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!

    

Central America, back to rice and beans again!

Day 23, 24 & 25 (0 Km)

      Repacked all the bags and after fixed Scotty's electric and gas problem, we took off to the airport to see if we could ship the 2 moto's to Panama. We arrived @ Girag freight company and went to see the office people to find out what they need from us to ship it. It was the same company we used 15 months earlier from Panama to Bogota, but the procedures are different in Colombia. Here you need a broker and after getting the address about 10 minutes away from the airport, I visited LynCargo and all went fast there and an hour later I had paid the $ 1030 freight for each bike and the told me to go back To Girag and someone will come there to finalize the process @ 2 pm from LynCargo. So the guy came @ 3 pm and we did the running round with him to get a stamp here and there and around 8 pm we were finished and the bikes were inside the warehouse. The only thing short was the next day of the police to search our luggage and that happened @ 8 am next day, so we had to go back again to be present.

   We found an Hotel near the airport to save on taxi's in a run down area and ordered our online tickets from United Mileage Program, But after I had my ticket secured for Thursday 9 am, I could not get Scotty's ticket for the same flight, but found one @ 2 pm to Panama. 

  Next day Thursday, I left 6 am for the airport and took my COPA flight to Panama and walked through immigration, when I received an email that the bikes were already in Panama and ready to be picked up. So around none I was @ Girag cargo terminal and around 2 pm I had both bikes out of the customs and were delivered to me and also got a police permit to drive in Panama, so all was set ready to go!

    Went to the Hotel, near the airport where we stayed many times now, got a room and picked Scotty up around 5 pm coming from his Bogota flight and after this, we went to pick up his bike by Girag terminal as well. I had his bike already earlier parked outside the gate and 6 pm all was done and now it is beer time!

It was hard to believe all went this smooth the last few days and tomorrow we will be on our way towards Costa Rica.

Third time to South America and this time Ushuaia!

Day 1 & 2 (0 km)

  We left our Motorcycles parked in Mar del Plata with a friend in Argentina, so we are flying back to get reunited and bringing lots of spare parts to get Scotty's bike fixed again.




So I left on Sunday Utila already for La Ceiba to do some banking in the Mega Plaza and all banks were open except the one I needed "Bac Bamer" known as Credomatic, but still, it felt good to be on the main land, because you never know for sure on departure day, the weather might turn bad and then there is no ferry, so leaving a day early puts me on ease and it feels like the trip started. 


    There were some big National Partido parades in the streets of La Ceiba, with hundreds of cars and I watched all the blue colors, noise and flags passing by from the balcony of the hotel. Walking around in this parade with a red shirt would get you killed in 5 minutes or less and Ceiba has all ready a pretty good record without having a parade ( As you can see there are no pedestrians on the side walks)

    Later this evening my wife Shirley is coming over and we will do some shopping in the Mall and we will have a good meal in Applebees with some Miller Lite and after bringing her back to the ferry in La Ceiba the next morning, I will be heading for the airport.

     My first plane is leaving Monday 11:15 from La Ceiba to the capital Tegucigalpa. that is , if they let us on board, Airlines here are famous to apply any written rule such as immigration requirement in final country and of course we only have a one way ticket. I made some fake ones from an Expedia.com email I received years ago and photo shopped, copy and paste relevant data on the computer and choose an airline, they are not partners with, so I could show them a confirmed reservation in La Ceiba at the TACA counter that I have a ticket to get out of Argentina in the case they ask for one! It usually works, but will find out tomorrow. 

    In Tegus we have a 5 hour lay over and will notify our banks not to block our credit cards, by specifying which countries we are going to visit. Credomatic likes to block cards if travelling outside the country! Then @ 5 pm a short flight to Salvador and then around 9 pm a 2 hour flight to Panama, where we will spend the first night in walking distance from the airport, in a nearby hotel with A/C,. We know this hotel from our previous trips and there is cold beer in the refrigerator by the reception, so we can not get wrong! In Panama we will be 12 hours and leave next day noon for a 7 hour flight to Buenos Aires, Argentina.

COPA flight Panama-Colombia, not Columbia

Day 7 (767 km flying miles)

     Shuttle brought us back 8:30 to the airport again and after having some breakfast in another overpriced snack-bar in the departure hall ($ 27.00 for coffee and 2 donuts each) we boarded our 90 minutes flight to Bogota and on arrival after passing immigration, we changed some money and went looking for our bikes at the cargo terminal which was close with a free shuttle bus and looked for the Girag office.

