew back to San Jose yesterday and to say that I was a bit nervous is an understatement.
Luckily this time, I got the help of a local friend as my Spanish was being thoroughly tested during this process.
As I expected, things did not go well. Everyone was acknowledging the issue but no one wanted to take responsability - Blondie being the worst of all, no apologie or nothing. In the process of trying to solve the situation, we got warned that if we did not resolve the issue before the permit expires (this weekend) then the system would automaticly place the Land Cruiser in a new status and we will have to properly import the vehicle in Costa Rica and pay full taxes (several thousands).
We got pushed from Blondie to the custom agents to their boss to the IT staff to the IT manager - until we find someone I would say was a bit more "aware" that everyone else. Apparently he is the one who designed the software that handles this process.
He managed to reverse the change in the database and we got a new permit late this afternoon.
The problem got compounded by the fact that these agents always rotate and are not familiar with the process. Apparently that happens often - Luis revealed to me that he went through the same challenges.
So now the truck is finally free again and I have never been so happy to get back on the road.