Traversé Darien GAB

[lolo83570]

Salut à tous , pour info nous sommes au Guatemala près de rio dulce , et sur l'application ioverlander nous avons trouvé un ferry dans le secteur qui par pour Carthagène.

Je vous met le partage d'expérience ( en anglais) et le point GPS du port.



I wanted to share this place with you:

Shipping with Seaboard (Corporación Menorha)

15.69029, -88.61467

Category: Vehicle Shipping

We shipped our van in a 20’ container from Guatemala to Cartagena. We have a RDH van (Delica), so this seemed like the best option for us on our way south. This point is the office. 3rd story, gray building above a little pollo restaurant. The contact we went through was Mayden de Ralda. Her WhatsApp number is +502 5698 0994 (normally very quick to respond) and email is maydenderalda@corporacionmenorha.com. Although we got in touch a month in advance, she didn’t need confirmation of what ship we wanted until a week prior to sailing. The correspondence was easy- we sent via WhatsApp a copy of the vehicle title, the TIP, and passports. She sent the schedule for the following 4 weeks, a shipping quote for Seaboard, and the agency quote for themselves. The shipping cost $1003, and agency/port fees $525, so $1528 USD total on the Guatemala side. Our ship was to sail on a Wednesday, so Monday morning we arrived to begin the process, which went as follows. 1. Had everything we wanted to travel with packed up. Once the vehicle is in the port they don’t let you get anything out of it. 2. Arrived at their office (opens at 8:30) wearing long pants and close toed shoes (hiking shoes worked, but with smaller thin shoes they won’t let you in). Met Mayden and she sent us with Ricardo to take the van to the port, just a block away. We left our bags in the office. 3. Took with us our passports, TIP, TIP sticker, and copy of drivers license (can leave it all in the van, it stays with you for a while). 4. Ricardo gave us safety gear to wear and we began the rounds of stopping at several places to do lots of paperwork. He took care of all of it, only needing a few signatures. Because there were 2 of us, only the title holder can drive into the port, so the other person will ride on the back of Ricardo’s moto. There are a few stops to make (entrance, shipping booths, weighbridge, customs...) 5. After all the paperwork and shuffling around was taken care of, we left the car in the “bodega” for the night. Ricardo gave us rides back one by one to the entrance where we turned our badges in, got our passports back, and walked 1 block back to the office. 6. Back at the office, we made our payment to Mayden in cash (4069q). There was some confusion as to how to pay Seaboard, because you don’t do that through Mayden, nor the Seaboard office there. However, you have the option of paying that fee at the destination, which is apparently what most people do, and we will too (in Cartagena). The other option is to have with you the thousand dollars cash or thousand dollars worth of Quetzales in cash to deposit into the seaboard bank account. (I’ll report back how the payment goes on the Colombia side.) 7. I’ll just note, all of this took most of the day. We had a couple minor hiccups, so, efficiently, it could probably be done in a morning. 8. Done for the day, all that was left was to wait to hear from Mayden about what time slot we would get to put the van in the container for the following day. We stayed at a hotel just 5 min walk from the office. 9. We got the 8am slot, so we showed up at about 7:40 to the office and again went to the port with Ricardo to put the van into the awaiting container. The port workers drove it in, strapped it down, and locked it up. Took photos of the container number and seal number. This took less than an hour. 10. Back at the office, we got the final paperwork to take to Colombia, caught a taxi to the Litegua bus station in Puerto Barrios, and got a bus back to the city to catch our flight. Overall, there’s nothing to stress about. The only thing I wish I would have known before was that the process takes 2 days. We ALMOST bought flights for Tuesday, but figured we wait a day “in case anything comes up with the shipping.” Good call. Also, Mayden is super nice, she even bought us a big bag of fruit for our bus ride, and Ricardo was an absolute legend flying around the port taking care of everything. Highly recommend shipping with them.

Country: Guatemala

Last Visited: 25/09/2019

Open: Yes