The Long Way South- A Pan American Adventure

[Deleted member 12023]

SCHMUGGLIN’ SCHMUCKS
September 22, 2013 · by Sarah

We had twenty four hours to pack our bags, weigh them to make sure they didn’t exceed the airline weight limit, drop Brady off at Nate’s parents house to be “doggy sat” for the next two months and wake up at 2am for the drive to Boston to catch our flight back to Costa Rica. Holy moly. It seemed impossible…. almost, anyways. This isn’t the first time that we have put off doing the things we are supposed to do to the point of making ourselves completely uncomfortable and stressed. It actually seems to work better for us. We should have been named The Procrastinator’s Looong Journey South.

After looking into the shipping process across the Darien Gap, we decided it would be better for Brady to be left home and then flown to meet us in South America. Only having one flight to S.A. seemed better for him than flying with us back to Costa Rica, traveling with us through Panama for about a month, waiting in the truck while we complete the tedious shipping paperwork and then being flown or sailed across the Darien Gap to Colombia. As hard as it was to say bye to him and know that we would have to travel without our best friend for a little while, it is in his best interest. He is in good, loving hands at Nate’s parents house, until we can figure out a good place to have him sent to us.

The night before our return flight, we had pizza with our parents and Brady and then went home to figure out our baggage. We packed and unpacked uncountable times. Having about 120 pounds of truck parts and gear didn’t make it easy to fit everything into three bags under 50 lbs each. We needed a new rotor, caliper, and axel u-joint for the front drivers side, brake pads all around, a track bar heim and other miscellaneous parts and tools. We had also bought some things that we were having a hard time finding down there and had to shove those in our bags too. After packing the checked bags to the gills and weighing them, we still had a stack of clothes to find a place for. You can see where our priorities are… Clearly, we would rather be naked and have Truck run perfectly. She deserves all the new parts after carting our asses through eight countries and 17,000 miles of the roughest roads we have ever seen! That night, we hit the hay at 11:40pm with our alarm clock set for 2:00am on the dot. Phew!

Waking up ready to go, we threw our bags in the back of my parent’s car and hit the road, but not before a quick Dunkin’ Donuts stop to charge up before the two hour drive to Boston. We arrived early for our flight and went over to the desk clerk to check our bags. Two were an even 49 lbs and one was 47lbs!! Go us! We checked into our flight online but it wouldn’t let us print our tickets because we didn’t have return tickets back to the states. We explained to the lady that we were flying back to Costa Rica to pick up our truck and continue driving South to Argentina. With a puzzled look, she put in an override code and sent us on our way. I hope Costa Rica and Panama will see it the same way!

The flights to San Jose went smooth and better than expected. When we arrived to customs in Costa Rica, we expected to have trouble because of all the car parts. We hoisted our bags off the baggage conveyer to find them completely torn apart, literally, and shoved back together. However, everything seemed to be there! We placed them through the x-ray one more time, were waved on and walked out of the airport to find our free hotel shuttle waiting for us outside!

We decided to stay at a hotel we have been to before when our friend Sean came to visit. It is a simple Best Western Hotel but has a free airport shuttle, free breakfast in the morning at Denny’s, laundry machines, a pool and hot tub, a casino and even an open bar at the casino every night from 5-6pm!! We were so excited to be back, but decided that we would just chill and hang out at the hotel for the first night since we didn’t get there until dinnertime. Tomorrow morning, we get to go pick up Truck! EEEEKK we couldn’t be more excited!

 

[Deleted member 12023]

Whheeeewwww!! I feel like an interneting fool! This updates us to the point when we are back in Costa Rica. I'll get the good stuff going after a little break from staring at this screen:Wow1:

 

[trailsurfer]

Thanks for the great update!

 

[Scott Brady]

awesome trip report. Lots of smiles in the photographs - perfect.

 

[steve c]

WOO! Thanks for the updates. Glad to see you guys getting back on the road.

