Arrving in South America
Once the bike had been left at the airport and after a night in Panama city on the beer and cigars with my friends, I made my way to the airport to catch my flight to Bogota. The flight was sheduled to leave at 3:25 pm and to arrive in Bogota at 5:10 pm. I boarded the plane and the 3:25 pm departure time came and went with all of us still sitting in the plane on the airport standing waiting to taxi. The plane started moving around 3:40 pm and the plane began taxiing, and taxiing, and taxiing. I thought that it was going all of the way in to Panama city. Eventually at 4:05 pm the plane took off. Now either the plane was much faster than usual or the hanging around on the plane at the airport in Panama is included in the flight time because after an uneventful flight it landed at Bogota at the scheduled arrival time of 5:10 pm. Very strange!
I cleared immigration and customs with no problems and then I met my local contact who worked in Bogota for The Overland Embassy. He met me outside of the arrivals, took me to my hotel, and arranged to pick me up at 7:30 the following morning so that we could get my bike out of Colombian customs. We arrived at the cargo terminal of the aiprort at 8:00 am and began the process. After a bit of form filling at the offices of the frieght company it was then over to the offices of the Colombian customs service by 9:00 am. It was looking good and I was hopefull for a quick turnaround but once in the Colombian customs service offices my hopes were dashed.
I then sat about for the next six hours waiting for them to fill out and issue me with my temporary import permit (TIP). Whilst my contact did all of the speaking to the customs officers, the pacing up and down, and constantly giving them very frustrated looks, I just sat and let the boredom set in.
I’ve gotten very used to all of this now and I no longer let it annoy me. As I was sitting twiddling my thumbs all of the other six bikers that I had travelled to the airport with in Panama slow trickled in to the customs office so I had a few conversations with them to pass the time. Suddenly at around 3:30 pm my contact told me to check my email and lo and behold my TIP had been sent to me and it was now time to head back over to the cargo terminal and collect my bike.
As I watched, the warehouse guys brought my bike out on a forklift truck and then they lowered it down on a lift to ground level and left it outside of the warehouse for me. This was it, I was finally going to ride for the first time in South America!
However, I would have to do my first South Amrican ride uninsured as, believe it or not, I was unable to purchase the mandatory insurance for my bike at that time. Firstly I could not buy insurance until the customs issued my TIP and secondly even when I had been issued with my TIP there was nowhere at the airport where I nor anyone else could buy insurance. You could not make this shit up!
Anyway, whilst hanging about in the Customs service offices my contact from The Overland Embassy had been in touch with a local insurance agent and he had sent all of the required details to her including my TIP. I was able to buy insurance for Colombia and for 90 days of cover it cost me $150. I was also able to buy insurance for the rest of South America for 1 year for $180 but if I bought both of them together it was $300 all in and this is what I opted for. However, as the policy takes a while to be issued, I would still have to ride in to Bogota city uninsured!
I got ready to ride out of the airport and as I did so it started to rain heavily. As I only had a small ammount of petrol in my tank I needed to find a nearby petrol station as I did not want to run out again! There was a petrol station near the airport but it was on the other side of the main road so I rode in the direction of the city centre hoping to find a way to make a U turn, no chance!
Eventually I relented and I used the sat nav on my phone to search for nearby petrol stations. It first took me to a bus station which had fuel pumps for the buses! Then it took me up a street which was blocked off half way with road works! All of this chaos in very heavy rain and running ever lower on petrol. Eventually after a lot of dicking about I spotted a petrol station and I managed to fill up. Then it was back to my hotel which I entered looking as if I had just been for a dip in a river. The floor of the reception was swimming with water from my gear!
As it was dark by the time I had reached my hotel I only ventured out of the hotel to a nearby mobile phone shop to buy a local SIM card. The next day I went for a wander around Bogota and I took some pictures.
My plan is to spend about six weeks in Colombia before setting off for Ushuaia in Tierra del Fuego so when I spend any time in any major city or town in between my actual riding days I shall write a blog post just for that if there is enought to justify a post. So my next blog post will be a quick summary of my time in Bogota before setting off for Medellin and then the caribbean coast.