May 25, 2018 to June 1, 2018

Upon arriving in Cartagena, we needed pesos, as always, and then looked for a place we could stay for a few days until we could get our truck back. It was super hot we were carrying our travel bags and we had our dog in tow. Fortunately, we found our land legs, a bank machine and some free wifi pretty quickly. Derek waited outside with the dog while I went into the air-conditioned shopping mall and selected a convenient hotel.

The container was supposed to arrive on Friday the 25^th, the same day that we arrived, but when we were finally able to get some shipping information, we found out that the shipment had been delayed…at first we were told that the truck would arrive on Wednesday the 30^th, then we were told it would arrive on Monday the 28^th. Eventually, it actually arrived on the 29th.

Our hotel was a lovely, quaint, colonial building in Getsemani, a section of Cartagena which is right next to the old walled section of city. Our small taxi car could barely negotiate some of the narrower streets and we were happy not to be driving our truck along the route. Getsemani, until a few years ago, had been a pretty sketchy part of Cartagena, but in recent years the buildings have been renovated and the streets have been cleaned up and it made for a for a really interesting area of town….during the day, and early evening at least, it is now a safe place to stroll.

Our hotel felt very Colombian…old wooden furniture, wooden beams in the white plastered ceiling, red tile on the floor. It also had a efficient air conditioner, which was great as the city gets very hot in mid day.

We explored the old walled city, got our bearings, had some German food in a pub, all while still working on getting our land legs back….every once in a while one of us would feel the boat lurching and rolling under us as we made our way around town.

Cartagena is a beautiful city. There are great restaurants, expensive, high end, designer fashion shops (S.B., you really need to come here if you haven’t been before, you would love it!), old colonial buildings, a huge fortress, and thick walls built around the original part of the city which helped to protect it from pirate attacks….it is hot and humid, and full of street vendors trying to sell everything from an overpriced (albeit very cold) bottles of water, to jewelry and crafts, to street food or selfie sticks.

On our second night in Cartagena we met up with the crew and most of the passengers from our sailing ship for a barbeque on the roof top terrace of a hostel run by friends of the crew. It was one last hurrah before we all went our separate ways.

On Monday we started the process of getting our truck back by visiting the Seaboard office to get an original copy of our bill of lading. We were told to arrive there after 2pm, and we did. We were then told we needed to taxi to a Citibank, deposit money into Seaboard’s account, then return before they closed at 3pm to get the copy of the bill of lading. We made it to the bank that day but knew we could not make it back by 3, so instead visited a SOAT (government run car insurance company) to get the insurance we would need in order to drive the truck out of the yard. We returned to our hotel and told the friendly owner that we would likely have our vehicle the next day and would therefore be checking out, but that we would like to leave our belongings and the dog in the room, and that it would likely be well past checkout when we could retrieve them….”No problemo”, she said.  We celebrated our pending reunion with Seymour with a dinner at a first class restaurant in old town.

The next day we returned to Seaboard and in a few moments had the bill of lading. The next stop was the DIAN office, which is the customs office. We taxied there, and were directed through a campus of buildings to the appropriate office. Along the way a security guard recognized us as overlanders working on retrieving a vehicle, pointed us to the proper building entrance, and gave us the name of the man we would need to ask for.

At DIAN we began the paperwork for our Temporary Import Permit for the truck. The agent there advised us to now head to Sociedad Portuaria, and gave us the name of the man who would do the inspection of the vehicle as it came out of the container. Things were moving along nicely…this process isn’t so bad, we thought.  We smiled and waved at the friendly security guard on our way out.

When we got to Sociedad Portuaria, only Derek was allowed to go past reception, so I sat in the air conditioned reception area and waited.

We had shared a container with another vehicle owned by a UN worker who was moving to Colombia and permanently importing his vehicle. He had been present when we dropped off the vehicles in Colon, but was not going to be able to be in Cartagena to pick up his vehicle. He had told us that a representative would be meeting us in Cartagena, as normally both parties are required to be present to open the container. We still had not had word from our shipping partner as to where and when his agent would be meeting us, but we had decided to complete as many steps as we could until they made us await the agent’s arrival.

A few hours later, Derek emerged with some news. We could go ahead and open the container without the other party, but instead of both parties sharing a $500 or $600 US fee to move and open the container, we would each have to pay the full amount separately. We decided to head back to our hotel and communicate through email with our shipping partner to try and get some action going on his end.

After failing to get any real answers, we decided to go ahead and pay the full cost in order to get our truck back, as the cost of staying in the city and eating all meals in a restaurant were adding up, and we were ready to get back on the road. We left our hotel on Wednesday morning, telling them that today would be the day we got the truck!

After a couple of hours in the back offices of the Sociedad Portuaria, Derek emerged with more news. It seems that DIAN, the customs offices, had decided to put an extra lock on our container. We were told that it was a one in one thousand chance that our container would be the one chosen, but that we needed to return to DIAN to have the lock removed. Back at DIAN, we waved once more to our friendly security guard.  Inside we were told that the inspector would be arriving shortly, but that their 2 hour lunch break would be starting shortly, and that we should return at 2 pm. One more smile and wave at the security guard.  Several hours later, we were back at Sociedad Portuaria, ready for the final inspection and hoping to be driving our truck out of the shipping lot. But it was not to be. We were told to return at 8:45 the next morning. The good news was that our shipping partner’s agent had been in communication by email with the port and that we would be able to open the container without them present and share the fee (which ended up being about $650 USD!).

Thursday we left the hotel, telling them once again that this would likely be the day we got our truck back. They smiled and nodded and wished us luck. Derek, again, disappeared into the back offices. Soon he came out wearing a safety vest, and off to the yard with the inspector he went. After the inspection was over, all we needed to do was await one more piece of paperwork….Derek emerged shortly before noon, saying that we were told to come back around 1:30 and hopefully the email with the final document would arrive. And so we went for lunch.

Finally, after 4 days of taxi cabs, paperwork, meetings with different officials and deposits of cash into different bank accounts, around 3:30 on Thursday afternoon Derek was able to drive our truck out of the port…but not before one more inspection of our camper and backseat lock box by an overly enthusiastic patrol man at the exit gate of the port.

By this time it was too late to head out of town, so we parked our truck in a secure parking lot an easy walking distance from our hotel, and enjoyed one more meal and night in Cartagena before we started to head for higher ground and cooler temperatures.