The road chose me

While I’m still working on selling my Jeep I want to mention a new hangout for overlanders on the road in Panama City.

Panama Passage is a new Overlander Resource Center, providing absolutely everything we could possibly need. And more.

The courtyard at Panama Passage

Beautiful hotel rooms, camping space, a locked yard for parking, a workshop and tools and a ‘container matching service’ are really just the beginning. Their extensive knowledge of the big city is crucial to point you in the right direction for all your needs, from spares and repairs to pesky Customs and Police.

If you’re headed to Panama City, this is the place to stay.

-Dan

Now the Jeep is safely locked away in a container bound for Colombia I can take in some of the sights around beautiful Panama City. I stay at Luna’s Castle Hostel in Casco Viejo, a really cool old part of the city right on the water. It’s an insanely busy place and also great for meeting other travelers and organizing trips around the place.

Panama City "The Miama of the south"

The number one attraction in town is obviously The Canal and before visiting I make a stop at the museum in Casco Viejo which is amazing considering the tiny $2 admission price. My engineering background means I’m fascinated by the surveying work that was undertaken before construction began. One map in particular shows proposed routes through Tehuantepec in Mexico, through lake Nicaragua, through a couple of different places in Panama and finally one using a river mostly in modern-day Colombia. The decision didn’t actually come down to the “shortest” distance to dig as you might think, but primarily on how the mountain range through Central America would be dealt with. The final location chosen meant it was possible to create a huge in-land lake and use locks to elevate the ships 28 meters to that level.
One French guy proposed digging deep enough to eliminate the need for locks, though it was decided this would be too great a task.

Panama City by night

On a sunny morning Mike and I head out to Miraflores Locks, the main set of locks close the city. There are three lock chambers here to elevate or lower the ships as required and the Pacific Ocean is just around a bend. It’s a very busy place with another “museum”, theatre and viewing platform.
We sit for a couple of hours while two enormous tankers make their way through, a sight to behold for sure.

Looking out into the Pacific

There is lots of information here about the handover at the end of 1999 when control of the Canal was handed to the Panamanians from the USA. Soon after the government announced a huge proposal to allow the passage of bigger ships, which was approved by about 78% when put to a national referendum.
In layman’s terms they are dredging some parts a bit deeper and building entirely new locks next to the existing ones. When finished the new and existing locks will continue to be used and ships about 50% wider and longer will be able to pass through.
Reading online there are already ships in existence that still won’t fit.

Looking along the Canal to the Atlantic

We also spend a good deal of time in and around the city, nicknamed “The Miami of the south – only with more English spoken”.

Tanker entering the locks

Central America has been good to me and I’ve really enjoyed myself.
It’s time for something new

-Dan

Day Four – Stuffing
The big day has arrived to ‘stuff’ our vehicles into the container and we’re moving at 7:30am, driving across the city in rush hour traffic. First stop is the office of Mario for some last minute paperwork and payment, which we don’t want to do until the job is done. After we mention his customs guy ‘bribed’ us $20 to get our forms corrected a huge argument breaks out where Mario throws the paperwork at us and tells us to do it on our own. Eventually we calm him down and get things happening again.
While waiting for an hour we get our cars washed, hoping to avoid Colombian officials finding mud and charging for exorbitant fumigation.

We finally negotiate with Mario to send along his customs guy who clearly does not want to and proceeds to drive like a maniac as we follow him along the toll road to Colón and the port we will ship from. We stop in at the Manfret office to get more copies of paperwork and more important-looking stamps then move to the ‘free-zone’ and customs. Here we hand over everything we have and receive a permit for our vehicles to exit the country. Again everything is in triplicate, including stamps and signatures. The stamps in our passports that prevent us from leaving are also cancelled here.
It’s funny when we bump into the French travelers once again, who somehow talked their way around their paperwork problem and are back in the game.

Back at the port a random guy is asking for us and calls us in to get a security pass. He explains in great detail where we must take the cars, which sounds easy enough. Back outside Mario’s customs guy tells us to stand in line X and hand over our paperwork before he bids us farewell and disappears.

Time is rapidly ticking down and we’re starting to get a little anxious about the closing time of the port.
Forty five minutes later we’re still waiting in the scorching heat and summarize our position:

• We have no idea why we are standing in line.

• We have no idea why we gave all of our paperwork away.

• We have no idea why we must pay $5 each.

• We hope like mad we are in the right place doing the right thing.

