We’ve been in David again for a week now, looking to get out of Panama to wash our passports.  Washing a passport means leaving Panama for 72 hours, and returning to renew your visa.  Panama issues visitors a 6 month visa upon arrival, but driving is a different story.  You can only drive for 3 months with a foreign license, so that is what needs washing at this point.

The timing for this coincides with my license renewal, which adds another layer of complexity to things.  I have already renewed my revisado, and have the permission slips required to drive for 2016, but still no plate because they didn’t have it ready and waiting as I was told they would.  For that, I have to return in a week.

In the meantime, I’ve been told that, in addition to a paz y salvo, I need another 3 pieces of paper that must be issued by the customs office either in David or Paso Canoas, the border town.

With that information in hand, I went to the office in David, only to be told that I could not drive a Panamanian car out of Panama unless I had residency status.   If the rest of this trip had been a roller coaster, that was the bungee jump.

The less said here the better, but I’m happy I was able to walk out of that office without doing “the ugly Amercian”.  It was difficult, I tell you.  Tin God’s are always a pain in the rump.  Deeeep breaths….

Now, I’ve done this in the past, and yes, it was a bit of a hassle, but I was able to do it, and after having told a few people that I know here about this news, they all seem to think this is bad information.  None of them can see why this should not be possible, but think what may have been the issue was that the customs officer had a bad weekend and didn’t feel like doing a gringo any favors.

Regardless, that is an issue that will have to wait until I get my passport washed, so that is still the issue on deck.

To do this, we are going to bus it up to Rio Sereno in the mountains, where there is a much simpler border crossing.  You basically walk from one office to another getting your stamps, spend two days over in San Vito, a little town on the Costa Rican side, then come back on the third for the wash.

There is an exit tax to leave Costly Rica, and you need all your paperwork in order, but this is definitely easier than suffering through the lines and congestion down at Paso Canoas, which is also in the midst of a Pig Flu outbreak. So, no thanks to that.

That is our going information at this point.  We’ll be busing it up tomorrow morning to see how that goes, and once back in Panama again, I will be legal to drive for another 3 months, and can begin dealing with the issues still outstanding.

I still don’t know for sure if the customs guy was telling the truth, but that will be the first thing I deal with.  Then it is a matter of if/then from there.

At the very least, we should be able to enjoy two days up in coffee country Costly Rica, and get another stamp on our passports.

I’ll keep you posted.