It feels like an ending. Really I should look at it as a beginning. Now that GANNET2 is gone I feel like one more wanderer hauling his crap around foreign countries on his back. From being a heroic driver crossing continents I am become a nuisance on the sidewalks, an obstruction, a mere pedestrian. It sucks.
Sitting aboard my home staring downhill past the steering wheel was no fun at all. “Put your brakes on hard,” they told me. “All of them as hard as you can.” I had no idea what was happening or how precariously we were balanced nor how they had winched my 9400 pound van backward onto the flatbed.
There were four vehicles being loaded into two containers by the Overland Embassy, our shipping agents, on Wednesday and GANNET2 was by far the biggest.
Two forty foot high cube containers were awaiting us on a muddy patch of land near the container port of Colón on the Caribbean Coast of Panama.
Dogs aren’t allowed in the loading area with reason as it is just an area of work and there is no waiting room or toilet or facility. So Layne and Rusty stayed in an apartment we have rented in Old Town (“Casco Viejo”) Panama City.
I stayed for dinner (chicken and ramen) then I wished the family good night and drive myself back to the Overland Embassy’s yard to prepare to convoy across country to Colón Wednesday before dawn. We will be walking Rusty around old Panama I hope between now and Sunday when we fly to Colombia.
I had a hot sleepless night laying next to our rooftop air conditioner now sitting on our bed to make GANNET2 low enough to fit in the container. The other drivers, a Brazilian and two Frenchmen also admitted they spent part of the night wondering what they had forgotten.
We gathered at the Puma gas station a little before six am. The SUVs occupants slept in tents, two on the ground and the Cherokee has a rooftop tent. I felt quite luxurious by comparison with time to take a shower and then all I had to do was close the doors and drive off while they folded tents and poles. We got in line and my orders to stay at the back as my vehicle was the largest and most visible. The road to Colón:
It’s 35 miles, an hour and the city of Colón is nowhere a tourist would want to visit. I didn’t feel much like being there myself.
Our ominous container awaited, mouth open wide. We had to await the flatbed which would act as an elevator to raise our vehicles to container height. I was dry mouthed.
Fortunately being French they thought coffee was of the essence and they were right. I had shut down GANNET2’s electrical systems and dried out the fridge and locked the door slightly ajar. Our Berkey water filter system is empty and we will be putting in new filters in Colombia. These young guys had a tailgate kitchen on which to brew. Lovely! Ça va!
The four musketeers:
The business of loading your vehicle in a container brings into sharp focus your helplessness and total loss of control. A large part of the pleasure of this journey is the absence of any deadlines outside influences or decision making not coming from you. Within the legal parameters of each country’s permitted length of stay, usually 90 days and sometimes 180, you are completely free to come and go as you please. This is where all that freedom stops dead. 
Yes I sat in the driver’s seat but all I did was idle the engine in neutral and turn the wheel as the loader instructed me.
I had no idea how precariously we were perched on the end of the flatbed. He winched us onto the bed of the truck and I found myself on a sort of victory lap high in the air, engine idling and all brakes applied, as he maneuvered to line us up with the container. I can’t help but think a flat cement pad would have made this easier. I gave my camera to the French dude who very kindly took most of the pictures you see here of the loading process. The ones from the driver’s seat I obviously got with my phone.
Porfirio, father of three, impatient as hell with my nerves, a native of Colón whose parents also live in the city got me into the container in one piece.
The next problem was the MaxxFan that sticks up a few inches on the roof. To solve that we had planned to deflate the tires to about 15psi ( normally 65 front and 80 rear) to get inside the 8’6” high door.
That was me lurching forward off the flat bed into the container as Porfirio interpreted the whistles and yells as everyone watched the corners to make sure we fit. It was a ballet perfectly executed.
I unfolded the mirrors to watch the air coming out of the tires but to fit inside the mirrors had to come in.
The Vermont registered Jeep Cherokee driven by the Brazilian family. They said it was embarrassing meeting people from the tiny state of Vermont on their travels as Green Mountain State people tried to connect with them asking which school they went to…no, no they said to the disappointed Vermonters, we are from Brazil. Vermont is one of the few states to allow foreigners to register and insure cars which makes it popular for foreign overlanders.
I crawled out the back. Porfirio slid dune the side somehow! I stepped off onto the flatbed.
To amuse themselves they had me take a tour to the next vehicle for loading.
Then we got a piece of paper authorizing us to leave the country without our vehicle and the loader put the official numbered seal on our numbered container. The seal can only be broken when we meet the container in the port at Cartagena after customs releases our vehicles. That’s a process that can apparently take several days. As usual.
Allain checked to make sure all was well. I tried to stop worrying that I had left anything undone in the van. The fridge was dry and I had hung up a bunch of damned bags to keep humidity down over the next two weeks. I didn’t even take the keys with me- what’s the point? 
Goodbye GANNET2! Happy trails!
We climbed into the mini bus chartered by Overland Embassy and I was a passenger on the drive back to Panama City. Lovely for a change.
It was a smooth operation in the end but the unknowns of this operation made me nervous. Having the biggest possible vehicle you can load into a container didn’t help. We are organizing Sergio our electrician to fly to Cartagena around the 24th to reinstall the a/c at which point we will drive for the Andes.
It was after eleven am and I was tired and dozing off. Until we stopped for a break.
Some people eat cold oatmeal for breakfast and Layne has started a variation of the classic Webb Chiles breakfast called overnight oats which is apparently fashionable. I fell back on a variation of a sausage and egg breakfast burrito at the Va y Ven (“come and go”) truck stop. That woke me up!
Traffic in the capital city was ghastly but we got back in one piece to the Overland Embassy where I met an American in his fifties maybe, riding a BMW motorcycle to Argentina. I envied him his one day flight for the bike but the rest of the ride he can keep. I like it air conditioned van.
I can’t wait to get it back.
