Patience is a virtue

If you ever felt the need to test your patience, you should try shipping your car from a foreign country, to a foreign country, where you have only learned a little of the language a few months earlier.
Although everything went as smooth as could be on the departure side of things, picking up Kumu in Cartagena, Colombia has been an interesting experience!
As monday was a holiday we spent the weekend strolling around the beautiful streets of Cartagena, sampling delicious Colombian coffee and searching for the perfect photograph.
Tuesday morning started bright and early as we headed to the shipping office at 8am. From there we paited patiently while the woman in the office made some photocopies and handed us our first piece of paper work for the day, to add to the numerous ones printed up in Panama City. She sent us off a few minutes down the street to the Aduana building which covers all importation information.
We walked into the huge building with hundreds of people in hundreds of desks. When we asked a security guard if he knew where to go he pointed vaguely to the endless rows of desks and said "That way". We chose a desk at random which seemed to work and the woman took off with our paper work returning a while later with more copies and more papers. At this time we had realized we had forgotten Andrew's shoes in the Hostel (to get into the port you MUST have shoes and long pants) so I jumped in a taxi to retrieve them and Andrew continued on to the next office at the main port to organize an appointment to have an inspection of the car.
I returned and waited at least an hour for Andrew to complete this step. Our appointment was for 2 oclock as everything here shuts down for siesta between 1230 and 2. During this time we figured we would deal with getting insurance, but that also was only open at 1:30 so again we waited.
Once the insurance place was finally open they informed us that we, in fact, still didnt have enough paperwork to get insurance...
On to the port for our inspection. The port is a good 15 minute/10 dollar cab ride away, not the MAIN port that Andrew went to for the appointment.
At the port we first waited for accreditation for Andrew to be able to enter. When that was finally dealt with he headed in and caught his first glimpse of Kumu in over 10 days! She seemed to be not too much worse for the wear with only a little covering of dust.
The inspector came, slowly but surely, double checked the VIN number with that on the paper work, left to look at a few other cars then finally came back, glanced inside and gave Andrew one more piece of paper.
All the while I spent sitting on a curb outside the port doodling on my hands as dirty old port workers filed back and forth feeling no shame about staring me down the whole walk by.
From the port we grabbed two motorbike taxis as they turned out to be quite a bit cheaper than a taxi. As I got on I realized with surprise that I have never actually been on a motor bike. With this realization I stiffened up, but quickly relaxed with the wind in my face and embraced the excitement of zooming in and out of traffic.
Back to the Aduana where we eventually realized that the inspector who just looked at our car had to ALSO come to the aduana to sign paper work. I guess the port is not a place for paper work. We waited with two other guys who were waiting to get their cars out of port as well. One from France and one from Guatemala who was almost completely bald on top but had dreadlocks down past his shoulders. Needless to say, with Andrew looking pretty scruff from living on a boat for 10 days, the french guy who looked similar to Andrew and Bald dreadlock guy, I am surprised they didnt do everything in their power to get us out of their immaculate office as soon as possible.
By this time it was nearing 6pm and things were not looking so good to get Kumu out in one day as we watched our paper work sitting on a desk, needing only ONE more signature and the man with the pen casually checking his email and doing everything BUT signing the papers.
Finally at five minutes to 6 we got the signature and ran back to the main port where Andrew had gone so many hours before. Here we needed to get our last paper work that allows the release of Kumu from the port. Just after 7 he returned with the paper work, but with the sad news that he had called the port and said we had to wait till the next day....
We took the walk of shame back to the hostel, but consoled ourselves with the fact that Kumu seemed alive and well, we had all the paperwork to get on the go the next day and above all, Andrews spanish greatly improves every time we have a day like that!
It was a true test of patience, but we worked through it well together, and acknowledge that it is all part of the greatness of traveling, and will be worth every minute once we are reunited with our little house on wheels.
Today we head to the port to officially bring Kumu into South America and we are hitting the road. Our next stop... the mountains! Straight from sea level to 5000 meters. Apparently there is even snow there... what a concept.

Here is the video from the sailing trip again. I think this time it should have sound. Let me know if it doesn'!


Untitled from Shona Rubens on Vimeo.

One of the many beautiful squares in Cartagena