MUNGO EATS Latin America

We made the decision this morning to strike out for the border.  We were kind of done with Costa Rica.  We had our doubts as to whether or not we would even be able to bring Mungo into the Peace Park, so we just thought we would leave instead.

We decided to leave via a tiny little border crossing in the middle of the highlands.  We decided this for two reasons.  Firstly, it would be cooler than crossing near the coast at the main crossing.  And secondly, we heard it was easier to get the dog in via this route.  If you look up importing dogs into Panama on the internet it says that you need a health certificate, vaccine certificates, and that these need to be checked by a Panamanian official and sealed prior to reaching the border.  Also, you must pay $130.00 or put your dog in quarantine for 30 days.  Again, what they are hoping to achieve with these measures, I am not sure. 

The first part of the adventure was finding the border crossing in the first place.  NO WHERE did we ever see a sign with the name of the border town on it.  We knew from reading that the last 4 km or so to the crossing were on a gravel road, but somehow we thought there would be some sign pointing us in the right direction.  We asked a number of locals for assistance and we got some of the following answers, “go straight along this road, turn at the school.”, go past the soccer field and straight along this road.”  “it is straight along this road”.  It was always straight” or “directo”.  Sounds easy until you come to a fork in the road!!!  Oh well, eventually an old fellow who called us “my friends” pointed us in the right direction…”directo , and we found the crossing.  Small was a HUGE understatement.  Customs, immigration and the government vet office were all in the same office on the Costa Rican side.  That was easy. 

Then on to the Panama side.  First stop was at immigration where a very cute little old man processed us.  Actually, the first step is to go into town (10 or 15 minutes walk) and buy a stamp from the bank.  Yep, you cross the border, go into town, get a stamp, go back to the border and give the stamp that you  bought to the immigration guy who then puts the stamp in your passport, and then stamps it.   He was so flustered you would think this was the first time he had ever processed anyone.  He apologized for the slowness of his internet.  Really, we are used to slow crossings, so we didn’t even think about it.  His computer was on one desk, but all his stamps were on the other desk.  Instead of bringing the stamps to the same desk as his computer, he would do his computer work, one passport at a time, then would get up, go to the other desk and stamp it, then go back to desk number 1 to start with the next passport.  After he handed back the first passport, Kevin checked it out and saw that the date stamped on it said Oct 21, 2008…did  we travel back in time??  After he had finished with all the passports, Kevin mentioned to him the date.  To this he responded, “Aye Karumba!!!”  No kidding, just like Bart Simpson.  It then took him about 10 minutes to change the date on the stamp.  It wasn’t rocket science, it was just one of the stamps that has a wheels with numbers on it, and you just dial the wheel to the right number.  The problem was, he couldn’t really see the numbers, old eyes remember?  So he would turn a wheel, stamp it, realize he had turned the wrong  wheel, turn it back, try the next wheel….on and on and on.  I actually offered to  set the date for him after a few minutes, but he insisted on doing it himself.  As he was trying to get the date set correctly, he asked Kevin and I if we liked Panama.  Hmm, all we had seen of the country was the bank and his tiny little office, but “Yes, it’s beautiful.”  We also had to remind him to sign Sean’s passport, he had forgotten to.   

After we FINALLY left immigration, we were off to the government vet to get Mungo through.  He looked at the paperwork,  didn’t stamp anything, didn’t ask for any money and said he would look at Mungo as we drove past him on the way out of the border area.  Okay.

Next, on to the customs office.  Here we met the only slightly grumpy person in the bunch.  The middle aged gal asked if we had bought any insurance yet, to which we answered no, then she said we had to do this first.  When we asked her where to buy insurance, we were told to go down the road to the 3rd building, a white building.  Okay…really building is another HUGE stretch.  There were a series of little metal sheds lined up and we had to go to shed number three, which was big enough for 3 chairs and one desk.  When we got there, the young gal in the office realized that we had a trailer along with the van and  she asked us if we had to buy insurance for the trailer too.  I don’t know, do we??  (We didn’t even know we had to buy insurance).  As we were standing in the tiny little shed, the little old immigration man chased us down again and asked if he could check the dates on the passports again.  We let him see all four passports again, then he helpfully found out if we needed to buy insurance for the trailer.  No, just the van.  Poor little old guy, I wonder how many other people time travelled back to 2008 that day under his command? 

Then back to the grumpy customs gal, who was having trouble adding up a column of numbers with a calculator, so she called her lackey to do our paperwork.  After he  struggled with it for a few minutes, she decided it was easier to do it herself and kicked lackey boy out of the chair. 

Finally, finally back to the vet office, where some other gal took $2.00 per person from us.  The van was driven through a fumigator, the vet looked at Mungo through the doorway and away we went. 

Tonight we are in Volcan, Panama, in the country, camping on somebody’s lawn.  Our guide book sent us here.  It is a nice property, and has a restaurant on it, but really, it’s somebody’s lawn.  I think we will go for supper now.  We are all hungry.