Michael: Plan B

The tortuous path
That divides the two countries
Nearly strangled us.

Wednesday, March 8, 2017

We had a simple plan for Kimme to travel to the states that would cost us a little in convenience but save us hundreds in travel.

From where we are in Panama there are two choices to fly to the states; either through Panama City or San Jose, Costa Rica. We’re actually a little closer to San Jose, but to get there by plane is expensive and requires a flight to Panama City first. Flying out of Panama City from where we’re at also requires a flight that’s about the equivalent of flying from L.A. to San Francisco. Problem is it’s a lot costlier to fly to the states from Panama City than San Jose.

We can take a bus to San Jose for just $15 instead of flying there and that cuts cost dramatically. Enough, we hope, to make the border crossing, 6 ½ bus ride, and overnight at the airport worthwhile. At this point in time, with Kimme only part way through the journey, (now hopefully sleeping at the airport in San Jose), the advantages of this circuitous plan is still to be determined.

Unfortunately, the original plan had to be altered slightly almost from the start. That’s because there are two border crossings between Panama and Costa Rica; Pasoa Canoes near the coast and Rio Sereno up in the mountains. We chose to go through the far less congested and arguably more scenic route through Rio Sereno.

That turned out to be an unlucky choice yesterday. The Panama immigration office in Rio Sereno is a one room, one person operation and sadly neither were up and running yesterday. When we arrived at about 12:30 we were told the officer was at lunch and the police officers that share the station with immigration weren’t sure when he’d return. The power was also out so even if he did return in a timely fashion, he wouldn’t be able to process our passports until the power came back.

We hung around until nearly two and with neither the immigration officer or the power likely to turn up in time for Kimme to make the 3:15 bus to San Jose about an hour away in San Vito, Costa Rica we needed a plan B.

First she took out her phone to see if there was a bus out of Paso Canoes. Yeah, there was. The last bus from there left at 4:30. Now could we make it there? By bus it was at least 2 ½ hours away. That would require perfect timing with no wait delays between buses and no waits between immigration offices at the border.

The other alternative was to hope we could find a taxi and hope he could get us there faster without gouging us too much. That’s the way we decided to go.

As we quickly started back down the main street of Rio Sereno we flagged down the first taxi we saw and asked him if he could take us to Paso Canoes?, how long it would take to get there?, and what would it cost? He was a young dude that said it would take about two hours and would cost $50. We hopped in and down some windy pot holed country road we went.

We were in a similar predicament in Costa Rica last year and were screwed by a taxi driver there, so that experience I’m sure was casting some doubt as to whether this make shift plan was going to pan out.

But ying became yang this time around and we arrived in Paso Canoes in an hour and half. The immigration process went smoothly and Kimme even met a fellow American who was also taking the bus and overnighting it at the airport. They could split the taxi fare in San Jose from the bus terminal to the airport and keep each other company through the long dark wait until their morning flights.

Kimme called me at about 1a.m. to let me know they were at the airport safe and sound.

The ground game of our cost saving plan got off to a somewhat bumpy start. I’ll have to go through the same procedure myself in a couple of weeks. It seems wise at this point to consider tweaking my original plan and just head straight for Paso Canoes as opposed to going through Rio Sereno. But then again the odds of the Immigration officer and/or the power being out again can’t be that high, can it?