Leg 19 Central America Part 2 (Costa Rica, Panama, Colombia, Ecuador)

This Leg 19 has been very “Testing” and we have not even left yet!!!!!!!!!!

Most of us fly on Monday, and it is going to be a very long and difficult travel ahead with 3 flights and long lay-overs, coming back will be longer and worse with longer lay-overs and further distance to fly. I hope that we can get better options on the next trip, via Brazil and not Europe, South African Airways are flying direct now, (but not easy to get from Brazil to Costa Rica, maybe Ecuador will be easier.)

The biggest problem we had was getting our Visas for Colombia. About every nation in the world wants Colombians to have a visa when visiting their countries, so they repaid the favour and is asking for visas from almost all the Nations in the world to visit them. Luckily this will be the last visa we will need as the rest of South America lets you in provided you have a USA Visa. I started the process exactly 3 months before I was going to arrive in Colombia, NIGHTMARE. The entire process was on-line, another way of saying “You Are Stuffed” as you can not phone or email, well you can, but nobody will answer or respond.

The 1st hurdle was that the application was in Spanish and the button to select English as an option only worked for the 1st page, thereafter it went back to Spanish with no option for English ever seen again. So photos were taken and I got professor Google’s assistant Mr. Translate to help.

The next problem started when I said I was married and had to submit my wife’s Passport, the system refused to accept the fact that I could be married and would simply freeze. All the other documents 1st had to be up-loaded (photo, 6 months bank statements, Passport, proof of employment, proof of accommodation, and many more.) and the size of the file had to be reduced to their spec but it did not like to hear I was married. So then I said I was single and all of a sudden the A.I. in charge had happiness. I lied and said I also did not have kids and I thought I was winning until I had to do a payment for the application to be handed-in. The link did not work and nothing I did helped, I was stuck in a loop. Then I figured out it did not like the +27 code in front of my phone number and I progressed another step only to be declined when trying to pay.

Then came my daughters wedding, and a Dive Trip to the Red Sea, and Christmas and holidays and I took my eye off the ball.

Early January Milsy had the same problem and drove through to the Embassy and hoped he could find a human to speak to but only got attention from the security guard who threatened to arrest him if he did not stop shouting through the glass door at the frightened ladies inside. Milsy who is a direct descendant of Sherlock Holms then found a lady who worked in the same building as a Travel Agent who has lunch with the lady from the Colombian Embassy and then we all paid her a fee to deal with this lady directly and eventually all our payments and applications went through the lady from the Travel Agent.

Our visas were approved and we were sent a new link to pay for the issue of the Electronic Visa and once again we were stuck in the loop and no payments could be made. So once again we paid the Travel Agent who somehow got the money to a bank in Bogota and the visa got issued today !!!!

The 2nd part of the pre-trip stress came from the current problems in Ecuador. We considered our options and did lots of research about what exactly is happening there now and decided to not change our route and continue to Ecuador where there is a State of Emergency, the government has declared war on the gangs and the two biggest gangs managed to arrange for their leaders to escape from prison and now they have united against the government. I never knew that Ecuador was one of the biggest producers of bananas and that the Cocaine from Colombia gets smuggled across the border and hidden in the container and then distributed with ships all over the world. So we expect a lot of Road Blocks and believe as long as we don’t look like Gangsters we should be safe. We will also not do any tourist things in the country but ride directly to a farm where we will store the bikes and then travel by car the 2 hours to the airport and only on our return will we play tourist and see Ecuador.

I have started packing and discovered I have misplaced my list of what I left at my bike. I know my Riding Gear is there, but how many underpants, or socks, did I leave some shorts there, what chargers did I leave there and what did I bring back home??? So I could end up with 20 pairs of underpants and no Swimming Costume, (which will be sad as we are planning to swim under a waterfall in a Rain Forrest in Costa Rica.)

I am taking a new Tank Bag as the zip of the one on my bike has finally died from all the abuse of opening it and closing it every time we stop, (wallet, phone, sunglasses out and back, water bottle in and out, in and out…….)

My front tyre won’t make it all the way to the Southern Tip of South America and rather take one with me now and when I need it I will have it.

The small dogs are not sad yet, but the two Labradors know exactly what it means when I start packing, they are so sad, they know that there will be no long walks in the park and no swimming in the lakes for a while.

I hope you guys will join us on our next adventure and follow us through the next few countries.

Regards

Fleisch