Penas Blanca, Nicaraguan border crossing and still not making any friends.

 Day 29 (266 Km)

   Had a good breakfast and then took the ride alongside Lake Arenal to Canas, Took almost 2 hours to do this 100 km scenic twisted road through a nice rain forest, After Canas it was north to the border on a dryer and dusty highway, due to road works. Arriving @ the border around 1 pm, we processed our bikes and ourselves out of Costa-Rica within 30 minutes and then crossed over to the Nicaraguan side, where all hell soon broke loose.

Lots of people, all with badges to show that  they are “legitimate” are not offering, but harassing you  to fill out your papers upon entering Nicaragua and as my standard way of procedure, I always refuse every-one and go direct to Immigration and customs to do my paperwork myself.  After receiving after a while my entry stamp and having an argument, that I was not paying a one cent to enter, because I was a resident of Honduras and that there  is free of charge border crossings between the CA-4 countries, they gave in and let me in free of charge on the end, but were pissed off, Scotty of course had to pay, by not being an Honduran resident yet after 20 years!

    Then we went to the Custom area to do our bike and presenting all the papers, he wanted to see the signed customs declarations of each of us and when I  asked for the forms, he said, you have to get this form  from one of the “people” outside, After looking for an half an hour for someone that had these forms, they send Scotty back to the Costa Rica area, where all the loafers were trying to push you papers earlier and finally reached the guy what had the empty forms, He didn't want to give the forms to Scotty  and start cursing his mother out for not getting it an hour ago. (The guy just had a T-shirt on) He said you not getting one now, because you did not wanted one earlier, so they had an altercation! Finally Scotty came back with only one empty form,  so then I had to go back to do the same thing. So arguing there the same point and listening to his crap, I told him in my very best Spanish, what I thought about him and I called the police standing around to put an official complaint against the loser, and took everybody mug shot for intimidation and a few minutes later the boss came and processed our papers after sending us first to secondary inspection of our motorcycles for narcotics. End of story, 4 hours later we drove away from the border to San Juan del Sur about 40 km away in Nicaragua, a sea town on the Pacific side.

    We had been there before, so it was easy to get a hotel, food and a few beers!

La Fortuna ^ Arenal for the 2nd time.

Day 28 (171 Km)

       We made a Sunday easy short drive towards Volcano Arenal, close to Fortuna. We went there already on the way going south 3 years ago and  the place had some good restaurants and many hotels in the small touristic village and it was only 150 km away from San Jose and we took the scenic road first to Volcano Poas and just before reaching that , cut across to Arenal. The whole drive still took more as 4 hours, but was worthwhile and  passed the small mountain roads to get there.

        We reached 2 pm and found a suitable hotel with A/C and WiFi and could park the moto's covered in front of the room. What more you want! Later we will have some good  food here, because the many restaurants cater to tourists here!, and is probably the last decent meal till I get home. Tomorrow Nicaragua and looking forward to cross that border zoo!

Did not make too many friends in Central America yet!

Day 26 (509 Km) and Day 27 (390 Km)

    Left the Hotel By the Panama airport @ 8 for the long haul to David, about 500km away and soon hit the first toll booth to get to Panama city and saw before I entered, I had to pay $ 1.20. Up to my surprise the girl told me, that I had to buy first a rechargeable card for $ 10.00, because they cannot accept cash anymore! I refused to pay the $ 10.00 and soon I had 100 cars behind me and I still refused to pay, I told her take the $ 1.20, she still refused and I asked Scotty, if he could bypass the tollbooth, without hitting the boom, he nodded and told him lets go. Told the girl “Kiss my as#” and we took off, only to get confronted 20 minutes later with another toll booth, had another little stand off about the same thing and soon bypassed this toll booth also, leaving everyone behind us in disbelieve! Having done this road about 4 times now in the last 3 years, we knew every few miles a motor police man, is hiding behind a tree to give motorists fines for speeding in their classic set up, reducing the speed limit from 100km to 40 km in the middle of nowhere, but this time, I smiled and waved to al of theml, when I passed them and around 5 pm we reached David. Half the people, I asked directions for the centre of town, didn’t know where the center is and not long after that, I decided to go towards the border and soon we saw a hotel on the side of the road and checked in , left the bikes packed in front of the room.

