Prologue

We not sure, but heading for "South America" tomorrow!

Tomorrow, after a 9 month rest of our last "Mexico" trip, we decided to head south for a 4th time  and try to reach a different continent "South America" this time! And we will put in some serious time and effort to reach there.. To go to South America was the main reason, we bought the bikes almost 2 years ago and after some trial trips in Honduras, Panama and Mexico, it was time to make the big jump.

Chris ( That's if his bike start),                   Scotty ( Scottish Mike) and myself are taking off on Sunday from Utila with the Tonia C freight boat for the mainland to start our 7000 km trip. Chris will go as far as Panama City and then we continue by plane to Colombia.

    

     The 2 bikes, we maintained last week by Doug de Silva and he said every time we use his name, we get a beer, so his name will show up many times in the next few weeks!  The bikes are in top shape now, new tires, brake pads, oil, sprockets, chain and greased up to hopefully stay without mechanical problems during our trip South.   Thanks Doug, this is beer # 2 each! 

Packed and ready to go....

          We made actually no plans where to stay and will make decisions on a daily basis, where and how far to go and the first one will be, How to deal with the many border crossings, because believe it or not we still not have original plates, because of all kinds of bureaucratic problems in Honduras. The next big issue will be to find in Panama City a cargo plane who will fly our bikes to Bogota, Colombia and then get ourselves to Bogota with COPA or Avianca.

It is only a 90 minute flight, but they charge for each bike $900.00 and the ticket is $450.00 and that is one-way! Then hopefully within 2 or 3 days, get reunited  with the bikes, Deal with the Colombian paperwork in Bogota, to get the bikes on their road legal and get the mandatory insurance! 

Chicaron!

          To get ahead of the trip, the idea is to go north from Bogota to the coast, east to Venezuela, south to Brazil and the Guyana's, to see if they still like Dutch people in Suriname ( I still have my "NL" sticker on the back of the moto) and then end up in Manaus, Brazil somehow.

the cook

So to say farewell to family and friends we had yesterday a good old time "Hogfry"  with the necessary beer to get our belly full for our trip!

       

            
 I wish we could drive it all the way to South America but there are still no roads between Panama and Colombia to cross the Darien Cap, which is almost impossible to penetrate, even by foot! Last year we went as far as Yaviza, Panama, what is considered the end of the road in North America.

          Most bikers, take a sailboat from Colon, Panama to Cartagena, Colombia, but we will loose too much time to line this up and then living on an island, it doesn't appeal too much any more to sail for a week to get to Cartagena on a slow boat, besides that, the loading hassle of the moto's and salt spray, during the trip  , is nothing to look forward to. And then you still end up paying around $ 800.00 total one-way!

           

              The idea is that the bikes are not coming back anymore to Honduras, but will be stored where ever we end up on the 1st of December, which is the planned return trip to Honduras by plane and then return  every 2 or 3 months later to South America again to put another month or so in, to reach eventually the bottom of South America by ends of next year.

Hopefully we do not need Doug's advice during our trip too much and in the case, we brake down, I carried a surplus of tools and parts, to stay ahead of the game.   That is beer number 3, Doug.....make that 4!