Panamá City

We got up early to continue sorting out the luggage that we're going to need further on. Yesterday at night we had found a place called "The Overland Embassy" which handles all kinds of stuff concerning the overlander life. Meaning shipping to Colombia, repairs and also selling the vehicles. Julia had already investigated about the process but it's quite tricky and not very transparent. So our initial plan had been to go to the central customs office to inform ourselves and then find someone that would buy it or scrap it 🥲 But now that we heard about Alejandro and the services we decided to go directly to him as he had already done this in the past and it would save us time and especially nerves...

And as we arrived there were two travellers with their vans that are just getting shipped. He greeted us friendly, welcoming and reassured us that he provides solutions for everything which was super nice. Then we had time to gather and sort the remaining things in Ruedi and waited for Alejandro to finish loading the vans. Which unfortunately took almost 2 hours but then it went pretty quick and he said that he will handle it for us and we can take the plane to Colombia tomorrow. Unfortunately it won't be possible to sell the van as the nationalization will cost at least 2500$ and therefore the resale value is almost none. Especially the issue with getting spare parts makes it not very interesting for travellers and we don't want to spend a lot of time waiting to find a buyer.

He started immediately with the paperwork while we went out for a walk to Panama Viejo, the initial settlement of Panama that was destroyed by the infamous pirate Henry Morgan. Nowadays there are just a few ruins left and a well renovated bell tower. We strolled through the huge area, read signs about the interesting history and watched iguanas scurry over the grass. It's a really pleasant area with a little museum and snack shop. We spent about two hours exploring the ruins before we returned to Ruedi. The paperwork was ready and we needed to go to a notary to get the stamp because I couldn't write the same signature as in my passport 🥴 It went pretty quick though and then we were done for today and drove to a viewpoint overlooking Casco Antiguo. Unfortunately there was no parking available so we just had the quick glimpses from the street.

In the evening after dinner we relaxed some time at the rooftop terrace with a beer and talked about the trip we've had so far. In the hotel room we a little some more sorting to do before going to sleep 💤Read more