so, today i picked up ushi (the sentra)!

for those of you who are curious re: the process….here’s a slimmed down version:
1) in san jose, i drove around to a bunch of shipping companies (hamburg sud, maersk, etc.). i got a few prices….and one guy at maersk recommended a friend of his who’s a shipping agent.
2) the shippng agent in san jose (viviana) checked out a bunch of shipping options…but none of them were great. the best was $1800 and would take 10+ days. i decided to risk it in panama.
3) in panama, i repeated the process…checking out a bunch of shipping places. i also went to colon, and met with shipping places there.
4) i ended up choosing CSAV. they seemed to have experience and seemed relatively competent. i paid them $1500 cash.
5) i went to the police station there to get an exit form….that took a day.
6) i drove the car to colon, then took a bus back down to panama city. in colon (manzanillo), i paid $15 for immigration and left the car (+ keys) with a guy at the port, who drove it in.
7) i flew down from panama to quito. the 1st class flight was just under $500.
8) i got to guayaquil on sunday night…and stopped by the csav office on monday morning. i waited several hours and paid $75. they gave me some forms.
9) the next morning (tuesday morning), i went to the port and spent the whole day dealing with customs, etc. the agent (who handled al the paperwork) + bribes (cops, etc.) cost $140. i also had to pay $27 for the customs.

so, in the end, the whole process cost about $2.2k. it also took a couple days of office/car work in panama and a couple days here in guayaquil. this sounds like a lot of time and money. and it is. but, after talking to some other people, i think i did pretty well (except for the flight). one guy i met at the hostal here in guayauil has been trying to get his car out for a couple weeks. One of the huge things is FCL vs. LCL. LCL is more expensive at first….but cheaper and faster in the long run. LCL they deliver you the car. FCL they deliver you the container (and you have to deal with the container + car).