An eventful trip to Panama!

Flying to Panama was supposed to be the easy option. As I wait for the police in the airport holding cell, I change my mind.

Twenty-four hours ago I'd collected my new passport in Cartagena. In typical Colombian fashion, the girl at the Embassy had done me a real favor. The Consulate closes at midday and I was getting in at 1pm, so she left it with her friend, who works at a random company in the same office block. I rocked up to some kind of accountancy firm, asked for Yolanda, and received a DHL package. After frantically ripping it open, I was greeted by the comforting sight of red leather and that new-passport smell - freedom!

I immediately booked a flight to Panama City for the next morning. Cartagena to Bogota, Bogota to Panama City. For some reason I woke up stupidly early and decided to go straight to the airport - this turned out to be a good move...

At check-in the woman had to reschedule me to an earlier flight as there was not enough time to change planes in Bogota. She then asked to see my onward travel plans out of Panama. I don't even know what I'm doing tomorrow so obviously these did not exist. For some reason they were worried that I was planning to stay illegally in Panama (!). Luckily the woman from Avianca was a legend and made me a "reservation" to fly out of Panama two weeks later. I was allowed on the plane and landed in Bogota an hour later.

I hadn't had enough time to get a new entry stamp in the new passport. The plan was therefore to exit Colombia with my emergency passport and enter Panama with the new passport. When going through customs, the girl punched some stuff into a computer, asked me why I was travelling on an emergency passport and then disappeared into a small room. After what seemed like for ages, she returned and let me through - I was confused, but one step closer to being in Panama.

I'd cleared customs way in advance so amused myself by pretending I had enough money to buy duty free stuff. About 20 minutes before boarding the stewardess called my name and asked me to come to the front desk. She led me into a holding room and told me the police wanted to speak to me. I asked her why but she said she didn't know. We arrived at the room to find my backpack on a small table - uh-oh!

This kind of thing would have been worrying at the best of times but the Colombian-Panamanian border is not somewhere you want to have problems. During the 10 minute wait for the police I had visions of being locked up in a dodgy Colombian prison for the rest of my life. The police finally turned up, asked me to open my bag, took out two books and held them up in front of me. "Are these books?" they asked. "Yes", I replied, trying not to sound sarcastic while answering the ridiculous question.

After staring at me for 30 seconds, he flicked through them, said "OK", and escorted me onto the plane early! I still don't know what happened...but I have made it to Panama!