     It was easy to find and spoke to some one who said that the bikes are not in Colombia yet and still in Panama and to come back on Tuesday  so I was already pissed off after Girag promised me to send the bikes this Saturday and I should have know better and blame myself for believing this was going to happen all so smooth and reality set in immediately, that it was not going to happen soon, so that meant 3 days in Bogota and I actually didn't mind it, 

because I never been here before and soon found out the place to be is the Candeleria in the old centre of town, we looked for a hotel with good internet and this area was buzzling with activities, bars and restaurants, so I think we will manage for 3 days!  maybe even play the gringo tourist and visit the "Museo del Oro", which should be very interested according all guidebooks

Saying goodbye to the motorcycles in Panama

Day 6 (394 km)

     Woke up early, to see if we could make the freight terminal in Panama city, to drop off our bikes for Bogota, Colombia and after a fried goat meat as breakfast with flitters and something looked like coffee, we were hauling ass and not much later the motor police pulled as over, he was standing strategically in a curve behind the bushes with his not working laser speed device , it was set almost burned into a magic speed of 111km, in a not existing 80km zone, after arguing back and forward with the usual threats on his side, we agreed I would pay a toll fee of using his stretch of road for $ 15.00 each, shook hands wished each other luck and I knew he needed that. From that moment, we obeyed the speed limit much more closely and the whole road to Panama City was full of motor police, standing behind trees, so we stayed behind one of these direct busses from David to Panama and decided let the bus driver do the work of us obeying the speed limit.

     

Anyway around 1pm we rolled into the city with very heavy traffic and after some lucky road decisions ended up on the toll road to the airport and reached Girag freight terminal in Tolcumen International airport, parked the bikes and went in their office. Asked them if they still had a flight tomorrow to Bogota and could carry 2 bikes. The young guy said no problem, just pay $ 902.00 next door by the cashier, bring a few copies of the bikes and the bike will be Saturday midday in Bogota, but being the weekend we only good pick it up Monday morning.

     We could leave as much luggage on the bike as we needed; even left the gas and battery connected and told me carry the key, because they didn’t need it. After we repacked and put some clean clothes on (finally), we took a taxi @ 4 to the main airport, to see if we could get a flight out to Bogota that night.

     After we talked @ the counter from  COPA  and Avianca/TACA, it seems none of them were cooperative or even interested in our one way ticket request and said they were overbooked and later in the week it would be $ 472.00 one way, we walked away to see if I could find a decent internet connection, to do my own research!  Soon a guy from the Airport customer service desk approached us and I mentioned that the free internet from the airport is too slow and he said, you can use my office upstairs and use our fast internet and we followed him. He opened the door, set up his computer and in no-while was able to purchase 2 tickets through my frequent flyer mile program from United for $131.00 in fees and taxes plus turning in 10000 miles for each ticket and was able to book it for next day Saturday at 11 am.

Went back to COPA to piss them off about their lies of being overbooked and showed them the tickets and felt much better already!

Then he introduced  us to a friend, which was in charge of reservations around town for hotels and after mentioning to him our budget and wanted to be close as possible to the airport a shuttle bus showed up and  $35.00 and  2 minutes later we checked in, took a shower  and returned back to the airport to have dinner in their overpriced restaurant and drank a few beers to celebrate all went so smooth today and that we will be in Bogota 2600 meter high, tomorrow and was looking forward to the cooler air it should have or at least in the night.

     So to think about the trip so far, we drove almost 1700 km from Tegucigalpa in 72 hours to Panama City with only a $ 15.00 fine for speeding, no really mayor break downs, every night a good rest and were ahead one day of our schedule as planned!

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.

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 Sereno, quiete border off the beaten track.