 

[bobDog]

I don't know but I'm having a hard time seeing you two staying still very long! Well not to mention the dog! How you gonna keep that K9 on the farm huh? Air flights etc. South American dog food?:sombrero: I think not! Make some bucks and get the hell out of Dodge. You 2 were made for it.:snorkel:

 

[Deleted member 12023]

Thanks for the kind words guys! We definitely have a hard time sitting still! I'm going to get a few more updates on here this morning while I hide from Sarah @ the hostel.:sombrero:

 

[Deleted member 12023]

TRUCK’S FEELINGS OF ABANDONMENT
October 5, 2013 · by Nate

Well, I guess it’s time to dust off my fingers and return from my blogging hiatus as Sarah just informed me I have not written one since Mexico. As most of you know, we have returned from our summer of work and easy living back home. Upon arrival in San Jose, Sarah and I booked a stay for a few days at the Best Western Irazu. We hoped the posh swimming pool, Casino and 24 hour Denny’s downstairs would ween us off of our spoiled American lifestyle. What we weren’t expecting was the following days to be the ultimate test of patience, Spanish, and trust.

When you have a temporary vehicle import permit you are not allowed to leave the country without the vehicle. It is literally stamped right in your passport. When Sarah and I left the country, we left our truck in a bonded storage area and canceled our vehicle import permit. In the San Jose Aduana, a man by the name of Mariano is in charge of the higher priority paper work. He is the one who initially helped us with our vehicle import and the process of suspending it so we could leave.

Back in June, Mariano cancelled our permit when he should have suspended it. We questioned it several times only to be assured that it was “all set”. “No problem. You return, you talk to me” he said.

Fast forward to September…”You cannot have your truck, you need leave for one year.” What? Where the hell is that law written? It’s not, for those of you who are considering doing the same as us. A law was made up on the spot to avoid conflict. “Well buddy, you now have a conflict! We are here and we want our damn truck!” Sarah and I glued our rear ends to the chairs in front of his desk and refused to move until it was fixed. Hours passed, tens of phone calls made and we were issued a brand new import permit just to get the crazy gringos out of office building. Sweet!

We walked over to the lot where our truck was waiting, paid our bill, grabbed the key, and fired it up. I hit the brakes to put it in drive and they went to the floor. Pumped them several times…to the floor. ****! I hopped out and Sarah pointed out the fluid pouring out from behind the gas tank. Sure enough, it was brake fluid and it was pouring out of a very rotten brake line.

The security guard said I could work on it in the lot if I wanted, but it was 2:00 on a Friday and they would close at 5:00 for the weekend, or he could call a flat bed. We decided to have the tow truck come and tow it to the hotel. I could at least work on it in the parking lot there over the weekend.

The first tow truck showed up, but it was too small, so he called his partner with the bigger truck. Julio, the driver of the first truck informed us that his partner is also a mechanic. Anyone who knows my history with lying half assed mechanics knows that I wouldn’t trust one if he was the last mechanic on earth. One problem, we needed a brake line replaced, and quick! Hector agreed to have it done the next day. Reluctantly, I agreed.

We rode with Hector to his shop in Tambor which, after 30 mins and a quick stop to pay his cell phone bill, we realized we had no idea where we were. I quickly turned on the GPS to mark the coordinates for later. Hector said he would call our room when he was done and assured us it would be no problem.

We grabbed a cab back to the hotel and agreed on Denny’s and casino drinks for dinner. Later that night, I fired up the GPS only to find out that I did not give Old Trusty enough time to boot up before I saved our coordinates. In other words, a man that I knew nothing about, had my truck in a place that I couldn’t find if my life depended on it. Ugggghhh. I guess our only option was to play the waiting game.

We killed time the following day with a quick tour of San Jose. Around 4pm we headed back to our room when a few minutes later, the phone rang. It was Hector and the truck was ready!

Since we had no idea where it was we opted to go pick it up in the morning rather than meander around in the dark. Luckily, we found a really nice taxi driver who knew exactly where we were going and was willing to call Hector to find the exact address.

When we arrived, the first thing I noticed was brake fluid dripping from the same spot. I crawled under the truck to see if we misunderstood that the truck was actually ready. There was a shiny new brake line with no funny business. I guess the mechanic just didn’t tighten the fitting enough and it was still dripping a little. A 10 minute fix and we were on our way. Finally we had our truck back!! And Hector turned out to be a great mechanic, who worked on a Saturday and on a holiday weekend to get us back on the road.

Back at the hotel we packed up our things, loaded up the truck, our stomachs said a thankful goodbye to Denny’s and we were off! So long San Jose! See you never!

