a summary of my findings on how to hop across the gap by plane, and an update on price. includes the possibly obvious-to-some answers i wanted a month ago.. basically an idiots´guide on flying panama-quito (like me), or i assume a similar process, to colombia.

first of all you need to book your own passenger flight, through ´copa air´ or similar. do this on the web. if you can get a date at the beginning of the week, all the better, because customs in quito aren´t open at weekends, so won´t allow you to pick up your bike then. Book a PM flight. This allows you the time in the morning to get the bike to girag at the ´terminal de carga´and do all the paperwork, then get over to the passenger terminal, which can take a little while on the gravelly road, even by taxi.

Have photocopies of your passport, driver´s licence, bike ´permiso´ for panama, bike registration document or ´title´, and any other official shi_te you have. On the day of your flight, drive on over to the well signposted cargo terminal of panama tocumen airport -that´s the international one, not the national one.. which is half an hour away or less from pan city centre. The guys who work there take a 2 hr lunch break, so try and get there early-ish. When you get there ask where Girag is -that´s pronounced shie-rag, not hirag, or with a hard ´g´ at the beginning.

BRING CASH. they do not accept any cards. at the time of writing the cost for my klr650 was $750.85, including all tax +everything. I got the impression it was a fixed price- although they weighed my bike, they had already told me the price without even seeing it, so as far as i know, a GS or even heavier (is there such a thing?) would be the same. Have less than half a tank of petrol when you arrive -a fifth of a tank or even less is ideal. otherwise you may have to drain some.

I had to remove all my soft luggage, but i do not know the score for touratech panniers or similar aluminium hard boxes. my ´top box´ (a milk crate) stayed on, however, and i packed things like tools in there before they wrapped it up tightly with industrial cling film. write down the date-time that the bike will arrive.

Allow them to pry the cash out of your sweaty hand. It will be very, very sweaty . they´ll call you a taxi to the passenger terminal. mine cost two dollars. then your just get on your flight like any other. one note on this-muggins here forgot that flying in a plane is actually a process that adheres to strict regulations regarding what you can take in your hand luggage... a couple of weeks after the england-usa bomb threat, no less... idiot.
two safety flares, a penknife, some electrical tape and a leatherman later
and i´m very F_ing surprised that i got on the flight at all. so shove it all in your main baggage.

the bike arrives two or three days later, in Quito. Quito airport information took amusement in mocking me for even suggesting that a bike could be flown there from another country. Better than enduring this is to walk straight past the passenger area to the far end of the carpark -left end as you look at the airport entrance- where importation and customs are. As i say, they are only open on weekdays. As i´m writing this on a saturday, having just been to the airport and now having to go back monday, i can´t finalise the idiots´guide right now... however the black dude guard, who greets you at customs, was possibly the nicest guy in the world. He said he thought it was roughly fifty bucks total to get the thing out of there.

to be continued..