November 27th: Crossing the Darién Gap
Our motorcycles at the air cargo hanger in Panama, getting ready to cross the Darién Gap.
The last three days were spent at the airport and/or the air cargo hanger.
Why?
The Darién Gap is a break in the Pan-American Highway consisting of undeveloped swampland and forest between Panama and Colombia. It measures just over 160 km (99 mi) long and about 50 km (31 mi) wide. Road building through this area is expensive, and the environmental cost is high. Therefore, there is no road connection through the Darién Gap connecting North America with South America and it is the missing link of the Pan-American Highway. The only way to cross is by air or by sea.
After a day of research on shipping companies in Panama, we dropped our bikes off with an air cargo company in Panama on Tuesday. They were scheduled to arrive in Bogota, Colombia on Wednesday morning, so we booked the first flight we could get out of Panama City.
By 11 am on Wednesday we arrived in Bogota. After going through immigration, we walked over to the air cargo area of the airport. We walked, and walked, and walked around trying to locate the exact area we needed to be in. We finally got to where we needed to be only to discover our bikes did not make it due to a mechanical issue with the plane. But, they had hoped the plane would arrive later that day. So, we waited around all day only to learn that the plane was not leaving, and hopefully tomorrow our bikes would arrive in Bogota.
Thursday, we went back to the air cargo terminal. And we waited and waited and waited all day again. No plane. By 6 pm, we found out that the plane was still not fixed, so they were switching all the cargo to a working plane and our bikes would be in Bogota first thing Friday morning.
Friday, we went back again to the terminal. The bikes finally arrived!! Now, all we had to do was wait around for 8 hours to complete paperwork at the Auduana for our bikes to enter the country.
Do you know what it is like to wait around for 3 days inside airport terminals?!?! BORING!!!! There is nothing to do. Nowhere to go. It is a horrible test of one’s patience, especially when you think there is a chance the plane could leave any moment and it doesn’t. Luckily our team made the best of it by cracking jokes, talking with the air cargo employees, and continued Spanish language practice. By the time we were able to leave the airport on Friday, it was almost 5 pm, so we opted to stay another night in Bogota. We walked around the city for a while, which was such a welcome change of pace. I am very thankful we are reunited with our bikes and can finally get out on the road in Colombia!
And, in 6 weeks we get to do this all over again.