Sarah and I had agreed to stay at Truchas Selva Madre again, because it is relatively close to San Jose and well, we like it there. We had a nice dinner and went to hit the hay. Crawling inside the truck we discovered a river flowing down the side window into the lake it formed near the tailgate. In our heads we thought “Truck, seriously we are sorry for leaving you but come on!” Not much we could do in the way of using duct tape in the rain so we just slept with the sounds of the river flowing through the truck.

Rewind back to June for a minute- When Sarah and I rented a house in Escaleras, I discovered that there was a seized brake caliper which had worn completely through a set of pads and about half a rotor. We also had a bad heim on our trackbar, and a clicking axle u-joint. At the time all I had was a new set of brake pads. So I took the caliper apart, freed the piston, and threw some new pads on there as a temporary fix until I could smuggle some new parts back. I am not sure if the truck was mad about this, or the fact that we left her abandoned in a parking lot for three months, but she was beginning to voice her feelings.

Leaving Truchas Selva Madre it is a very twisty steep mountainous road down to Dominical. We had a car in front of us doing a very inconvenient speed. A speed in which I cannot use the motor to slow us down effectively. I had been using the brakes pretty frequently, but nothing out of the ordinary when all of a sudden the pedal went directly to the floor. In my head I thought “that’s weird”, tried them again…nothing. Now keep in mind we are on a very steep downhill section, which lasts for the next several miles. I looked at Sarah, she was calm and collected with her bug goggles on, not having the slightest clue that she may be in for the scariest roller-coaster ride of her life!

I had two options: 1)Try our emergency brake and hit that tiny patch of dirt on the opposite side if the highway, praying that there is no oncoming traffic around that blind corner or 2)commit to the upcoming pass and hope I don’t hit warp speed. With a split second decision I hit that emergency brake with all of my left leg strength and made a commitment to that patch of dirt, which actually looked a lot more like wet clay the closer we got. Yup, we skidded into a patch of wet clay, on the opposite side of the road, on a blind hairpin turn, in an 8000lb truck with no brakes, and no emergency exit if we couldn’t stop in time. **** me!

Sarah looked at me and said “How long do you think we need to sit here for?” I swear my heart was beating at least 300 beats per minute, we had smoke billowing off of the front brakes, we may or may not have almost died, and she was worried about the amount of time we would be there for. That’s why I love her!

We ended up sitting there for about an hour in hopes that the brakes would come back around. They kind of did, but I drove the rest of the way to our campsite in second gear at 25mph. It was a looong day.

The very next morning I grabbed my tools and was about to dive head first into fixing this pig, so I thought. Remember that water crossing we did in the Osa before we went home? Well, that water crossing caused a massive bit of corrosion making it impossible for me to break loose any nut or bolt on the truck without having a hernia, setting the truck on fire with a torch, or ****ting my pants. Unfortunately, the repair would have to wait. We were crossing into Panama the next day and thanks to Mariano, it was our last day to do so.

The first major town you hit in Panama is David, and this is where we did some searching. Sarah and I searched for the better part of a day for a 3/4” breaker bar and a reducer so I could really give those rusty bolts some hell. I even bought a 4’ piece of pipe to use as a cheater so I could really make them cry! Side note: Just so everyone knows the Spanish word for pipe is not pipe. It’s tubo. If you ask for pipe you will be handed a shovel.

We stayed in Boquete for almost a week, enjoying the food & coffee and working on the truck in between downpours. I was able to get everything done that needed to be done and we were back in business. Once again we were on the move. On our way out of town we were on a standard Central American pothole road, when a new sound reared it’s head. It was a clunk but not a clunk that I remembered hearing before. I pulled into the first gas station I saw and grabbed the jack. I jacked up the front end and triple checked all of the work I had done. It looked solid. I jacked up the other side, everything looked good. What the? I jacked up the passenger side again because I knew that clunk was not a good clunk. I stuck a pry bar under the tire and lifted….that’s when I heard it. Ball joints. Damn it.

Just before we left to come back I bought an emergency set of balljoints, just in case. I did not buy the press I needed because we were already at our weight limit for our bags and frankly, I was feeling cheap that day.

Do you ever neglect to do something and then really hate yourself when you realize you shouldn’t have? Well, these were my exact feelings as we sat in the gas station parking lot in the rain. “Hey Sarah, will you look up ‘ball joint press’ for me in the dictionary?”

