Part 2/4

WHAT WAS THE MOST SIGNIFICANT SETBACK OR DELAY AND HOW LONG WERE YOU DERAILED FOR?

Our biggest delay started in Panama and ended about three weeks later in Ecuador. Shipping the car was a tricky one, and also fairly expensive, and turned out to be quite the hassle. It took us almost two weeks to find a shipper in Panama City, and another two weeks in customs in Ecuador to get the car into the country. The hassle really was our fault, as we neglected to get our car a tourist visa, called the 'Carnet de Pasage,' which we had been told was a rip off and a waste of time. If we had had this document, I assume we would have been well on our way, and out of that situation in Ecuador faster than the two weeks it took. Really though, the customs officials in Ecuador were not the brightest stars in the customs sky. We spent six hours a day in the Aduana in Esmeralda, Ecuador waiting for someone to figure out just what it was we had to do to get our car out of customs, and we were avoided like the plague. No one knew what to do, and all the officials just played dumb and always seemed to have to go to lunch when we tried to make any ground. Finally they decided that to get our car out of customs and ensure we weren't going to sell it in Ecuador, we had to put down a deposit of some sort to guarantee we would not sell the vehicle. The deposit was to be 120% of the value of the car, which they estimated to be around 4500 dollars. After some serious negotiating, white lies and straight up haggling, we talked them down the 1200 and prayed to see the cash once we got to Peru. In the end it worked out, but we missed out on seeing a ton of Ecuador due to time constraints, which was too bad. Luckily enough for us, we met some cool local surfers in the port town where we were waiting who were nice enough to lend us boards and take us surfing, as all of our equipment was locked up in our car in customs.

WHEN I READ SOME OF SCOTT'S LOGS FROM THE WEBSITE THERE WAS MENTION OF A FUNNY/SCARY STORY DURING A HONDURAS BORDER CROSSING WHERE HE WAS KICKING YOUR LEG UNDER THE TABLE TRYING TO GET YOU TO STOP GIVING INFORMATION TO OFFICIALS . . . MISCOMMUNICATIONS AND PROBLEMS ARE A NATURAL PART OF LIFE, AND SPENDING DAYS, WEEKS, AND MONTHS WITH THE SAME PERSON IN SMALL CONFINES CAN BE A CHALLENGE. I KNOW BECAUSE I TRIED TO MAKE THE ROUNDTRIP DRIVE FROM SAN FRANCISCO TO THE YUCATAN. I GOT LEFT IN THE YUCATAN. THE POINT BEING, TRAVELING WITH SOMEONE IS ALWAYS HARD, EVEN A BEST FRIEND OR SOMEONE YOU'VE KNOWN FOR MANY YEARS. HOW DID YOU AND SCOTT FARE IN TERMS OF MAINTAINING SANITY AND FRIENDSHIP THROUGHOUT THE ARDUOUS BUT REWARDING VOYAGE, AND WOULD YOU DO IT AGAIN?

Scott is like a brother to me, and I would do it all over again in an instant with him as my partner. There are things I would do different of course, but for me, there is no better travel partner. He is witty, thinks very quickly, speaks decent enough Spanish to fend for himself, and is an absolutely insane auto mechanic. Enough said, we did have our battles though, two major blowouts to be exact. One in Costa Rica after having quite a bit of stuff stolen, both of us at wits end, we almost called off the trip, and another in Chile where we came pretty close to tearing out each others throats. All in all, we know each other pretty well, really well actually, and know when to pipe up or back down. Communication is key. We all can work harder at communication.

Part 2/4

ER Harris