5. A Tearfull Goodbye
Day 85
Today is a shipping day. It is time to say goodbye to my bike. I packed everything the last night so I can just put the bags on my bike and go in the morning. I kept only few items which I’ll need for one more night here in Panama and for a few days in Bogota until I get my bike back. Everything else I can ship with the bike.
I was done literarily in few minutes in the morning and I was off to the shipping company The Overland Embassy. They take care of everything, I hope. The traffic there was much better this time even though there was some protesters blocking the road I was suppose to ride through. Oh well, let make a sightseeing detour. My GPS goes nuts again and I keep hitting button saying “RECALCULATE” the route. But I know where I am going this time. I get there early so it is good. I had a “Christmas” gift waiting for me there. My stickers finally arrived. I made a nice (I think) design and had a hard time to get them printed. The shipping company took care of that as well. Thanks Alejandro! I can now stick it on every Customs office window like every other self respecting Adventurer …
We are waiting for another biker, Ralf from Germany. Our paperwork is all prepared by OE. It is time to move. We follow our escort, Alejandro in his truck, to the airport. Soon enough we are there. Customs are just plain formality. Alejandro presents them with a folder of prepare documents and we only have to show our passports. All done in 10’ for both of us. WOW. Now to the shipping warehouse right at the airside. You can see that out chaperone, who is the owner of the OE company, has everything under control. He knows where to go and who to talk to. The people know him and you can see that he’s done it all before many times. At the warehouse they check out our bikes, document every bag and take pictures from every possible angle. Then we take our bikes inside the warehouse to run all the bags through a giant scanner. It is a proper operation with no nonsense security. We push our bikes in one at the time, with an escort, wearing a hi-vis jacket. Non of that CATSA BS but everybody has an eye on us. They scan us for weapons as well. I have none … I gave my bear spray to Alejandro.
Ralf is done, it is my time. I have a pretty slick system so I have all my bags off in a few minutes. After another 5’ I have them all back. I strap everything back on my bike. I synch my riding jacket and pants there as well together with my helmet. Nobody asks how much fuel I have or to disconnect the battery. And that’s it. I push my bike to a holding pen where it will spend the last 2 days in North America until it flies out 2 days from now. I feel an separation anxiety coming … I give her a big hug and say goodbye. I hope we see each other on the other side.
And that’s it. I sign papers giving my bike to the shipping company and we are done. Bike will fly on a cargo 727 with boxes of flowers as I can see. That’s it. All took about 30’. VERY impressive. No issues, no problems, very slick operation. I didn’t have to do anything. I like that.
And were are off back to the shipping company HQ. Done deal. The round trip to the airport and back took only 2 hrs! Money worth spending. Thank you Overland Embassy.
I say goodbye to the OE staff, I’ll be back in late spring (?). I take Uber back to the city. Meantime it is time time check for my tomorrow’s flight to BOG. All online like everywhere else. Easy. However, I have to fill and immigration pre-check for Colombia. No problem, basic stuff.
And that’s it. I am hungry so I grab a Subway. I know … No comment. At least it is not McD. It is time to double check I have everything for tomorrow and order a taxi for tomorrow morning. All done, now I can catch up on my blog entries and pictures as well.
It has been interesting 3 months, now is the time for real adventure. Can’t wait!
See you in South America!