 

[Deleted member 12023]

Haha, I guess a few of my choice words didn't come through....but you get the idea.

 

[Deleted member 12023]

THE CALM BEFORE THE STORM
October 15, 2013 · by Sarah

With shipping the truck heavy on our minds, we booked it to Panama. The border was about three hours away from where we were staying so we woke up early to get a head start- but not before stopping at Soda Nanyoa in Dominical for a top off of our coffee mugs for the ride.

The ride to the border went smoothly. We arrived around 9am and checked out of Costa Rica in a matter of fifteen minutes. We made our way to “no-man’s land” where we planned on exchanging our remaining colones. I walked up to the bank and stood in line behind ten people before being let in the door by the security guard. Once through the doors, I felt the blast of air conditioning- ahhhh it felt so nice after camping in the heat for the past week. I made my way over to the money exchanging line. I stood there for about five minutes enjoying the cool, crisp air before I realized that the line seemed extremely long. I actually counted 37 people in front of me. And the line wasn’t moving fast. Poor Nate was sitting outside in the truck in the beating sun waiting for me. I debated whether to skip it and suffer with a pocketful of useless colones to save Nate from heat exhaustion or wait it out, completely enjoying myself and never tell Nate that it was air conditioned. Unfortunately for me, my conscience got the better of me and I forced my way out of line and through the doors to save him from melting into a puddle on Truck’s floor.

It took us a about an hour and a half to get through the Panama side of the border. Once we finished all the paperwork, we hopped into the truck and headed towards the military checkpoint on the four lane highway. Lucky for us, our destination for the night was only about an hour away from the border.

We arrived in Boquete that evening and were looking forward to enjoying the cool mountain air. We stopped at a gas station to buy a six pack of beer and the man behind the counter asked for $3.70. Thinking I heard him wrong, I handed over a ten dollar bill just in case. I received $6.30 back- oh snap!! We both walked out the the store with the biggest grins on our faces, giggling like school children and Nate glanced at me and said, “That’s going to be dangerous!”

We ended up spending five nights in Boquete. It is a quaint little town with lots of little stores and restaurants. We found a great little Mexican restaurant called Antijotos which had excellent tortilla soup.

We took advantage of the flat ground and extra space to do some work on the truck, all while watching an intense after school soccer game.

We even found a temporary stand-in for Brady while we were there. Meet Noriega. Noriega is the perfect balance between Brady and our friend Kellee and Jamie’s dog Reina. She is fun loving, goofy and always ready to play. I even taught her how to play fetch

Feeling the pressure to get the ball rolling on the shipping process, we emailed about four different shipping agents. We were looking for someone to ship our truck with in order to share the shipping costs and the headache that comes with the shipping process We heard back from Tea first and she told us that she had a shipping partner for us and we would start the shipping process in four days. Having just crossed the border into Panama, that felt a little rushed so we asked if she could find us someone for the following week instead and boy are we glad we did! She told us that she could set us up with a Belgian couple for the following week, who are also driving to Argentina! Perfect!

Feeling better that we had an actual shipping partner and date to ship, we decided to scour Boquete for something fun to do. We had heard of a set of waterfalls that are located just outside of town. We packed some water and snacks and hit the road. We found our way up through the mountains to The Lost Waterfalls- a series of three waterfalls which are located on a trail that winds itself between people’s homes and yards and up through the Chiriqui mountains.

We had three nights to get to Panama City, so we tore ourselves away from our comfortable life in Boquete and continued South. Our first stop was Las Lajas. We had read that it was a beautiful, white sand beach with waves perfect for beginners. Excited, we pulled down the dirt path to the town to be greeted by one resort and a bunch of run down businesses. We continued down the path and stumbled upon a soggy, wooden sign that said “cabanas and camping.” Sounds good to us! We immediately threw on our bathing suits and hopped in the water to cool off. No surfing for us, but we had a blast body surfing through the waves. We had veggie burritos for dinner and fell asleep to the sounds of the waves crashing on the shore.