                                                          

   Next morning, an half an hour later we reached the zoo of Paso Canoas in 40 C and of all the border crossings in the world, this is the most grueling, time consuming one , but having this border done a few times already, I started in good spirit. The Panamanian side was not too bad eventhou they made a big deal about,  to see our yellow fever cards, because they noticed, we been to Peru and Ecuador according the stamps in our passport. I told the guy, you should have asked me when I entered Panama, not when I am leaving….., so he got pissed off. Then the sniffing dogs of their narcotic team, did not wanted to get up and sniff our bags for about 15 minutes and finally after a stamp here and there , they let us go to the Costa Rica side and I knew here all the crap will start , because they want from everything a photo copy and like to send you around to 10 different places and on the end you have to go back again to collect stamps. You would say having everything computerized in Costa Rica and considered the most advanced of all Central America, they should not have all this red tape, but they must have hired the most ignorant, incompetent people they could find to fill these positions to do this useless job and you could see none of them really wanted to work, especially on a Saturday       ( Must be Political) . Anyway, on the end the clerk was so upset, felt intimidated and even crying, after I told her in a “friendly “  way, what I thought about her work ethics, that we had to use Scotty as an intermediater between the two of us to process my papers and it was a good thing Costa Rica is one hour earlier as Panama, so we left this border around 10:30 am Costa Rica time. I must have lost 10 pounds of sweating in the last 3 hours intense heat and abnormal temperatures and my clothes were soaked, nowhere on this whole border, there was an A/C or fan to get any relieve and there was no breeze as well!  So 10 minutes later we stopped by a roadside bar to get some cold drinks and some crackhead wanted money for watching our bikes while we got our drinks and we were only sitting 10 ft away from the bikes and we were the only customers in the place. Actually we were watching him, so he did not steal anything!  After an half an hour, when we were leaving, he demanded money and I gave him 2 bitchlicks and that solved his problem for the day. Sofar this day, I made no new friends yet!

  On the narrow badly paved road, I saw a sign that San Jose was 350 km away and we decided to go there through the mountains to get out of this heat and 2 hours later we were @ 3300 meters and it was actually chilly, but the road was magnificent with very nice curves and vistas. Around 5 pm, we reached Carthago , a city with at least with  100000 people, but has no hotels and an hour later we decided to go to San Jose and reached there almost in dark, found an hostal and after 12 hours on the road, I was tired!

    

Costa Rica pacific coast route

Day 5 ( 542 km)

After a great breakfast buffet from the hotel, we left 7:30 am for the trip to the Panamanian border on a nice fast paved road through the rolling hills toward Punterenas on the pacific coast.  Close to it, I made a wrong turn and ended up on small mountain roads, which had  incredible scenery and finally hit the right road towards Quepos, a beach town further south on the pacific. By doing this, you avoid the capital San Jose and before we realized,  we were  only 200 km from  the Panamanian border  “Paso Canoas” and then the flood started, and we were soaking wet and drove over 2 hours in a downpour.

We could see hardly anything and it felt like hail and then Scotty’s motorcycle quit running on top off this with similar problems I had.

I just found out earlier today what my fuel problem was and as Doug suggested….Take the fuel filter out…..and that solved my problem and Scotty’s as well.

We bought some fuel hose and in no-while we were on our way again in the rain.

At Paso Canoas, what is actually the only commercial land border, Panama has, there must have been a thousand trucks and everybody trying to get paperwork done, so after pushing, shouting, playing ignorant, they took care of ours, because they felt pity with us seeing us soaking wet and just before dark, we left the border and hoping to find an hotel, which didn’t show up for almost 2 hours till we reach a little place called San Felix,  about an 100km from the border and we called it the day around 8pm, worn out and still wet! Threw  all our luggage in our  small A/C room, went quick to get a meal on the highway, where we asked directions for the hotel, before all was shut down and after this returned to the room, to take care of all the wet stuff.

A small a/c was in the room and out of experience all the wet clothes will be dry by tomorrow and it was!

