We got to the officer about 8:30 and gave Arturo the receipts.  He then had to go to customs to do things that are still unknown to me.  He dropped Ryan and I off at a Starbucks near his office where we were going to wait until he was done.  Then we could get the titles to the van and trailer back.

While at Starbucks, SC Line called and said we needed to have Hazardous Material paperwork filled out for the two propane tanks we had on the trailer. After a little investigation, I again found that this was something I needed a customs broker to do, and it would cost about $150 to $200.  Arturo was already costing us $170 and I didn’t want to spend more money, especially to ship two tanks I could buy when we got to Cartagena for less money.  So SC said they would take the tanks off for us.  I hope someone gets to use them on their grill or something.

One more mysterious piece of paperwork we needed was called the Bill of Lading.  I am told this is something like your boarding pass to a plane.  Arturo wanted to know who was going to handle it for us.  He could not.  We ended up contacting Martha Gonzalez, a freight forwarder, who was suggested by SC and said she could help us.  This turned out to be a great thing.

Martha was also in Doral and picked Ryan and I up at the Starbucks and took us to her office.  It turns out the bill of lading isn’t supposed to be issued until the vehicles got on the boat.  She works with SC Line regularly and personally know the owners.  Since we were a special case (hey now, you all pipe down!) she was able to get them to issue the paperwork early.  Also, Martha is from Colombia, and handles freight shipments all over South America.  She spent some time setting up our arrival in Cartagena so everything will go smoothly once we get there.  She also got me the opportunity to travel ON THE BOAT with the van and trailer (it’s about who you know)!  Unfortunately, the dogs could not accompany me, so I had to let that one go.  More about that later.  It’s too bad…..they even have a pool!

After about two hours of hanging out with Martha, everything was done.  She did have to hang onto the titles for the vehicles until they are loaded onto the boat.  This was in case customs had to inspect them to determine if they were stolen or not.  Apparently this is the biggest concern US Customs has for shipping vehicle out of the country.  Martha drove us to the metro station and we began our journey home.  It was about 1:45 pm.

Ryan and I were taking a Greyhound from Fort Lauderdale to Tampa.  We took the train from Doral (or wherever it was Martha dropped us off at) to Fort Lauderdale.  This took about an hour.  We then walked to the Greyhound staion, which was about 2 1/2 miles away.  We got there around 5:15 pm.  The bus  left at 7:00, so we went to get some food, our first of the day.  At this point I was pretty beat.

Our bus stopped in Orlando where we had to switch to another bus.  We had an hour layover and then head out to Tampa.  We got in at about 1:15 am.  Michelle and Max picked us up in my parents car and we got back to the house about 2 am.   Finally, the adventure within an adventure was over.

It’s kind of interesting, this is all so complex and alien to us but to the people we are working with, it is so simple and no big deal.

Total cost of freighting the van and camper to Cartagena = $5954.94

Cheaper than RT airfare from Fairbanks to Orlando.

There will be some fees in Colombia, probably about $300.  It takes three days to complete the paperwork in Colombia.

To make things more exciting, Ryan lost his credit card in Miami and when I called to report it lost, the bank closed my credit card by mistake.  When I logged in to order a new one for Ryan, I saw that his was still active and mine was gone.  An hour later, after going through a hellish automated system and changing my address officially to Florida, a new card for me is in the mail.  Not Ryan, though.  I need to activate my new card and then request his.  It will need to be forwarded to Ecuador.

But the moments passed and we all feel better.  We spent all day cleaning and organizing the camper for whatever kind of Colombian inspection lies ahead.  Laundry, paperwork (and holy cow, is there a lot of paperwork!), van maintenance — so much fun.  Tomorrow we condense our personal belongings into three dufflebags for the next 13 days and for the inevitable plane trip to Cartagena on 12/12/12.  Then we are stuck here.  Without a car.  For 13 days.

We have reservations for two rooms inside the walled city – one family room that sleeps 6 and one additional room that sleeps 3.  The dogs will be guests of a veterinarian down the street from our hotel.  The van & camper is scheduled to arrive on 12/13, which is Thursday.  But the RORO ship stops along the way and it could be delayed so we may not be able to retrieve the vehicles until Monday.

One thing we did do this evening is to try to make reservations for language immersion in Ecuador. Mar Azul is our first choice (http://ecuador-spanishschool.com/) – they have salsa lessons, too.  Not sure how they feel about 6 kids being there, we’ll see.