The next morning, we packed up and headed to our next destination, Santa Clara. While on the way, Nate and I were keeping an eye out for hardware/auto parts stores in order to buy a ball joint press. We stopped at more stores than I can count on my own two hands. Each time we went in, we would describe the problem and ask for the tool, in our best Spanish we could think of. Too many times, we would be followed outside by an employee so we could show him where the problem was on the truck and use hand gestures to describe the press we needed. After figuring out the proper way to ask for the press, we continued our search. We were given many confusing looks with a head shake side to side. Crap.

Finally, we spotted a fairly large mechanic shop about halfway to Santa Clara. After about ten minutes, the mechanics insisted on “taking a look” to see if they could just do it for us since they didn’t actually sell the tool. We had the new ball joints but not the tool. Before we knew it, they had completely taken the tire off and were diving head first into fixing the problem. We thought they would only take a look and give us an estimate, but it looked like they planned on just fixing the problem right then and there. Nate paced back and forth in the parking lot, sweat dripping from his forehead.

He spent the next 45 minutes watching the mechanic’s every move and checking in with him. Then the banging began. I panically looked at Nate and asked him what the mechanic was doing. Nate was nervous. After a few minutes, Nate strolled over and realized the mechanic actually didn’t know what he was doing. The mechanic’s way to complete something he didn’t know how to do was to bang on everything with all of his might, with a sledgehammer. Since Nate normally does all the work on the truck, he knew exactly what to do but didn’t want to step on the guy’s toes. He also didn’t want to leave with more problems than we went there with, so he stepped in and told the guy how to take the hub off. Between the two of them working together, he got the ball joints loose and began pressing the new one in. The mechanic was able to put the truck back together much quicker than when he took it apart and sent us on our way. It took a total of about four hours, and in the end, it only cost us $45!

With the ball joint problem behind us, we found a nice restaurant to camp at for the night in Santa Clara. We took showers outside in the thunder and lightning storm and ran back to the truck to watch a movie before bed. We spent the next day splashing around in the waves and tanning our pasty white skin before heading up into the mountains towards El Valle.

We pulled into El Valle after a steep, windy drive not knowing where we were going to camp for the night. There was a festival in the center of town and the road was full of people. After pushing through the crowds, we made our way to the other side and spotted a sign that said camping. We followed the signs and ended up at Potosi Cabanas where we ended up getting a room for the night because it was completely down pouring. We had been camping in the down pouring rain for two weeks now and needed a break. Everything in the truck was wet and smelly and we felt that we needed a roof over our heads for the night. We got a good night’s rest and woke up early the next morning to hike through the jungle where we were told we would find the only square trees in the world! Next stop…Panama City!

 

[Deleted member 12023]

THE GREAT SHIPPING DEBACLE (PART 1)
October 18, 2013 · by Sarah

The biggest hurdle for people who want to drive the Pan American highway is the Darien Gap. The Darien Gap is a roadless, 100mi section of some of the harshest jungle and swampland on earth separating Panama from Columbia . Not to mention it is filled with drug running rebels looking for an opportunity to obtain a new truck and maybe a couple of gringo slaves. So, in order to continue the journey south, you must ship your truck on a cargo ship from one of the various ports from Central America to South America. In our case we shipped from Colon, Panama to Cartagena, Columbia.

Once we returned to Central America, our hiatus from researching the shipping process had ended and we were hit with the reality that it was going to happen sooner than we thought. Sooner than we were ready for it to! Our first ten months on the road, and the time we were home for the summer, we avoided talking about the shipping process like the plague. However, once we crossed the border into Panama it became the main topic of conversation. Day and night. While sitting out the rain storms in Boquete, Panama, Nate hopped on the computer and started posting wanted ads on Drive the Americas and emailed various shipping agents. The first person we heard back from was Tea Kalmbach. She is a shipping agent who works out the logistics from Argentina and her daughter Amy assists with the errand running in Panama. Originally, we wanted to tackle the whole shipping process by ourselves but after reading the headaches of fellow overlanders we opted to pay the additional fee, which happened to be nominal, and hired an agent. Tea informed me that she had a Belgian couple looking to ship during the same time frame as us. Perfect!

I am not going to bore everyone with a complete write up of how-to instructions. Besides, there are so many good write-ups online right now that I couldn’t do them justice anyway. In our case, we used the excellent write up from Life Remotely.

