From Anchorage to Ushuaia by Bike

Since Mexico, and in all of Central America, plastic bags and plastic bottles are everywhere. Literally ubiquitous. People roam the streets with bottles and bags in hand. The garbage bins are full of them, as are the ditches by the side of the road and all the stream and river beds. 

In the bakeries, each pastry comes wrapped in plastic, and then they are all bagged together. In the grocery store, it doesn’t matter whether we buy a package of cookies or groceries for a week, we always end up with an impressive number of plastic bags. If we go to the deli counter for cheese or meat, each slice is wrapped individually, then wrapped with the other slices, then finally bagged together with our other orders. When we go to check out, absolutely everything is bagged. A 5 litre water bottle is double, or even triple bagged, in case the first one tears from the weight. And for the most part, the bags aren’t full. The customer never bags the groceries, only the employees, and in Panama, the generally rule was to double bag, even for a package of cookies. Obviously, we try our best to keep all these “free” bags to a minimum. 

When we try not to take the bags, we are invariably misunderstood. Sometimes we try to explain, but it never goes well. The day we arrived in Panama, I said I didn’t need a bag for a 2 litre bottle of juice and a can of tuna. The two cashiers stared uncomprehendingly at me and asked three times whether I was absolutely sure that I didn’t want the plastic bag. “No, no, I don’t want it. I don’t need it!” I tried to explain that all these plastic bags generate a lot of pollution and were bad for the environment. But to no avail. I’m sure that they thought I was from another planet – at least that’s how they looked at me!

This morning, we knew we would have problems registering our bikes for the flight from Panama to Quito. All the bikers who had done this before had had trouble with the one airline company that runs direct flights between those cities. To make things easier, we had found cardboard boxes for the bikes and had packed up our bikes in them. We had carefully sealed the boxes using (plastic) packing tape, but as soon as we got into the terminal, the porters (unavoidable since there aren’t any carts freely available) descended upon us and practically forced us to get our boxes re-wrapped in plastic sheets. All for the modest sum of US $36, per bike! “No!” we protested.  But they explained that we didn’t have a choice, that it was mandatory, and that the airline would refuse to take the boxes unless they had been shrink-wrapped. “No, No!” Our porter led us away from the check-in counters, and told us we should trust him: he could take us somewhere where it would cost much less to wrap our boxes. “But we don’t want to wrap them!” 

On the way, an airline employee confirmed that we should follow him – no further explanation. We went back outside the terminal and arrived in a little room with its own check-in counter, and a few travelers standing around watching the employees wrap up their luggage: suitcases, backpacks, etc. There was tightness in our throats as we watched, disgusted by the sight of all that plastic, distressed that we might have to give in, and generally annoyed by the porter who kept repeating that we just had to ask the agent and she would confirm that we absolutely had to wrap our luggage. As we waited our turn in line, the porters stepped up their game and lowered their price: 30, 20, then just US $15 per bike. We stood firm: “No, no, no. No!”

Finally, we approached the counter. The agent explained that we were at the special baggage counter because of the bikes. Behind us, our porter continued to insist that we had to plastify our luggage. We tried (calmly) to explain to the agent that we didn’t want to wrap our boxes in plastic, and that we refused to participate in this wanton destruction of the environment. The agent listened attentively to our arguments and told us that we didn’t have to use the plastic, but that if we didn’t we would have to sign a waiver discharging the airline of  any responsibility for damaged luggage. We took the risk. Our porter finally understood that we wouldn’t be paying, and in the middle of the room he loudly announced that he was claiming $5 for his services. Still somewhat nauseated by the whole process, we didn’t really feel like giving him anything, but he had spent a lot of time with us and had transported our luggage to the counter. We offered him $3, but he kept loudly insisting on $5, which we ended up giving to him. It seems being a porter/plastic wrapper in Panama City airport is quite a lucrative business. 

We were feeling pretty beat up already when the agent told us that our luggage was overweight and that we would have to pay extra. Lovely. Well, it wasn’t entirely unexpected, and we were prepared to pay, but the question was, how much. The official limit was 32 kg. Sara had 35 kg, and I had 40. “And so how much will the surcharge be?” Given our rather fragile state, the agent tried to explain delicately that we would have to pay $75 each for the bikes, and $50 for the overweight luggage (since it’s the same price whether you’re 1 kg or 20 kg over), for a total of $250 together!

We told her that this was not the first time that we had flown with our bikes, that this was more than twice as much as we would have to normally pay, and that we wouldn’t pay it. She was pretty understanding and reduced the fee to $75 each - $150 total. Given everything that we had read in the blogs, this was the minimum that we could reasonably expect to pay, and so we agreed.

Both on departure and arrival we could see that the bikes were not exactly handled with care. But we did land in the right city, with all our luggage, although we were physically and mentally exhausted. We were graciously welcomed by Mauricio who we are staying with for a couple of days. We’ll see tomorrow whether the bikes arrived safe and sound. And just think, if anything is broken, we’re sure to find some plastic tape to fix it up!

Sébastien