Ticket Out....

A bit of info on shipping and a bit of info on air tickets.....AGAIN !

A bit more info on the menu of the day...I forgot to say it was soup, main course and drink all for the price. I know some of my family will now likely be booking a plane ticket here,,,,, to stay forever. If there's ever a true Yorkshire-man its my Uncle Roger. He does like a bargain. It must be genetics as its in my blood also.

So for those of you shipping from here we paid today and the port costs came in slightly under 700,000 at 652,350COL.

I should also say only ONE person (and that's the owner) is allowed into the port to do the loading. Some other overlanders need to know this info. This is quite important as it a royal pain in the arse. Julie and I normally look after all paperwork and loading together. Its not a very exciting place to wait for those not doing the loading.....However there is a small restaurant but no air-con!

Airline tickets. You know about the not allowed to fly without a return ticket thing. Well,,,Panama enforce this. Immigration enforce it and so do the airline. So we got an onward ticket to Costa Rica (on a bus) for $80usd and they won't accept it. The system confirms this. I read it wrong. SHIT ! $80usd down the drain. So we go to the ticket office and check. They say "NO" you need a return/onward ticket. So we go to the airport to see the supervisor. Luckily they say they can make us a reservation and this is enough. They understand its silly and they will help us out. GREAT !!! However we did have to show them the bus ticket and possibly they would not have offered to do the reservation if we hadn't got the bus tickets. The bus tickets were purchased by Henning and he Emailed us a scan. You can't buy them here ! So if you are do the same trip as us you need to figure out another way to get the airline to do a reservation and  satisfy 1) the airline you are leaving Panama 2) Panama Immigration that you will leave Panama.

For those that say they've never had this trouble and its all bull etc. etc. This is now the THIRD time we've been told we cannot fly ! That's 100% of the times we've flown !!!!