We eventually get everything back and jump in our cars, excited to actually load the container. The directions we got earlier turn out to be useless and we are quickly driving aimlessly around the port with no clue where to go, even driving along a muddy gravel road that negates our car wash plan. At one point I follow Vince into a security check point where the guards furiously yell and wave their arms at us before we can even ask directions.

On a complete guess we try to walk into a yard with a lot of cars around and a guard takes our passports and hands us another security badge. We realize we are at the extremely busy RORO section where people are furiously getting cars inspected for importation. Still with no idea if we are in the right place we ask a lady who takes half of our paperwork into an office then gives the other half to another man, before they tell us to wait with the 25 guys importing cars.

We both have doubts we are in the correct place and now we don’t even have the paperwork we’ve invested so much time in.
We stand around in the hot sun feeling lost and helpless.
Heat, exhaustion and frustration make losing it look like a valid option at this point.

Finally we get an indication of progress when the guards from earlier are alerted to our permitted entry. We drive into the yard and wait for an inspection by the K-9 unit. The dog climbs in and on everything, never once looking more than downright bored. Again we wait, with the clock approaching 4:30pm, knowing the port closes at 5. Finally a customs guys says he can take us to our container so he jumps in with Vince and away we go deep into the port.

The K-9 unit throughly searching the Jeep

I’ve never been to a major shipping port like this and can’t help but be in awe. We drive right down to within 20 meters of the water where enormous cargo ships are slowly gliding by. Directly overhead is a crane that is simply too big to be real and shipping containers are stacked high all around us. When we park in front of our container we both know we’ve made it and begin to smile and joke around at our success against all odds.

Photo of the dock I was not supposed to take

A few minutes later we get another K-9 inspection that also walks through the empty container before we drive inside. We got a 40 foot ‘high cube’ container so Vince can drive straight in with his roof tent and we have plenty of room to spare lengthwise and about 40cm on each side. While waiting for the lashing crew to show up, I sit quitely on the concrete at 4:45pm, feeling happy and exhausted at the same time.

Waiting to drive into the container

All four wheels are chocked and the four corners are tied down. We do a quick inspection, take a few photos, and sign a few forms as customs close and put a special seal on the container, now ready to go.

Vince driving the Land Rover into the container

At 5:30 we are back at the entrance to the port and I sit on the gutter to eat my ‘lunch’ of fried chicken, fries and coke, the first thing I have had to eat or drink since 7am. We catch a taxi into downtown Colon, the express bus to Panama City and another taxi back to our hotel.

Home for the next few days

This is by far the biggest, most insane few days of paperwork I’ve gone through in my life and as I drift off to sleep I can’t help smiling at the enormity of it all.
32000kms, nine months and ten countries down the adventure continues to grow.

Lashed down and closing up

-Dan

This story concludes in Shipping across The Darien Gap Pt. 4

Day One – Finding a shipping company
Driving in Panama City is pretty nutty, so we leave the vehicles at the hotel and get around in taxis. This is an adventure in itself as drivers are basically suicidal and prices must be negotiated beforehand, which can be a tense affair. To give you an idea how hot and humid it is, I finish my one liter water bottle before 10am and am constantly bathed in sweat from the minute I wake up until taking a shower late at night.

Seaboard Marine: The well known favorite of tourists offer a good service for a fair price that includes all the little extra costs and annoyances. The detailed quote we are given is for $1880 for the two cars, showing all the various items. It’s confusing why something like unstuffing would be per vehicle, which is not adequately explained to us. Of course it’s not supposed to make sense. After a lot of back-and-forward they won’t budge so we move on, using this as our baseline.

Barwil: The second favorite of tourists is obviously used to dealing with foreigners. A lady speaking good English ushers us into a very nice air conditioned office and hands us a very simple piece of paper showing $1900 with no breakdown of the costs. When we try to clarify we’re told everything is included except the customs charges in Colombia which they can do nothing about. We ask them to get back to us and are assured they ‘will not be more than $200 – $400 per vehicle’. Hmm

While sitting in the Barwil office Marie picks up a small newspaper all about ocean freight. It shows all the shipping companies in Panama City so we quickly get in contact with as many as possible.

Marfret (Rozo): Marfret is a French company so partly as a joke we decide to stop in and get a quote. The quote is low at $1460, but appears incomplete. When we try to clarify the details with Raiza, an assistant, it’s obvious she doesn’t know the details and doesn’t want to commit to anything.
We leave the office with more questions than before we arrived, but we are excited about the possibility of such a low price.

At the end of the day we still think Seaboard Marine is in the lead, and will continue to investigate the options at Marfret and other companies we have emailed.