Friday 24 June 2011

 

Border Rio Sereno, Panama

    Leaving David in the morning and took a nice winding road to the Rio Sereno border, which was recommended a lot of times to use instead of the Canoas crossing. Getting there early, we had the bad luck there was no electricity and that meant, we could not check out our bikes and get through Panamanian customs and without there exit stamp in our passports, we were not allowed to enter in Costa Rica, so we waited nearby four hours, till a lot of people had gathered there with the similar problems and then suddenly at 3 pm it was possible to cross, so it was all day crap arguments , that you couldn't cross without no electricity!
Anyway we still had valid motorcycle insurance from 2 weeks ago when we entered from Nicaragua, so the Costa Rica side went fast and hit  very bad dirt road to the nearest small village about 10 miles away and after that it changed into paved road with pot holes to get further into Costa Rica, We were still high-up so the weather was cool, but soon it started to drizzle and a little later it poured and reached San Isidro and looked for a road hotel and checked in and tried to dry our clothes again.

Trying to leave Panama to David

Thursday 23 June 2011

We did our laundry in the morning at the guesthouse and decided midday to leave for David, which is about 6 hours away and close to the Costa Rica border, so we had a good start the next day to cross the border in an alternative place, besides the busy Canoas crossing. I read about the Rio Sereno crossing and the road towards is that you feel like you driving in the Alps.

So midday, we took off but we hit a lot of rain during our8 hour event and got water soaked in David, looked for an hotel around the zocola and try to dry our clothes, while hitting the town for a bite

A/C does wonders to wet cloth and everything was dry the next morning.

Back to the Capital, but first to the Caribbean to see the Gatun Locks

Wednesday 22 June 2011

Street view Yaviza

Street view Yaviza

    Left to go back and soon after passing the same military posts and checked us out we reached the outskirts of the airport where we made a right turn to see the Gatun locks, where the ships entered the Panama canal from the Atlantic side. During our trip towards Colon, I lost Scotty in traffic and for the first time I realized, we did not had a back up plan in the event, this would happen to us and because we were talking earlier about the Gatun locks, I continued by my self, hoping I would catch up with him. I decided to take the toll road to see how it felt to go full out and close to Colon it started to rain and I took refugee under an overpass and surprisingly an half an hour later Scotty passed full speed not even noticing me and had to jump quick and chase him to catch up

 The locks were nice and we were lucky to see the last ship for the week pass through and were the only visitors. They were going to close for a week to do maintenance and were making new locks for bigger ships to get through. After our visit Scotty wanted to go to Portobello on the coast, which is an harbor north of Colon and an hour later reached there, looked around drank a beer and saw all the sailboats anchored in the harbor, most of them ready to go to Colombia and this would be one of our options to get the bikes to South America next year. Stopped at the old fort, took a picture and headed back to our guest house in Panama City, where we reached after dark, went to the same restaurant again , watch some soccer, Honduras was playing and went back to the house

Yaviza, back to Panama is a straight new road for the first 60 miles

Darien Cap, Yaviza, end of the road, watch out, we are coming today!

Tuesday 21 June 2011

    We left most of our equipment behind in the guesthouse and left very light to go to our final destination YAVIZA

     After hitting rush hour in Panama city and looking at sky risers, we were impressed with the development of the city compared to other Central American cities, we passed the airport and soon saw the road sign to the Darien Cap. this is the last district with still no roads connecting it with Colombia and even on foot, boat or horse it takes days to cross the last 50 miles plus all the FARC, banditos and outlaws, makes the territory infamous and dangerously, so that is one of the reasons , I wanted to see it for myself. The paved road was in bad condition, full of potholes for the 50 miles and we took a breakfast break Scotty style to get some courage to continue. Once on the road again, the road became so good and new, that we could go full out and soon hit the first Military stop and received a 3rd degree drill, what is the reason, we wanted to continue and how long and told us to check every night with them, where ever we were.

We had several stops like this and soon in the afternoon, we reached Yaviza.

It looked like a poor settlement on a river, with a few streets, but was busy with all class of people, doing business, before they return to the jungle. We drove around for 5 minutes and were picked up by a local military patrouille and had to follow them and at their barracks had to register again and asked us a few questions

Checked in a local hotel, there was only one and went downstairs in the cantina to drink our 
$ 0.50 US cold beers to celebrate our goal reached and stayed a few hours longer and got into conversation with the locals

The place reminds me a little bit as Guanaja or Utila Cays 30 years ago, with the same style of houses on stilts, same type of bars & Churches. After the bar ran out of beer, we went back upstairs in the hotel and of course the lights went off and felt like I was home again 30 years ago!

Yaviza