This was an exhausting day for us! And sadly we have to wait at least one more day to obtain Herbie who is still sitting at the sea port and whom we haven’t seen yet.

In the morning we took a taxi to our shipping agency in order to get the original Bill of Lading (B/L). After that we went to the local customs just a few blocks further.

They sent us to the port authority where Zainab was not allowed to go in. Only the consignee Domi was supposed to enter the building – in proper shoes and long pants.

Zainab was waiting while Domi went through all the port formalities. We both hoped that we can pick up Herbie today but Domi had bad news when he came out of the building.

It is not done yet! They couldn’t arrange an inspection of the car for today. All in all Zainab stood by for more than five hours. This is truly a red tape odyssey for us!

Tomorrow Zainab will reside at the hotel and Domi will try to complete this odyssey. The agenda for tomorrow: Vehicle inspection and the temporary import permit.

As we cannot post images of Herbie in South America yet, we thought of taking photos of another interesting Volkswagen Beetle which we spotted in town today.

This VW Bug might be made in Brazil where such cars are are called “Fusca”. They feature thicker door and windscreen posts compared to German ones which had that just until 1964. That is to say that Herbie has a very similar body to this “Fusca”.