Expert: Juan Carlos Valencia - 10/17/2010

Question
I have a very involved question for you :-).

I am planning on driving the Pan American Highway in
reverse. I lived in Uruguay for a while and I will be
traveling to Brazil in a few years and plan on driving back
to Dallas, Texas with two friends. We all speak reasonably
good Spanish (Southern Cone accent) and one friend speaks
fluent Portuguese.

The current plan is to follow the old Pan American Highway,
crossing at Tulcan/Ipiales and stopping in Pasto, Popayan,
Cali, Tulua, Ibague, and Bogota. After that we planned on
going to Medellin and stopping in Cartagena.

Do you know where I can find distances (in miles) and
reasonably up-to-date approximate travel times and
conditions. Also, do you know where I can find information
on how to ship our car from Cartagena to Panama? It doesn't
have to necessarily be from Cartagena but we want to pick up
the Pan American Highway at Panama City eventually.

Also, do you know the customs requirements for bringing a
car into Colombia or where I can find them? We're buying an
old car in Brazil for the journey and we're looking for a
4WD jeep or Toyota pick-up for spare parts, do you have a
better recommendation for a vehicle?

I've read many of your past answers and appreciated the
information! Many of the other blogs I have read go to
Guayaquil and ship their vehicles to Panama but I want to
see Colombia! We've all traveled extensively and will be
observing safe traveling practices so we're not worried
about crime in Colombia but does it still hold true to not
travel at night?

Please email me directly if possible as I stumbled upon this
blog!

Answer
Hey Jordan!

Great trip and it's going to be very helpful that you speak the language.

You have very specific questions and I may not be able to answer some, but I'll do my best to give you tips.

Pasto is not very interesting, I will skip it, but you could go to the Cocha lake in the nearby. I would also skip Tulua in favor of the Calima lake area, Buga or even Ginebra. Ibague is very industrial, I would choose instead Armenia and stay in one of those great Coffee bean plantation haciendas. Lots of people are doing it and their experiences are very positive.

I dont know of a web site for the distances and travel times, there could be some, but as soon as you enter Colombia you will find small Travel books with that information and more at most gas stations and they should not cost more than 20 USD.

Let me give you an estimate based on normal traffic conditions and good weather:

Tulcan-Pasto (3 to 5 hours) High mountains
Pasto-Popayan (5 to 6 hours) High mountains
Popayan - Cali (2 hours) Mostly flat
Cali-Tulua (1 hour) Flat
Tulua- Ibague (5 to 7 hours) High Mountains, lots of trucks
Ibague - Bogota (3 to 5 hours) High mountains, lots of trucks
Bogota - Medellin (6 to 8 hours) High mountains
Medellin - Cartagena (11 to 14 hours) High mountains then flat, lots of trucks

I really dont know of shipping companies that could transport your car to Panama. I know that some smaller companies offer this service but there are no regular schedules nor rates. I would like to know in order to offer better answers here. Other places where there could be shipping services available (more to the west, closer to Panama) are Tolu and Turbo.

I guess that they will offer transport to the Panamanian port of Colon which is supposed to be very unsafe, so if you do get there be extremely careful, the rest of Panama is very safe.

Toyota, Nissan or Mitsubishi brands are well known in Colombia and you should find service and spare parts in case you need them. If you are traveling across Colombia in your car I dont think you will need special permits but do contact your local Colombian consulate to make sure. I know very little about bureaucratic paperwork...!

Better avoid traveling at night in the following legs of the trip:

Pasto-Popayan
Bogota - Medellin
Medellin - Cartagena

Security has improved a lot but there are still issues and you have to be extremely careful.

I hope that this helps!

JC