We were instructed to meet Amy Monday morning at the Yacht Club where we would then follow her to the police inspection area. We arrived at 7:15 am and decided to take a stroll down to the docks to see the infamous Bridge of the Americas.

On the way back to the truck, we spotted Patrick and Marijke from Keep Calm and Drive South, our new shipping partners. After greeting each other, we headed back to the truck to wait for Amy to arrive.

Once she arrived, we all giddily hopped into our trucks and followed her through the chaotic winding streets to the police inspection area. We had heard tales that if it were raining, the man doing the inspections would not come outside. Amy herself even told us that he is “allergic to the rain.” Or so he thinks. We all pulled in and popped our hoods, hoping that the inspector would make it outside before the clouds hovering above us decided to do what they do best.

About a half an hour went by when we saw the door open and a man step out. He had arrived! We all stood in front of our vehicles, heads held high, papers in hand. He had barely completed the first inspection when I felt the first drop. ‘****’, I thought, ‘Hopefully, he didn’t feel that.’ No more than five seconds went by when he quickly turned around on one heel, like a soldier during a military march, and quickly returned inside. ‘You’ve got to be kidding me.’

Twenty minutes later, Amy came over and asked us to move our vehicles under the overhang of the roof. Maybe the man made of sugar could complete the inspections without getting a single raindrop on him. We all complied, and lined up waiting for our turn to pull under the overhang. We waited patiently for what seemed like forever, watching the rain pour down. He eventually made his way out, armed with a raincoat, hat, and clipboard. He hesitantly started the inspections. For what we waited for nearly two hours for, took him a total of five minutes per vehicle. He did a quick look-over of our VIN number and motor number, made a couple check marks on our papers and sent us on our way.

After picking up our completed forms later that afternoon, we were free to hang out until Wednesday morning so we decided to visit the Panama Canal. We woke up the next morning, enjoyed some breakfast and hit the road in search for the Miraflores Locks. We arrived at about 11:30, purchased our tickets and headed straight for the 3D film explaining the canal.

After the movie, we visited the small museum and were amped up to see our first ship go through the locks. We went outside, it was about noon time now, and found our perfect spot. There weren’t many people there, we just assumed it was because it is technically the “off season.” An hour went by, no ship. We snapped a couple pictures of each other to keep ourselves busy while waiting.

Two hours went by, no ship. We were getting antsy and were confused as to where all the ships were. Three hours, still no ship! We finally figured out that (even though our guidebook told us the “best times” were to go from 9-11am and 3-5pm) the ships wouldn’t start coming until about 3:30 or 4:00 this afternoon! We didn’t realize that absolutely no ships go through during the day! Doh! It was all worth the wait once we spotted the first ship pulling in.

It is mind boggling to watch the ships, guided by trains on either side, go through each lock as the water lowered and rose on either side. It is truly amazing to watch one of the most innovative engineering accomplishments of all time.

Wednesday morning had arrived, the day we would drive Truck to the shipping port of Colon, drive her into a cargo container and walk away hoping that she makes it to the other side. We left the hotel ridiculously early so as not to hit the notorious Panama City traffic jams. Unfortunately, we still found ourselves fighting our way through the millions of cars.

Once Amy arrived at the yacht club, we followed her on the hour drive to Colon. Upon pulling into town, it was clear that it was predominantly a port town. Large cargo trucks barreled their way through the narrow streets, street vendors offered up their grilled meats and veggies to passersby, and it smelled of diesel fuel, smoke and rotten fish. We parked the cars and headed over to the aduana office to cancel the vehicle import permit and get Nate’s passport stamped to say that he would be allowed to leave Panama without the truck.

We played frogger crossing the street back to the cars and followed Amy over to the port. There, we had the truck inspected and Amy did her thing running back and forth to different offices filling out our paperwork while we sat and enjoyed the air conditioning.

After all the paperwork was filled out it was time to drive the cars into the port!! Nate and Patrick threw on their official orange vests and hopped in the driver’s seats. We pulled into a warehouse where more paperwork was completed, inspections took place and pictures of the vehicles were taken. It was finally time to drive Rodrigo and Truck into their home for the next week.

Patrick went first. He guided Rodrigo into the container like a pro and attempted to escape the confinements as gracefully as he could. But with little room to spare, it was a difficult matter

Nate went second. Truck is just a tiny bit bigger than Rodrigo, okay a lot bigger. We folded the mirrors in and Nate slowly edged Truck further and further into the black box until he could go no more. Like a gloooooove!!!

