After 11 days in a custom’s induced purgatory, the day finally arrived when Mango was able to escape from her shipping container and see the light of day in South America.  The day began with Ana and me hailing a cab for the 30 minute drive to the port of Guayaquil.  We had been there several times before in the last 2 weeks, and we were hopeful that this would be the day of our salvation.  If you want to read the entire summary of our dealings with the port of Guayaquil, click here.

After waiting an hour for Jorge, our tramite miracle worker to arrive, we went inside the port and waited while someone processed and stamped some other part of our paperwork.  I try to usually be a relatively kind and patient person, but being at the end of the shipping process, I was at my wits end and just wanted my car back.  Woe to whoever stood in the way between my Volkswagen and me.

After a few more hours of waiting, it was time to pay the customs and port fees for Mango’s release.  They amounted to $208.21 for posted customs and port fees, and $25.20 for the 9 days Mango was in storage.  It’s nice that at least the port of Guayaquil only charges around $2.50 per day for storage while you are waiting for their laboriously inefficient and frustrating custom’s process to unfold.  The cashier for the port storage fees also wanted another piece of paper stating we were the authorized receivers of the vehicle.  We already had 2 other pieces of paper saying just this.  We ended up having to wait another 2 hours while this issue was resolved.  I paid this particular cashier with a big bag of quarters which is probably the meanest thing I’ve done on this whole trip.  I genuinely glowed inside when I saw she had to recount my stack of quarters.

When everything was finally stamped, restamped, copied and paid, it was finally time to watch Mango’s container being loaded onto our contracted truck.  The truck driver had been waiting so long this morning that someone had to wake him up when it was time to load.  A giant crane picked our container off a stack of other containers, and gingerly plopped it down on the back of our truck.  After the container was loaded, the truck was weighed on a giant scale to make sure that the shipping and receiving weights matched.  We then sat in front of the port gates, waiting for what felt like an eternity as more officials looked over our paperwork to ensure everything was correct.  Finally, the gates of purgatory opened wide and we were able to drive the truck with Mango’s container outside the port.  We had just paid $1572.31 and expended 11 days of our lives to move a container with a car in it 500 yards.  Port of Guayaquil – you suck.

After saying bye and thanks to our intrepid tremite, we drove in the truck to an unloading area about 1 mile from the port.  This “unloading area” was basically a suburban street where there happened to be a company that had 4 small forklifts.   We would use 3 of the forklifts to get our container off the truck.  The procedure was:  3 of the forklifts drove up on the sides of the truck, put their tines under the container, and raised the container a few inches.  The truck then drove away from under the container.  The 3 forklifts then lowered the container “relatively evenly” until it was on the ground.  We then opened the container, undid the ropes securing Mango to the floor, and drove her out.  The forklifts then lifted the container back onto the truck, and it left for our shipping company’s container storage warehouse.

During the unloading process, people from the surrounding neighborhood stopped to watch the process unfold.  Including the forklift operators and company employees, we probably had around 20 people watching the container being removed from the truck.  Other than one of the heavy forklift tines falling about 8 feet off the forklift, someone overzealously trying to cut through one of the container locks, and someone stealing my boat rope from inside the container (I found it inside the forklift operator’s office), the process went relatively smoothly and nobody got hurt.   In the end we were able to drive Mango out of the container.  She had accumulated a bit of mold growing inside her from sitting in a moist and warm container for 2 weeks.  However, she had no dents or dings from the shipping process, and we are very thankful for that.  Like the relatively reliable Volkswagen that she is, she started without any problems.  With her characteristic “put-put-put” engine noise, we drove Mango away from the Port of Guayaquil and on to further adventures in Ecuador and South America.

Click here to view additional photos of Mango’s day of freedom in Guayaquil

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