Straight after breakfast the boys went to the customs clearance agency in Cartagena with whom they had made previous contacts and Team Lipstick can only recommend this company to anyone wanting to ship into or out of Cartagena
The owner Luis Ernesto La Rota speaks very good English and the boys also used his office for the delivery of a spare part for Lipstick as well as for a replacement of the Delorme tracker.
Whilst the Delorme did arrive the spare part was still with the DHL office in Bogota waiting for confirmation of Team Lipstick that the Vat on this part will be paid. The arrangement was made through above office and after checking with DHL it can be expected that the part would arrive on Wednesday 7th February and could then be fetched from Enlace Caribe office.
During the meeting with Luis the procedure for the importation of Lipstick into Colombia was also discussed and these formalities can only be started after the arrival of the container ship from Honduras which was expected on Wednesday morning the 7th of February.
So back to the flat in the suburb of Cartagena – Castillogrande where the boys hired a nice holiday flat.
Tuesday was spent as a lazy Day on the beach and a few walks through the roads of Cartagena also buying some of Scotland’s finest beverages to stock up the flat for a few sundowners to come.
Wednesday morning the boys went straight back to the office of the customs clearance agency where they received the spare part for Lipstick which was dispatched from South Africa by Nic Sanan and proved to be the correct part to replace the broken ignition part.
The boys were then told to be back in the office by 2pm as the ship did arrive this morning and the customs process could therefor start – so back to the flat where Andre spend some time on housekeeping whilst Willy attended to some email correspondence.
The boys were back in the office by 2pm to start customs procedure and were accompanied by Francesco to the various offices which deal with customs procedures the first stop being Seaboard whose ship transported Lipstick to Colombia and from there to 3 other offices each wanting a few signatories and forms to be filled out – unfortunately Francesco could not speak English so Google translate and broken English /Spanish mix cleared the various obstacles hereafter the boys went back to the office and the procedure would be that on the next Day ( Thursday ) the boys can go through the procedure of customs inspecting the car at 2pm in the afternoon.
The evening was spent in one of the many beach restaurants in Boccagrande another suburb and beach area in Cartagena.
Bocagrande district looks like a sliver of Miami: a long strip of beachfront lined with colorful cabanas and gleaming new buildings.