When it came time for him to get out, there was no way he was opening the driver’s door. Out the back it is! Nate had to belly crawl through the middle window from the cab to the back and hop out the back. It looked as though Truck were giving birth to a real live man, or taking a poop in Nate’s case

Amy was nice enough to give us all a ride back to the city. We still owed her about $1000 each before she dropped us off. In the middle of Panama City traffic, we counted out the cash, sitting real low in a Jetta, and slid it into a ziplock bag. Patrick and Marijke added their money to the bag and Patrick held onto it for dear life. We hopped out in the middle of a street, assured Amy that all the money was there and started walking. We just left almost $1000 in the hands of a Belgian lad, someone we met two days earlier! Good thing Truck is blocking their car in in the container, that way if they tried to pull a fast one on us, we have the upperhand!

The next day, we met Patrick and Marijke for a tour around Panama City. We started out in Panama Viejo where we explored old ruins from the 1500s.

We then made our way over to the old town where we grabbed a bite to eat and walked around sightseeing for the day. We saw beautiful church ruins, the Golden Altar Church, the malecon with a pristine park and graffiti galore!

The next day, we left Panama City and hopped on a plane to Cartagena, Colombia to (hopefully) meet Truck on the other side!!

 

[Deleted member 12023]

THE GREAT SHIPPING DEBACLE (PART 2)
October 19, 2013 · by Sarah

After an hour and a half flight, we stepped off the airplane into Rafael Núñez International Airport in Cartagena, Colombia. This was the first time since we started this trip that we had crossed a border without driving through it. It felt different. Easier, actually. We grabbed our bags from baggage claim and headed for the door. The door slid open and we were immediately hit with an overwhelming and nauseating wall of heat and humidity. Welcome to Cartagena!

We flagged down a taxi, jammed all of our packs into the trunk and sped off onto the Colombian streets of the hottest city we had ever been to. We arrived at our hotel and were shown to our rooms. The first thing we did was turn on the air conditioner and check the status of our ship, The Seaboard Pride. It was making its way to Colon, slowly but surely.

The next day, Saturday, was the day our container was supposed to be loaded and set sail toward Colombia. However, the ship was still off the coast of Columbia and hadn’t yet reached Colon. This meant that instead of starting the process of paperwork Monday and retrieving our vehicles Tuesday, we wouldn’t be able to start the paperwork process until Wednesday and retrieve our vehicles Thursday. Cartagena was beautiful, but hot. Very friggin’ hot. Feeling discouraged, we pondered what we could do for the next five days.

We went sightseeing around the city on Saturday. Getsemani, where our hotel was, is a walled city with colorful buildings, unique metal statues of people and street food galore. We walked for about two hours before we were dripping in sweat and needed a break from the sun.

Sunday, we walked to the San Felipe de Barajas Castle with Patrick and Marijke. After only about one hour, we were desperately seeking some shade.

We found a shopping mall across the street where we took a break from the heat and cooled down with ice cream from the grocery store.

We spent the next couple of days going for short walks, playing cards in the hotel room to escape the overwhelming heat and obsessively checking in on the ship to see its progress.

Nate’s birthday had finally come and even though he didn’t get his first birthday wish (to get the truck back), he did enjoy a delicious dinner of crepes and a dessert waffle. Happy 30th to the best fiancé, co-traveler and partner in crime a girl could ever ask for!

Wednesday morning, we woke up to a smiling Patrick who told us that the ship made it to Cartagena’s port. “Let’s go get our babies back!” He exclaimed. We shoved some coffee and breakfast down, packed a bag full of photocopies and paperwork and snagged a taxi. On the way to the Seaboard Marine office, Nate and I realized that we had everything we needed…. except for one very important thing. The truck keys… Idiots. We decided that we would get as much paperwork and such done today and if, miraculously, we were able to get the truck out of the container today, we would grab a taxi back to the hotel to get the keys.

We spent the next six hours going from the Seaboard Marine office, to aduana, back to Seaboard Marine, to the document center, back to aduana, etc. Five taxi rides, lots of waiting, interpreting some very slurred Spanish and sweating, we had everything we needed to get Truck out of that big blue box. However, our inspection appointment wasn’t until the next day so we got a taxi back to the hotel, cracked open some beers and waited until the next morning to tackle the rest of this seemingly never ending process.

