I am writing this while in semi (I hope!) police custody. We spent our last two days in Panama in the mountain town of Cerro Punta. At an altitude of 1800 meters it is a good base from which to explore both Barca Volcano and La Amistad National Parks. Although both parks are known for their birding it is becoming more and more difficult for us to find new species. connie has already identified more than 350 new birds on this trip and there can't be too many more left to find. It gets pretty cold at night and we were looking forward to crossing back into Costa Rica and some sunshine.
Immigration and vehicle registration went as smooth as silk at Rio Sereno, our favorite border crossing. Or so we thouhgt! The road from the frontier includes the worst 5 km section of the trip but we eased through at 10 mph. Connie found us an honest-to-god shortcut to the Pan-American highway that cut off 100 km and saved us hours. The fun began at the routine document check where they said our two hour old vehicle registration had expired on January 26. They wanted to confiscate our car for driving illegally in the country. The computer had no record of us leaving CR or bringing the car back in. We finally convinced them to call the woman at Rio Sereno who would surely remember us - who wouldn't! She did and apologized for giving us the wrong paper. But we still had to go back 65 miles to Rio Sereno, negotiating the terrible road twice, get the proper certificate and return to the police checkpoint. Although it was their mistake they made it plain they were doing us a favor for not seizing our car. Back in Rio Sereno I replied to the girl's "Lo siento" (I'm sorry) with "Nosotros tambien!" (us too!) We eventually made it to San Isidro where we had stayed a couple of weeks ago. It's just one of those things that makes travel interesting.