No internet, so this update will be done hopefully tomorrow in Panama City.

Another zoo border into Costa Rica, called Penas Blanca

Day 4 (490 km)

Left Ocotal, Nicaragua early in the morning around 7 am, I wanted to reach Costa-Rica, so we had plenty of miles to go. Decided to have a stop in the Masaya Volcano national park, which was almost on the way to Costa-Rica, about halfway and around 11 am arrived there and did the photo shoot and continued to the border another 2 hours away!

Once we reached the border on both side the pandemonium started to get useless copies of papers, pay non existing fees and put up with their crab for about 2 hours and left the border with a shit load of papers more and reached Canas around 6 pm in a little drizzle rain, not even enough to get wet, checked into a 
fancy $ 50.00 hotel with all the amenities and had Chinese food again with the necessary beers to lessen the thirst, had a good internet connection in the a/c room, what was nice for a change, last few days were bad or slow!

Tomorrow Panama, probably the city of David and planning to take the pacific coast road through Quepos, what is new to me, because 30 years ago this was a dirt road, we will see tomorrow, how the improvements are!

On a side note, I still have problems with the gas tank and we can not figure it out!

With a full tank , I can drive 140 miles only and the the engine start cutting out, normally I can drive 220 miles, before I fill up, so why is this happening, I know it is not water, so what is the reason? I am open for suggestions. 

After the engine stops, I wait 2 minutes and she will start up again, but only for a few minutes and cut off again, she only runs good again if I fill the tank up completely!

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!

Rio Frio Crossing, by boat only!

Sunday 26 June 2011

    We left Zarcero on Sunday morning early and the town was preparing for a religious procession, took som pictures and headed for Los Chiles, which is the border town,  from where you had to take a small boat to San Carlos Nicaragua, no cars is possible to cross and the 2 countries just had a border dispute what was more or less settled in international court in Den Haag. It was about the rights and protection of the river "San Juan", which forms the border from the Atlantic to Lake Nicaragua. We reached Los Chiles and checked the scene out and asked around How to get to Nicaragua and were advised to take the small river boat at 3PM

   After checked out of Costa Rica, we were waiting and the boat actually showed up and after talking to the captain and agreeing on the price of $60.00 for bike and our passage each, we start boarding the bikes, what took an half an hour and secured it with ropes. The trip was about an hour and was very interesting with the poor settlements on the banks, the monkeys howling and passing the Nicaraguan army post. Fanally we reach the lake and to the right we saw San Carlos and docked up pretty soon after that. Everybody was curious about the motorcycles including police and customs and were prepared for the worse.

Our insurance for Nicaragua on the bikes was still valid and they didn't give us the hassle with the plates, I was fearing, so an hour or so later we got a police escort to the hotel, he recommended and he was putting on his siren on to impress the local population and us and in no while we reached the hotel, said goodbye and told him we would buy him a beer later in town if he was still there. Checked in the crappy hotel with a loud A/C, but it was cheap and realized again everything is half price here compared to Cost a Fortune.

Had the best evening meal sofar this trip in a nice champa type restaurant on the waterfront, called Lagostinnas and at the same thing (Freshwater shrimp/lobster), the beer was cold so the night was pretty good for us

3600 meter up on the Panam and visiting Volcano Irazu

Saturday 25 June 2011

   That morning ,when we left, I was surprised how high up the Pan American road went and how quick, within 15 miles we reached the top of the mountain road which was 3600 meter, more as 11500 feet and it became pretty chilly. Close to the top there was a restaurant with a very nice view and decided to warm our hands inside and get some coffee!

Getting closer to San Jose, we took a right and we went for another mountain road to the volcano Irazu, which was very impressive and there were quite a few tourists there, after taking some pictures, we went down the mountain again and an hour later hit traffic ni the capital of San Jose. it was still early in the afternoon and decided to stay somewhere north of San Jose in the mountains and after getting lost for a while , we ended up in a nice place, called Zarcera Found an hotle around the main plaza and did we regret that, because all night the local crowd, where popping wheelies and singing serenades and all the time all car alarms went off, I guess that is Saterday night fever in this place