dare2go

Shipping - Part 1: Panama


One lonely camper in part storage

Continuation from < Page 1 < !

After that it was quiet for the rest of the night and I actually slept a lot better than the night before at the RV Park. Feeling relatively refreshed the next morning I moved the camper near to the entrance of the Yacht Club and caught a taxi to the shipping agency Barwil. I had been in contact for some time, and there was supposed to be a booking for a RoRo (Roll on - Roll off) vessel leaving around the 25th. Upon arrival Evelyn Batista told me that the booking with Wilhelmsen was still not confirmed, that they had a lot of freight from frequent customers to load, and that my chances of getting a space were less than slim. That left a LoLo (Lift on - Lift off) shipment on a flat rack, a less preferred option because the camper would be travelling outside on top of a stack of containers, and the risk of damage in transfer is much higher, too.
During this discussion Evelyn's assistant interjected that there was a Korean RoRo vessel expected in a couple of days, and that on this journey it would stop in Cartagena (which is not on its usual route). Suddenly all frenzy broke out: phone calls here, phone calls there, yes, it's true, the ship is expected in port on the 23rd and leaving the 24th, and probably there would be room for the camper, but the ship's ramp is only about 3 meters tall (our camper is 3.18 meters), more precise enquiries returned that it would fit across the ramp into the rear of ship, but not deep into the cargo bay (where it didn't have to go from one port to another), talk to the ship's main booking agency in New York, and so on... It also meant everything else had to be rushed, since I would have to be in Colón in two days from now. So I left around noon to start a paper trail (these procedures, though amusing unless you're in the middle of them, are explained on our shipping page [LINK not up yet]), with another appointment at the agency for the next morning to pick up a provisional "Bill of Loading", a paper needed for Customs, the final step of the paper trail.
Since I needed to show my car for an inspection I first had to pick it up at the Yacht Club, and then battle my way through Panama City's traffic, without a co-pilot/navigator, to locations unknown, following photocopied maps which were very rough and unclear. At almost 6pm I returned to Amador, tired, sweaty, and hungry. I then tried to ring Yasha on Skype from the Yacht Club - after 10 minutes their WiFi died and wasn't restored until the next evening (when it lasted for another 30 minutes, of signal-strength too weak to phone, before it died again - aah, technology in developing countries!).
The next morning I went back to Barwil, only to hear "that nothing was confirmed yet", that they were still waiting for a phone call from the booking agent in NY, I should ring in the afternoon to get a reply, but anyhow I should go to customs because I would have to leave early the next morning, and that they had also booked a back-up spot on the LoLo vessel. At around 4:20 I rang the office from the Albrook Mall, only to hear that the confirmation was still not forthcoming, but that it was important for me to be at the Barwil office by 8:30 the next morning to make it in time for Colón - by then they really should have the confirmation... Great - nothing clear, but lots of stress ahead: I had planned to book a hotel room for my last night in Panama City (hotels are very busy this time of the year) and a flight to Cartagena, but without a confirmed shipping-date this was impossible, I had to pack my personal belongings and enough clothes for a week (since there was no way to get the camper out of the Cartagena port before Monday or maybe Tuesday) even though I wasn't sure if or when I was leaving, I had to deal with the remaining food in the camper fridge (I had stocked some items to last me until the 25th, the originally expected date of embarkation, but you're not permitted to leave your fridge running on the vessel), and last-but-not-least we keep a lot of things, like tools and spare parts, outdoor chairs and table, generator, etc. behind the front seats of our truck, and all of these had to be moved into the camper for security reasons (you have to hand over the keys to your car - not the camper keys).
So that night I fried my remaining potatoes and some frozen fish (which was enough for two meals, so I made some into cold sandwiches for the next day), ate, and then started to first pack my clothes and a couple of books, and then gathered all the little things from the cabin of the truck into one plastic crate: the contents of the glove and door compartments, our 200+ music CDs, maps, the GPS, umbrella and rain jacket, small tools and our tow rope, bottles with car shampoo, WD40, brake fluid, insect repellent, etc. = all the crap you usually collect in a car within almost 2 years. After that I truly deserved a second beer and a shower, and finally by 11:00 I fell to bed. I was woken by my alarm at 5:30, still totally tired, turned on the light near the bed since it was still pitch black (and then forgot to turn if off so it drained the camper battery), had a second quick shower, got dressed, dumped the waste tanks over a street