Getting Ready For South America
So the time had come for me to stop loitering about Panama City like a bad smell and get myself and the bike to Colombia to start the South American part of my trip. It is now turning Summer in South America and I wanted to reach Tierra Del Fuego during the good weather window between the start of January and the end of March so it was time to get my arse in gear and get things moving.
I engaged the services of The Overland Embassy, a business based here in Panama city, to arrange the shipping of my bike from Panama to Colombia. However as my bike is registered in Panama I again had to go through the process of obtaining all of the necessary documents from the local council, the National Customs service, The National Transport Authority, and finaly the police, before I would be allowed to leave Panama with my bike.
I set about trying to get all of the documents that I needed and everything was going well until I was informed that the National Customs Service document, which I had obtained a few days earlier, had a wrong number on it. I then had to run about like a blue arsed fly trying to get a replacement form with the correct number on it with only 3 working days to go before my planned departure date.
Once I got the replacment form, I shot over to the police (who also had not noticed the wrong number) so that they did not put the wrong number on the form that they were preparing for me using all of the other forms that I had previously obtained from all of the other bureaucrats. I waited at the police office for three hours and when I was given the form, luckily, the correct details were on it. The police then just took my replacement form from me and ripped the incorrect one up, no big deal for them thank goodness.
Then because the bike was going to Colombia by air I had to get another form from a customs broker to say that even although I had bought the bike in cash one year earlier there was no money owed on the bike. I even had to send the customs broker a copy of my original purchase invoce for the bike, you know so that I could make his job easier for him and to make sure that he didn’t have to work too hard to get his fee for producing the form. Thankfully the Overland Embassy staff attened to this for me. And the cost for this form which was essentially just a credit check on thee bike I hear you ask? That will be $180 thank you very much.
So in total, the Panamainian Government in all its different guises, took over $230 from me just so that I could leave the country with my own bike on which I owe no money. Whoever said that Government is there to look after you was obviously on some form of hallucinogenic or clinically insane!
Eventually the world conspired to have everything fall in to place so that on Tuesday 12th of November I took my bike to the offices of The Overland Embassy where I found myself in the company of six other bikers who were also heading for Colombia. Three Finnish guys on three bikes, a Swedish couple on two bikes, and an American guy. As we all waited for all the paperwork to be checked and completed I took a few pictures.
So at about ten thirty in the morning after all of the paperwork had been done we all left in a convoy and headed for the airport. However, we only got about four hundred yards away from the office when some idiot ran out of fuel! That’s right it was me!
The shipping company had requested that the bike should have less than one quarter of a tank of pertol when put on to the cargo flight and I had obviously been over zealous in draining the excess petrol from my own fuel tank. So everyone else had to wait for about ten minutes until another member of The Overland Embassy staff arrived with a can of petrol to get me going again. What a dickhead!
So after that bit of embarrasment I rode with the others to the cargo terminal of Tocumen airport where we all waited to get the bikes signed out of Panama. Alejandro from The Overland Embassy took care of all of that for everyone and soon we rode the short distance to the warehouse of the actual air freight company where out bikes would be taken from us and flown to Colombia. Again I took some picture whilst I was standing around waiting for the bikes to be processed.
However, to get the bikes ready for shipping we all had to go in to the warehouse one at a time and remove all of our luggage from our respective bikes to have it passed through the X-Ray machine. Once this had been done we had to repack the bike and then leave it in a corner of the warehouse. At this point I should mention that the three Finnish guys had all booked flights to Colombia for later that afternoon. Alejandro from The Overland Embassy had told us that these three guys would be the first to be processed as that made sense. Right?
Well the warehouse staff took one of the Finnish guys first and then guess what? Yes that’s right they then wanted the Panamanian bike (my bike) next despite the fact that I was the only one of the group not flying out to Colombia that day. That then set the tone for the next six hours of my life. At one point Alejandro had to leave with the three Finnish guys so that they did not miss their mid afternoon flight and when he returned the warehouse staff were just about finished with the seventh and final bike.
One of the guys sending his bike to Colombia was a guy from L.A. in the USA and I gave him one of my cheap Panamanian cigars to smoke as we all waited for our own turn to get our bike processed. As he was waiting to take his bike in for processing he stuck his still lit cigar in between his bike headlight and the wire mesh guard. I thought that the colour the cigar blended well with the colour of his home made fiberglass nose fairing!
I also took a picture of a board fixed to the outside of the warehouse on which previous bikers had stuck their own particular stickers that they had printed for their own particular adventures.
Then it was off to drop the American guy and the Swedish couple at the airport to catch their flights to Bogota and for me it was back to Panama city to meet up with some friends for my last night in Panama for a while before heading off to Bogota in Colombia the following day.