Around The World In 80 Waves

I went down to Chulo’s office first thing this morning with every intention of making a nuisance of myself until the car was back in my care.

However in fairness to everybody at my customs broker it really isn’t their fault. Chulo made me a cup of coffee and sat my down in his office watching the BBC news whilst he had guys all over town trying kick some butt at the various Aduana offices.

I sat there for five hours having a good chat with Chulo telling him that he must have the patience of a saint to be in his line of work because there is no way I would have any hair left if I dealt with such an inefficient service.

As we were getting into the mid afternoon and I was starting to worry that there would not be enough time left to get all over town to sort the various remaining steps of the process when we got word from Chulo’s courier at the final Aduana office that the paperwork was finished and I could pay the import tax. I shall gloss over the fact that the tax was approximately 50% of the value of the car because the sooner I forget about that the sooner I will stop seething about it! Legalised theft!

Despite a further minor delay at the national bank I managed to pay the tax and then collected the paperwork back at the office so I could get the car out of the bonded warehouse. I kid you not it is about half a ream of paper. It is no wonder the process is so slow if there is so much paperwork to be completed. I may have discovered the reason for the deforestation of the Amazon!

Raul the courier took me back to the bonded warehouse just as rush hour was starting, to collect my car but left me to it. It was a fairly straight forward process until they offered me a credit note instead of cash for the $165 rebate I was due on the time I had not used of the month’s storage which I had been forced to pay in advance. (At this stage I will explain that I was very tired by now and have been under the weather for a few days with a fever so was not feeling too good.) It was definitely the straw that broke the camel’s back, and I lost my temper quite badly. At the top of my lungs I stated “No dinero, Yo no vo!” which may or may not have been good grammar, but the sit down protest which followed made it pretty clear that I was not leaving until I got my cash back. It was late Friday afternoon and they were trying to fob me off saying I could come back next Thursday for the cash, but I wasn’t having a bar of it and refused to budge knowing they all wanted to go home. The senior manager of the site eventually came to see what all the row was about, and had to good sense to find a way of paying me my cash, because I would still be there now had she not done so!

Even that took forever though, but I can happily report that the car is now in my posession again. I am free to sell it and have already installed the ‘for sale’ signs in the windows to self advertise the little green surf machine. I will be driving it around Panama City for the next few days trying to drum up some interest, but sadly still have not finished the importation process. I have to go to another customs office on Monday to get the vehicle stamp removed from my passport, which was the whole reason for undertaking the importation process in the first place. There simply had not been the time to complete it today.