drain, moved the truck under a big tree in another parking lot (for shade), tried to make breakfast and pack my bags at the same time (which resulted in couple of burnt toasts), cleaned my dishes and packed all cupboards travel-safe - by 8:15 I started the truck to drive to the Barwil office and the "Check Engine" light came on, which hasn't happened since June 2006 when our turbo blew = great, all I need! And nowhere in all our FORD manuals do they even mention it (except its location on the dash board), or possible causes - they simply expect you to run, with a deep wallet, to your nearest FORD dealer when this happens... Luckily after a few meters of driving the "Check Engine" light goes off again, so I guess it's not (yet) too serious, but the problem is persisting with every cold start since, so I will have to deal with it in Cartagena.
So I arrived a little late at the Barwil office, but it didn't matter anyhow, because my space on the Korean RoRo vessel was still not confirmed, and further telephone enquires revealed worse: the ship was delayed by one day, there were over 2,600 cars waiting in port to be loaded, and in the meantime they had taken bookings from the Wilhelmsen ship for four large pieces of road-building machinery (the one I had been booked on before - so this one was really full after all!), all of which had preference to my little camper... Yes, there was still a decent chance to get on, but it would mean delivering the camper on Friday, stay one night in Colón, which is supposed to be a very dangerous city, check very early Saturday morning at the port of Manzanillo if the camper had been loaded, if not pay extra port charges (and surely go through some extra paper work), race across town to the port of Cristobal, make sure the camper was in before the noon-deadline of the authorities closing for the weekend, and hope all was in time to still catch the LoLo ship... And still no safe option to book a room or a flight, since everything was hanging on too many 'Ifs'! So after a short cigarette-and-thinking-break I gave the whole idea of RoRo a miss and decided for the (more expensive and more risky!) LoLo option.
In hindsight so far (I'm still in Panama and don't know in what state the camper will arrive) probably a good decision, because later it turned out that the LoLo ship was loading half a day earlier than planned - and I wouldn't have made it at all on Saturday. I arranged with Evelyn to pick up the final "Bill of Loading" and my insurance policy the next afternoon, and then, using the WiFi of a hotel in Amador, I went ahead and booked my hotel room for Saturday night and a flight for Sunday morning, knowing that the camper had to be delivered on Saturday morning. Wrong again, as I mentioned above. On Thursday I was told, that
a) the insurance policy wasn't ready yet,
b) I had been over-charged by 2 cubic meters and we had to find a way to get my refund after me leaving Panama, and
c) that I definitely had to be at the Cristobal port by Friday afternoon.
Sh#%, get another hotel booking for Friday night and try to change the flight to Cartagena by one day, which didn't work because the airline's website wasn't (yet) set-up to change any bookings in 2008 (the web form simply ended with December 2007) - so now I'm sitting in this rather unpleasant hotel near the Panama City International Airport (a good 20 kms or $15 taxi ride from the city) with nothing to do but to write down my shipping experiences in Panama...
Let me continue: after I had dinner at a restaurant on Thursday night, during which I finally got to phone Yasha on Skype without being cut off, Friday morning I woke up again with my alarm, though set a little later this time. Breakfast and cleaning dishes was a quick affair, and even moving the rest of the stuff from the truck cabin into the camper was quicker than I had expected, although by 9:00 I was already wet from sweat. At 9:15 the guy from the insurance delivered the policy to my camper in the Amador parking lot (well done!), and then I suddenly remembered that I had forgotten to get a "Cancelled" stamp for the truck in my passport. Sh#%! Just as well that I was ready a little early as it gave me ample time to drive once again to customs to get this important stamp. The old lady there greeted me almost as an 'old friend' since it was my third visit in four days. Then I made the mistake of taking the route along the canal towards Colón to avoid downtown traffic - after the turn-off to Gamboa this part of road is in worst condition than most major roads in Costa Rica - it well and truly tested my packing of the camper to be "jolt-proof" and ready for the ocean journey.
To get the camper into the port was a noisy and time-consuming procedure, as I had to wait at each and every step, but otherwise uneventful. When at the end I had to drive the camper into a large empty storage hall and hand over my key I felt more sad to leave it behind than exhausted from the day. The exhaustion settled in on the 2-hour freezing-cold-air-conditioned bus trip back to Panama City, and when I finally reached the hotel by 8:30 I was only feeling tired, sweaty, thirsty and hungry - as many times before during this shipping venture.


 
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