The next morning when we woke up it felt like Christmas day. We knew today would be the day we would get the cars out of the container and we couldn’t have been more excited. We hopped into a taxi and got the the document center 45 minutes before our inspection appointment to make sure we didn’t screw anything up. We sat on the curb outside the office building waiting for them to open. As the sun rose higher and higher, so did the temperature. As soon as the doors were unlocked, we scrambled inside and took a seat. I assumed I wouldn’t be allowed in the port from stories I had previously read online. A man behind the glass held up two yellow hardhats for Nate and Patrick and I assumed my position for the day in the hard, plastic seat. Then he whistled to me and held up a bright red hardhat. Sweet! I get to go in too!!

We made our way through security, the boys getting their bags checked and waved with a metal detector while I just strolled on by. We didn’t know who or what we were looking for but we wandered around the port like we owned the joint, searching for our boxed-up babies.

After an hour of searching for the container and the inspector, we felt defeated. We had people “helping” us who weren’t actually helping in any way. We were frustrated, hot and didn’t know what to do. Finally, a girl showed up and went behind the aduana window and all the warehouse men were pointing at her like “that’s the girl you need to talk to!” After getting the whereabouts of Rodrigo and Truck, we sped walk over to the container. We rounded the corner of the warehouse and spotted the big blue Seaboard Marine box, already opened up and ready for us to drive the cars out!

We were told where to park them for the inspection, then took a seat in the shade on the curb. By now, it was about nine o’clock and we still hadn’t seen our inspector. We were getting nervous but knew that the common theme for this whole shipping process thing is “waiting.” Another hour went by and a security guard told us that we had to leave. We told him that we had an inspection appointment but he denied us the ability to stay with our cars. We weren’t supposed to be just hanging out in the port, as they were lifting cargo containers that were thousands of pounds up in the air right near us.

We went to the Seaboard Marine office to try to figure out where our inspector was. There were men who didn’t even work in or near the port on their cell phones making calls for us. We didn’t know the name of our inspector, which would have helped a lot, and were getting no where. Finally, we went back to the document center office and asked the lady behind the window. She seemed astonished that the inspector didn’t show up and made a quick phone call. When she hung up, she smiled and told us we were all set and to go to the DIAN office in the next town to pick up our paperwork. Somehow, and to this day we don’t know how, we got an inspection without even knowing it!

We had a half hour to get a taxi and take it over to DIAN before it was their two hour lunch break. We made it just in time and got our paperwork all stamped and signed. We had some lunch at the cafeteria in the DIAN office and then strolled around a bit before making our way back to the document center. We knew everyone has a lunch break from 12-2 so we were in no rush to get back. We stopped at a little cart that sold piping hot coffee in chintzy plastic cups. We cautiously sipped our hot beverage while playing hot potato with the cup from one hand to the other.

Once back at the port, we paid for the inspection, got our Bill of Lading stamped by Seaboard Marine and got the go-ahead to drive the cars out of the port! Home free bitches!!

So, what does it cost to ship your truck from Panama to Columbia? I’ll tell you!

Cargo through Seaboard Marine and our shipping agent’s fee: $ 990
Port fees in Cartagena: $ 181.95
Flights to Columbia: $ 733.10
Millions of taxi rides: $ 90.02
11 days in a hotel: $ 527.14
Photocopies: $ 1.46
Orange vests (needed to enter port in Cartagena): $ 12.00
Eating out for 11 days: $ 181.70
Granted you could do all of this a little cheaper if you stayed in a cheap hostel and did not hire an agent, but our grand total for 11 days of self inflicted hell was : $ 2,717.37!!

 

[trailsurfer]

Thanks for the great update. I look forward to following your adventures in SA.

 

[Scott Brady]

We rounded the corner of the warehouse and spotted the big blue Seaboard Marine box, already opened up and ready for us to drive the cars out!

Such a relief to see a truck in a container at its destination! That feeling never gets old. . .

 

[Deleted member 12023]

Such a relief to see a truck in a container at its destination! That feeling never gets old. . .

It was a first time for us but I can only imagine!