Day Two – The search continues
We receive an email from Marfret that doesn’t really answer any of our questions so we jump in a taxi and head back to the office. Again Raiza is incapable of answering our questions and mentions her boss will be in the office shortly should we wish to talk with him.
When Mr. Martinez arrives everything changes immediately. He’s extremely professional, speaks excellent English and clarifies every question we have and then some. He even makes the quote lower because unstuffing is per container, not per vehicle. Now we’re down to $1233 and feeling much happier, with only one small hick-up to go. Marfret is purely a shipping company and as such don’t handle any of the paperwork, for that we’ll need a customs broker.

We move across town to the office of Mario, who can help us out. After he’s clarified exactly what we’ll need and some serious bargaining from Vince the price drops from $250 down to $100 each, with a guy to help us along the way. The ship we’re aiming for sails on a Sunday, which means we’ll have to load the container on Friday, leaving not a single day to spare.
We’ll make it

Day Three – Customs, Inspections & Insanity
We must get permission take our temporarily imported vehicles out of Panama, which is quite a task because we are not going with them. Our first stop is a customs inspection, only open from 10-11am where they will check over the paperwork we recieved at the border when entering the country. Waiting in the lot becomes quite amusing when another two French couples with vehicles show up, and then four guys on motorbikes. The police warn us this is a very dangerous neighborhood and we should be extra cautious, especially of children. We’re all dumbfounded considering we are standing in the parking lot of a police station, but keep a lookout all the same.

Waiting for inspection in Panama City

The inspection guy looks at the VIN number of the Jeep for about one second before he circles a mistake on my paperwork and walks away. The VIN number is correct, but at the border they only put the first half of it under “Engine Number”, which is not acceptable. My Jeep doesn’t even have an Engine Number, so apparently the entire VIN again is required. With no time to spare our customs chaperon and I race down the road to customs, get a new form, race back and get re-inspected. During this time Vince and Marie went back to the hotel and now a problem is found with their paperwork (a mistake in the VIN). Again we race down the road, I forge Vince’s signature on the form and we race back in time to get our papers in. While getting a new form I bump into one of the French couples and two of the motorbike guys, all with mistakes on their entrance paperwork.

Vince posing with his Land Rover

At 2pm an office of the police over the road opens that will finally approve our paperwork. We’re told our customs guy will meet us there so we wait, and wait and wait. Stress levels slowly rise and person after person runs out of the building and down the street to get a copy of some piece of paper or other. Everyone I talk to requires different copies and there seems to be no rhyme or reason to the madness. After calling twice our guy finally shows up and we find we can not enter with shorts or flip-flops. After much shuffling and loaning of clothes and shoes everyone except me makes it inside. As time ticks down one of the motorbike guys gives me his pants and boots (he wears my shorts and flip-flops on his motorbike) and I walk into the office at 4:57pm, just as the lady says she will not process the paperwork for anyone else.

I somehow scrape through and get a hold of a single piece of paper that for some unknown reason has become the focus of my life. At one point there are three identical copies of my eight pieces of paper, each with at least three or four stamps and signatures. I shake my head.

A problem is found with the paperwork of one of the French couples’ and so everything for them grinds to a halt. The office over the road is closed and nothing can be done until 10am tomorrow when the whole process is started again. They are also short on time and have already booked non-refundable plane tickets, which is all falling apart. Stress levels are through the roof for all of us and one guy completely loses it and starts yelling and screaming, not helping anything.
Vince and I have survived to progress another day.

Dan’s handy advice to others:

• Firstly, give yourself plenty of time. If your ship is sailing on Friday, get the inspection done on Monday and relax for the week. Almost all of us had a short timeline and it was pure madness for no good reason. Running your heart out to a photocopier and back is not very fun.

• When you enter Panama and get a piece of paper for your vehicle, make certain, and I mean 100% certain that every single piece of ink on that paper is correct. Nothing is too insignificant, trust me on that. Of the eight of us trying to get through that day, six had problems on their entrance paper.

• If you later discover it’s not correct, get yourself to customs (Aduana) and get a corrected form before you do anything else.

• For the inspection day be certain to wear long pants, closed toe shoes and sleeves. The guard will not let you in otherwise and you’ll save a ton of hassle this way.

• At a minimum you will need copies of everything you have, probably multiple copies. The one that snagged most people was a copy of the entrance stamp to Panama from your passport.

We’re a step closer to Colombia and South America.
The madness & excitement continue to build.

-Dan

This story continues in Shipping across The Darien Gap Pt. 3