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Panama: June 2016 - Paso Canoas visa run to Costa Rica report:

My partner and I needed to do a border run to get an updated visa for Costa Rica, so March 31, 2017, my partner and I took a Tracopa bus from San Isidro, Costa Rica to Paso Canoas. the trip was five hours. At the Costa Rica border as has been said, you go to the Exit window to get an Immigration Form and fill it out. Again as had been said, you carefully cross the busy highway to the direct opposite side of the road to pay the exit tax. For us it was $8.00 each, so $16.00, then back to the Costa Rica Immigration with passport and tax receipt. The agent takes the receipt and stamps passport and you are off. We then walk the 100 meters or so to the Panama border on the right side of building. As we arrived at the window, I was taking out my passport, a man dressed in casual clothes, but had a badge around his neck asked for our passports. he put a stamp in them and asked for $1.00 which I paid, then he pointed to the Entrance window. I went to one window and my partner went to the other window. I had a woman who when I gave her my passport asked for my onward airline ticket which I gave her. My partner had a man who asked for nothing. The agents asked us to put first our fingers of right hand on a scanner, then thumb, then left hand fingers and thumb. We had to take off our hats and glasses and they took photos with a small camera. They then gave back the passports. Next was a comedy of errors, we went to the hotel that we wanted only to find that it had gone out of business, but luckily our taxi driver had not left, so he took us back to the border to a hotel he knew...another story. The following day. we were able to walk from the hotel to the border, about 50 meters to the right side of the Panama border and around to the Exit windows. We were unfourtunate to have gotten to the Panama border 10 minutes after a Tica Bus arrived so had to wait in line. We gave the passports to agents, and there was no conversations, passports were stamped and we were back to Costa Rica Immigration. This time since we were in line with all the Tica Bus passengers the agent asked a few questions, from were we were coming, how long we would be in Costa Rica, did we have travel tickets out of Costa Rica, but he never asked to see them. He took our Immigration Forms, stamped passports and returned them. One qlitch was that we did not fill out a Customs Form and before we could board our bus, Costa Rica officials made us all go into a corral area with bags and fill out the Custom Forms, checked our bags and then we were allowed to leave. It all boils down to which agent you get, time of day, how busy they are.

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