Around The World In 80 Waves

I did a final trip to the customs office yesterday to get ‘Autorizada la salida de este viajero sin su vehiculo autoridad. Nacional de Aduanas’ stamped in my passport. So far each of these 13 words has cost me $150, a day from my time exploring and surfing in South America, and a considerable amount of my sanity. Even yesterday’s efforts were a joke with nobody even acknowledging my presence at the relevant desk for nearly half an hour despite half a dozen people sitting around doing nothing. The paper mountain is now complete though and I am free to leave once I sell the car.

Since putting the for sale signs in the window I have already had three people try to ask me about it whilst I am driving down the road, one of which pulled alongside on the motorway, wound down the passenger window and was actually trying to haggle whilst swerving along the road at 60mph! I could barely here a word he said and just kept pointing at the telephone number eventually jamming on the brakes so the maniac would go past me.

I have to say I am now desperate to sell the car and if it goes on much longer I will practically give it away. As ever time is far more precious than money to me, and every minute I am spending pacing around the garden at Panama House waiting for a buyer is a minute where I could be doing something new. I am trying to keep myself both busy and positive, but there is only so much of that I can do. On the plus side I am getting many calls about the car, but as with selling a motor back home you get a number of time wasters, false promises, no shows, etc which adds to the frustration. I am going to rock up at a number of used car dealers tomorrow to see if anybody will take it off my hands. Please can you keep you fingers crossed for me?