Well, I am now successfully here in Panama with my bike and gear all intact. Getting to this state was however a bit of a struggle!
The bike shipping effort took all day as mentioned earlier. Then the next day we headed to the airport at about mid-day to catch a 4:30 flight. We checked one piece of luggage and then "pfaffed" around in the lounge area for quite a while reading magazines and such But then we headed for the boarding longe in a hurry when we realized it was getting a bit late. We were in a line up for final customs waiting and Marie mentioned that she was surprised that they didn't do boarding announcements. To that I said that I strongly preferred it this way (I always prefer the quiet and I figure people should take responsibility for themselves - watches are cheap and easy to use. ) Anyway, less than two minutes after my bold statements, as we had just finished the customs stuff, one of the airline staff came up to us and informed us that the gate had closed and we had missed the flight!
Given my comments of minutes before, this was rather ironic to say the least :) We were both surprised by the situation given that it was still 15 minutes before flight time but there was little to be done about it...
I was a bit frustrated by the situation (given that I had alowed myself to not follow my usual airport protocols and just hung out with Marie, and let it "happen", but Marie was unperterbed by the results of casualness, and mostly just amused at the irony...
We were escorted back to check-in and after some wrangling, we were booked in (thankfully at no extra charge) for the next flight on a sister airline for an hour and a half later. This didn't´t cost us anything but it really should have since it was our own fault. - Yes it was very ironic, but in this case at least I think I was no hypocrite since I still feel the same about those annoying boarding announcements :)
That hurdle crossed, we successfully boarded the next flight in time and then found our selves in the Panama airport a couple of hours later. At that point, after some more "pfaffing" around, we decided to spend the night at the airport since it was going to be quite expensive to get a taxi to a hotel and stay the night and then another back to the airport in the morning. So, we found a quiet spot and lay on packs and fleece jackets for the night. I am eternally jealous of Marie as she seems to be able to get a good nights sleep almost anywhere. I on the other hand am one of the worst sleepers I know and I didn't´t get any sleep at all. It turned out though that the money saving measures were worth while...
Next morning, after a coffee, from the international passenger terminal we got a taxi to the cargo terminal and found the office of the people who shipped the bikes for us. A quick peek in the warehouse confirmed that the bikes were there and in good order. We then set about trying to get them out but found that the Panama end of the operation had added on an extra hundred dollars or so of charges. We did not like this!
We were very polite but did not wish to pay since we had asked very clearly and specifically about this and the agent had been very sure that this would not happen. Marie is also an former senior employee of one of the worlds largest freight companies (Maersk) and knows very well how things like this work, so I mostly sat back and let her handle things. So we sent emails and made phone calls and waited but in the end, as Marie expected (thoug she apparently hadnt "expected" it when we had shipped the bikes out of Colombia a few days ago?), we changed nothing. In the end we paid the difference and all I can do now is put a post on the most viewed motorcycle adventure touring web site in the world (Horizons.Com) that this particular agent sux! - But on later reflection I decided that I cant be bothered wasting further energy on these guys so I'm just going to move on and let it "slide", but the company concerned is "Metacarga" for those who are interested.
So, then we had to do a bit of other paperwork at rather distributed sites (involved hitch hiking in the back of a pick-up) before we had our babies back in our care. After that it was relatively easy to find our way back into the city and to the backpacker place that we had stayed at about six weeks ago - love that GPS :)
It was then mid day ish and we separated to get some tasks done in the city. My end of the deal was to find some motorcycle engine oil so we could each do an oil change. Bike oil is not the same as car oil and there are about three kinds: 2-stroke oil that is mixed with the fuel for small 2-stroke engines - very common in the cities down here but not correct for us. Synthetic 4-stroke oil that is great for our big bikes but costs about $15 per litre down here (and we needed 6 litres for the two changes) - again not for us. And finally, Mineral 4-stroke oil - good enough for our bikes and only costs about $5 per litre. So I got a taxi at random and said "take me to your motorbike shop". He promptly did so but alas... They had only the two sorts of oil that I didn't´t want. So, back in the taxi and off to another place... Same problem... then again.... and again... and again. I have no idea what was causing this phenomenon but we finally managed to find some only on the sixth attempt! After that, I taxied back to the hostel in the evening and felt rather beat-up by the whole day.
I wonder what tomorrow will bring?
