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Due to the fact that it isn’t possible to fly with pets in the cabin on a weekend, we had a few days to kill until our flight on Monday morning. We decided it was finally time to do some of the touristy things in the city. We had been staying at Alejandro’s for free, on tiny little camping cot beds in an upstairs stock room. It wasn’t exactly comfortable, but it was free and air conditioned and that was good enough for us. Unfortunately, he was closing up the embassy for the

We had enjoyed our speedy tour of Panama, putting over 1000 miles on our new engine already, but now it was time to get down to business. We had booked our slot in a container that was scheduled to leave on the 7th of May. Aside from that, we hadn’t done anything. Once we hit the city, it was going to be a busy few days. The container was due to be loaded on the 5th, but now it had been changed to the 4th. It was recommended to complete the police inspection prior to loading,

Having not made it to the beach as planned the day before, we drove on the last few hours that morning to arrive at Guanico in the early afternoon. The restaurant were incredibly welcoming, letting us park in their parking lot on the beach for free and offering us water, wifi and showers. Guanico is a popular surf spot and at the end of the afternoon the carpark filled up with surfboards of all sizes. The waves were pretty big and we sat watching them, through a torrential do

Despite not being particularly high, the mountains around Santa Fe are still interesting to drive through. Once again, our plan to not drive in the rain wasn’t going well. With holes rotted through both wheel arches, a wet drive meant a wet cab inside and all of this fuelled the current mushroom that kept trying to grow under our floor. The positive of rain at least is that gave our engine a helping hand in climbing the mountain roads that afternoon. Up to the town of Santa F

As much as we could have stayed, with time against us it was time to return to the mainland and head south. We blagged one of the last spaces available on the return ferry, despite arriving an hour early and before long we were once again at the port in Almirante. The worst thing about our decision to visit Bocas, was that we now had to drive the mountain road again.  It wasn’t long before the gearstick popped out and caused us to pull over and we hadn’t even started the stee

Having spent 60% of our Panamanian visa broken down in the rather boring town of David, we were keen to see some of the country before we left. We had a shipping container booked for the 7th of May which meant that we needed to be in the city a few days before. We had roughly three weeks to explore Panama. Having driven the majority of the rather unpleasant road back towards Almirante and the ferry port for Bocas de Toro, we only an hour or so of driving left that morning. Wi

Our first stop with our entirely rebuilt camper wasn’t far away, as I don't think our stress levels could have handled much driving that day. The drive to Boquete is only about half an hour, a steady climb on a good road up into the mountains, it would be a good initial test drive. Despite the fact that we had no problems and everything appeared to be running well, I was not relaxed. That post rebuild paranoia kicks in for every tiny little noise that could possibly be the so

As we moved into the second week of April, we could barely wait to leave. We were adamant, however, that despite the upcoming Semana Santa (Easter week) and Lee’s birthday we wouldn’t rush. We still had time to make sure we got the engine back in properly. After disconnecting basically every system, we wanted to take our time with the assembly. While we should have been ecstatic that our engine was in Panama, it was somewhat tainted by the cost of the shipping. Our freight fo

As our time in Panama approached a month, we were faced with the expiry of our vehicle permit. Visas for people are 90 days, whereas the car is done on a monthly basis. We decided to go a few days early and see if we could pause the permit, as it seemed pointless paying for another month’s worth of insurance for a vehicle that wasn’t on the road. We waited a while to be told that this wasn’t possible and that we needed to return on Monday with new insurance to renew our docum

The lost engine fiasco had certainly added time to our stay, but now looking back it’s probably time that we needed as we had discovered several other problems.  Naturally, with the failure of the component in the bell housing, I wanted to know what had happened as we didn’t want it to happen again. After messaging the ever obliging Richard, and after looking at the other components it seemed that the reason for this failure was the bushing that we had got made back in Mexico

And so our second week in the hostel began. We now knew we were committed to a lengthy wait, but in a way that wasn’t such a bad thing as we had a lot of other things to be fixing in the meantime. The garage was only open till 5pm throughout the week and till midday on Saturday. Therefore most days, we cycled the 3km to the garage and got on with whatever jobs we could in the meantime. First things first, we dragged out the gearbox and the engine. This is the first time since

The next morning, we had a decision to make. Two tow trucks were available, but one of them was $50 dollars more. The cheaper truck was not supposed to be in great shape though, and not wanting to be broken down on a broken breakdown truck, we decided to pay the extra. We sent a deposit via PayPal, and settled down to wait. It was around 4 hours drive from David to our location, so we weren’t going anywhere soon. We walked into town to kill some time as the afternoon dragged

What a way to spend Valentine's Day. That night we lay in bed listening to the air braking of the countless trucks, a few metres away, that drove past our window, interspersed with the pounding of the rain and the howling of two annoyed cats that we couldn’t let out. Romantic, no? Let me explain.  We set off from Puerto Viejo that morning in the drizzle. Expecting the inevitable horrific gear noise, I was happy to report that we arrived at the Panamanian border without hearin