The Monday we were supposed to leave for the boat, Jared and I were planning on shipping the car and heading out to meet the boat. The whole process ended up taking much longer than expected, and we had to postpone the boat one day, as Nicole had left with the majority of the passengers at 5:15am, and was already aboard. Again, I cannot stress how much Jooliet Mancia helped us, but the entire endevour was pretty terrible. As a side note, Jared was feeling incredibly bad with a splitting headache, muscle aching, and a fever since the night before, so he was out of commission, but did have to accompany us just in case anyone needed to witness him as the owner of the car. This is a basic rundown of the day:
We met Jooliet at her office at 7am, where she finalized our lading document, which included all the items we were leaving in the car (against our better judgement and the recommendations of many people, but we couldn´t lug alot of the stuff onto the boat, so we were stuck) with estimated prices of each item. Most of the items were the extra car parts we had either bought prior to leaving the US or aquired along the way. That list took about an hour to complete, so right off the bat, we left later than expected. We headed over to the police station with Jooliet, to get a stamp certifying that we could take the car out of the country. When we arrived, we were told we had to wait at least an hour for the car to cool; so we twiddled our thumbs at the police station until about 10am.
When we were called to go to our car, Jooliet and I headed out to meet the officer, who ended up not even needing to inspect the engine (as he said being the entire reason we needed to let the car cool), and instead just wanted to match the VIN number of the car to the VIN that had been recorded by the immigration officer at the border when we entered. HOLY GOD, you won´t believe it. The effing VIN number had been written down incorrectly, and so the officer would not allow us to continue to the next step until we got it fixed. Thankfully for Jooliet, she knew where the local customs office was, and drove with us to quickly see if we could get the numbers fixed. After a quick stint at the customs office, we headed back to the police station, were the officer approved our documentation, and told us we had to just finish up by getting our final stamp...at 2pm across the street. BAHH!!! This was at about 11:30am (the time we had told the Captain of our boat we would be heading back to Panama City after FINISHING the car shipment process). So Jared and I headed back to the hostel, to arrange for new transportation to the boat, and inform the Captain that we would not make it that day. Poor Jared was totally out of commission, so he got a bit of rest and read, before I dragged him back out at noon to start the process at the police station again.
We went back to the shipment office to meet up with Jooliet, and headed to the station, arriving at about 1pm. We waited for about 30 minutes, before we were seen, which was actually earlier than we had expected to be seen, so we were excited that something seemed to work out well. After explaining why the owner of the car was not actually in the office with (el pobre esta tan enfermo, con gripe, durmiendo en el auto, terrible etc), I forged his signature and we headed back out for Colon, the port city from where the car was actually to be shipped.
The drive was easy, on a great road, and Jooliet actually gave us a toll card, so we didn´t have to pay anything along the drive (so nice). This is where things start getting worse. At first, we were excited, we arrived in great time, about 3pm, everything is open until 5pm, we should be great...not so. First, we went to Jooliet´s office there to make a bunch of copies of the NEW customs form with the correct VIN number. Then, we proceeded to the office of the actual ship we would be using to RORO the car onto (SC Line, I believe). They stamped our paperwork quickly and we processed on. Next we went to (what we thought was) the customs office. They informed us that we actually had to drive the car out and around to get in inspected. So, back to the car we walked and drove to the inspection area, where one unhappy inspector started yelling at us, "absolutely not. You cannot pick up a car now; it is much too late; we will not accept you etc". One nicer guy listened when we explained we were not picking up a car, but dropping off. He informed us that we had to go to the customs office for more stamps, to which we told him we had just done that, and they sent us to him. "No no, that was not the correct window. You have to go back. Oh, and it´s 3:30pm now, there is no way you will make it. The port closes at 4pm." Like hell we won´t! We ran back to the car, and booked it back to the same area, different window, where we were told, "oh not THIS customs office, the OTHER customs office...5 minutes driving." BAH!!!
As of this point, I had basically let Jared sleep most of the day, but now we needed all hands on deck. He took the wheel and shuttled Jooliet and I around as we practically jump in and out of the car while it was still moving. We headed down to the other customs office, and arrive at 4:02pm, 2 minutes after closing. We were told, no one could help us, they were very sorry, we would have to come back. At this point, I realized, if we did not ship the car that day, we would completely miss the boat. I almost started bawling right there in the customs office, while Jooliet explain that "la joven" (milking it well) had to catch a flight, she couldn´t stay another day, so expensive to pay to change a ticket etc, and the woman amazingly sat back down and processed our paperwork. Warning us that, we still had several steps to complete, and all the offices closed at 4pm. But we were still determined, and we continued on.
We headed back to the same window we had come from before, were we were again told, no one could help as the office was closed (4:23pm at this point). Again, I explained the situation, almost breaking into tears (again), until two nie young girls took pity and said they would process our paperwork, but we would have to pay for an hour of extra service, $135, ugggg, FINE!!!! I should mention now, that during alot of the Jooliet was on her phone calling around to see if she knew people in the customs office or inspection office that could throw us a bone. Apparently, she lucked out, because the head of the shipping...yard, I guess...called down and said they were a girl who needed a bit of extra time and should NOT be charged extra. GO JOOLIETTTT!!!!! So they ended up waiving the extra fee, and finishing our paperwork AND calling over to the inspection office to have the inspector wait a bit longer for us. GO JOOLIETTTTTT!!!!! We finally went back to the inspection area, where again that mean guy started yelling at us, before someone told him, we had been approved to go late :p (that´s me sticking my tongue out at him). They inspected the car, a drug dog came and sniffed around before we handed over the keys and HALLELUJAH we were DONE!!!!!!!!!! Exhausted, hungry, and dehydrated, we got into Jooliet´s car and went back to Panama City.
I can´t even remember what we did, the rest of the day was a blur. Poor Jared was feeling terrible. We grabbed a bite to eat and went to bed, I have no idea what time.
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