Choices…

It looms in front of us, a huge, hot, steaming chasm, filled with bureaucratic red tape, a psychological barrier, once across return is more than a drive, home is on the other side of the world, almost literally.  The Darien Gap, a 50 kilometer stretch of land that separates Central and South America, that separates Panama from Colombia.

Boarders are not difficult they are time consuming, we have now crossed 6, but shipping a car, arranging air transport for 2 dogs and us, with no direct flights is a huge undertaking.  I have done the research; I am still doing the research.  I have reached out to people who will be crossing around the same time to see if they want to split a container, but it would mean another month in either Costa Rica or Panama.  I have reached out to people who have done it, to see how they did it, especially those who have dogs.  Some have sailed, 4 days on a boat with 2 dogs sounds traumatic, but less traumatic then the stories of people who flew only to arrive in Colombia and find that their dogs weren’t with them, but had been lost in Panama.  I contact another couple with two dogs now in Ecuador, they shipped from the US to Colombia, they didn’t drive the whole way, and they didn’t do the Darien Gap.  I have reached out to people who are slightly ahead of us, to see how they are going to do it, they have decided to go home for a while, they are storing their trucks in Costa Rica, flying their dogs home and leaving them there when they return. 

Home, a visit, a time to regroup.   Many people who do this trip return to home for a while, they get to a point and store their car. The visit lasts between a few weeks and a few months.  For most it is time to work and save up more money, to be with friends and family, to remember the differences between first world and third world, and to renew the desire to continue the trek.  For us flying home isn’t a solution, it is only a postponement of the current situation, we would return to Costa Rica with the dogs, who now would have flown 2 times, only to have to cross the gap.  But the seed has been planted, there is a way to do this, to get the truck and the dogs to Colombia, but it means retracing our steps and then shipping from the US to Colombia.

We walk down the beach in Tamarindo our home of the last month, we watch a group of surfers and Stand Up Paddle Borders, as one guy on a SUP takes off on a wave Fritz says “I could do that” as he falls off I say “I could do that!”  Kona chases the ball he catches it in midair, he turns and runs full speed into the ocean.  Haole sniffs sand castle built the day before, when he realizes there isn’t food hidden in it, he pees on it instead.  After 20 minutes or so of playing with the dogs and watching the surfers Fritz turns to me and says “Ready to go back?”  I smile and say yes, at the end of the month we turn north, we will re-cross Central America and Mexico, sometime in August we will be back in the US, I am ready, we both are.  As we walk back down the beach Fritz smiles again and says “Tacos Al Pastor”.