Whereby we manage to get ourselves, our stuff and, most importantly,

La Tortuga on to South America.  

Well, with much trepidation and wringing of hands we have managed to get both ourselves and La Tortuga to Colombia.  We have emerged bowed but unbeaten.  It was quite an adventure, ‘though not as bad a we had feared.  Nonetheless, this being our first experience with shipping the vehicle, we were terrified the whole time.

As we did our advance planning for shipping the coach, we tracked down every reference we could find regarding reliable shipping options from Central to South America.  One of the things we learned was that there seem to be more choices when shipping from South to North than the other way.  With so much shipping coming into Panama from all over the world, ships leaving Panama for other ports are often full and have no space available for the likes of us.   Anyway, working on line and talking to every traveler we came across about how they either had done it or were planning/hoping to do it, we compiled a list of possible options.  In the end we had identified six referrals whom we felt met our requirements.  When the time came, we fired off e-mail requests to all of them.  After a week or so of following up with the few who responded, the choice came down to one.  Evelyn Batista of the Barwil agency, evelyn.batista@wilhelmsen.com, was the only one of the six who consistently replied to our requests for information.  She also was the one who most people we had talked to had used, so our choice was simple.  As we worked with Evelyn through out the process, she was just great, going above and beyond any normal standard of excellent service in making everything work out for us.  We recommend her highly.

When the time came, we had to leave our Garden of Eden at the Xcess Memories campground in Santa Clara, Panama.  We went back to Panama City, spending our last days in Central America back by the Canal, in the area that we have come to call the “Balboa ‘Lot’ Club.”  We scrambled around, jumping through all the necessary hoops to get our paperwork together under the guidance of the irreplaceable Evelyn.  All went well.  Our biggest concern was security while the rig was sitting in the port at Colon, waiting to be loaded.  So, the last morning, we spent several hours removing everything from the outside of the rig and packing it into the interior, as well as installing a strong barrier between the cab area and the rest of the coach, as we would have to give the port people the car keys (but not the keys to the back) in order for them to drive the rig onto the loading platform.

We said good-by to La Tortuga on Friday afternoon, went back to Panama City to hang out in a hotel until Sunday morning, and then flew to Cartagena, Colombia, which turned out to be just as hot as Panama City, ‘though not quite as murky.  Fortunately, we had arranged for a hotel for a couple of nights, until we could get La Tortuga out of hock.  That was supposed to happen on Monday, but no – “sorry, but Monday is a holiday in Cartagena.”  Well, rats, nobody bothered to tell us.  We spent the extra day enjoying the city, and it was indeed a significant holiday for them to be celebrating; the 475th birthday of Cartagena; try finding one of those in the states!  So, Tuesday morning we were at the dock early.  We spent the entire day, with the aid of a “helper” from the shipping company, running back and forth between offices, spending a relative fortune on taxis, getting paperwork signed, retrieving the keys we had left back in the hotel room, paying a significant bribe to an unknown official to make a correction on a document that had been wrong since we had first entered Panama in April, etc. etc. etc.  Ultimately, about 6:00 pm we drove away from the port.  We were wiped, but La Tortuga had survived without a scratch.  The only vandalism had been the removal of a Costa Rica sticker off the back.  The only food we lost as a result of the frig being off for four days was some cheese – and Kathy’s beloved blueberries, the few remaining from the bunch she’d  picked in the Northwest Territories last summer. Tired but happy, we collapsed at the hotel again, and got up early the next morning to spend a few hours putting everything back where it belonged so we could get out of town. 

We feel as though, in traveling from Panama to Colombia, with all that it involved - particularly the rare separation we experienced from the comforts of our Casa Rodante - we really were flying over the cuckoo’s nest, and swear it will be a cold day in hell before we ship this rig again.  Silly, of course, given our plans, but for right now we are very glad South America is a large continent! 

Still having a ball – Rick and Kathy and La Tortuga, heading south

PS: We were helped immeasurably throughout this stressful ordeal by the detailed information provided to all prospective travelers by our friend and colleague Jürgen Klein on his website www.dare2go.com.  We refer all those who ask us about shipping from Panama to this wonderful resource.