Equipo Williams

Last week I dropped our car off at the Port of Cartagena, and spent a very hot day getting it inspected, prepared for shipment, and loaded into a container. Inspection in Colombia includes a fairly detailed anti-narcotics search in which two police officers searched the car thoroughly (including drilling some holes into the base of the tent to ensure there were no illicit substances between the aluminum panels).

While I was in the port waiting for things to happen, I did get to watch some other containers get loaded and container lifters drive around. Those machines are pretty impressive: the rear wheels are steerable and can turn about 70 degrees, and when they were using it as a crane they were working in very tight spaces. I also noticed that the staff at the port was super professional and safe: lots of discussion about what they were going to do before they did it, and every operation that involved people and machines had spotters and coordinators. Mistakes could easily cost lives: empty containers are two to three tons, and in several cases it seemed like the people working on the loads were not necessarily in view of the machine operators.

I drove the car into the container and disconnected the batteries. At a previous job we used to wonder about the temperature in a container during shipping. From five minutes spent working on the car in the container while it was being loaded, I can affirm that the temperature in a container in the tropics is damn hot. I disconnected the batteries and went to cool off and wait in the shade; the riggers who lashed the car down took about ten minutes longer and emerged absolutely drenched in sweat, and that was with the doors open and a bit of a breeze. Oh! Did I mention that the port requires not only long pants, but a long-sleeved shirt as well?

Once the car was loaded into the container, it sat in the port for a few days before being loaded on to the Dubai Express on Sunday evening. We were able to watch the ship sail out on Monday afternoon. We couldn’t see a container that matched ours, but there are more than a few on the ship. It’s probably there somewhere.

While it would have been great to go on the ship with the car, but that’s not an option. We went via 737-800 which is faster but less romantic. Probably also more comfortable than going via 20-foot container.

Now we’re in Panama City, waiting for the car to get processed at the Port of Manzanillo on the Caribbean. Once we know what to do, I’ll head over to Colon (Panama City is at the Pacific end of the canal) and pick up the car. We’re not sure how long it will take; in the meantime, we’ll be poking around Panama City. The kids still have some Colombian blog posts to write, and they’re working on a South American wrap-up as well.