Long Ride South

With the help of a Panama-style wake up call  (they come and knock on your door), we get a very early start, and after some great coffee, cab it to the airport.  The usual Panama city traffic slows us down a bit, and we wind up getting on the plane just before take-off.  Airport security managed to find some tools in my carry-on to confiscate, of course.

Nice plane;  leather seats, extra leg room; even served food on a one hour flight!  Arrived on time, and our baggage was there when we got through immigration!  Airport staff was friendly and helpful.

Found Girag office and started the paperwork chase.  Really not bad, just had to find and walk to one customs office, and the customs officials we had to deal with were super nice and very helpful.  We were all done with transit documents in one hour.

Back at Girag terminal, we were all loaded up and ready to ride out when I noticed than the windscreen on my bike had been broken on the right hand side.  Something large and heavy had smashed into the from cowl on the right side. I of course complained, and that started a process that delayed us another two hours.  After having a bunch of people look at the damage, I was finally offered $100 USD to settle my claim for damage. which I accept, since there wasn’t anything I could do about it anyway. 

Finally, we left the airport, at around 2:30 PM.  We followed the main road into Bogota, and immediately we were confronted by some of the craziest and most reckless driving we had seen.  These guys were nuts.  They would simple run you off the road.  It was a very intense ride into town, and we got lost when we tried to get off the main road onto the street we hoped would have a hotel we could afford. 

The next two hours were another nightmare.  It tarted to rain just as we exited the highway, and that became a downpour of biblical proportions;  the streets flooded, and became curb-deep lakes.  The surface streets were a maze of one-way and crazy-angle tangle that got us hopelessly confused.  then, we managed to get separated when I made a sudden left turn and Levi could not follow.  In the downpour we tried to find each other, but even with our radios we spent an hour wandering the flooded streets looking for each other.  The street numbering system in Bogota is no system at all, and just too confusing for us simple gringos to follow.

At last, I found the spot that Levi was holed up at, and we waited out the rainstorm like two drowned kittens together.  Soaked to the skin and cold.  When the rain subsided, and the lakes receded, we worked our way north through the city until we found a wierd hotel with enclosed parking.  Over-priced, but we could not be fussy at this point.

We dried off, and warmed up, and then got overcharged for a very mediocre dinner.  Went out to a couple of local bars for a beer, and got nothing but poor service and very weird looks.  We went to a pool hall, and played some pool,  smoked a couple of small cuban cigars we got in Panama, and I went back to the hotel and went to bed!  Levi went off into the nearby University area to see what the nightlife was like.

Our first day in Columbia was a very mixed bag.  The experience at the airport was very positive.  People were friendly and helpful.  But Bogota is no place I ever want to drive a motorcycle in again, and the people, at least in the are where we wound up,  were not so friendly at all.  One interesting thing we noticed, was that about half of the vehicles on the street were motorcycles!  It was amazing how many there were.  Mostly small (125-250 cc), but everywhere.  They swarmed the streets in droves.  It is wild to see so many bikes at the lights and corners.  It looks like some sort of motorcycle rally in progress at every traffic stop!

Sorry, couldn't resist (A Kosher Deli in Panama City)

There were several reasons why reaching Panama had a special significance for us. First, it’s the mental halfway point, signifying the end of our North/Central-American trip, and the start of the South American one – the middle of our trip world. Second, it meant a brief respite from our routine: wake up, shower, eat breakfast, pack our things from a hotel back onto our bikes, ride till around the evening, find a hotel, unpack, have dinner, grab a few beers, and go to sleep.  Lastly, it was the big question mark on the trip… how do we bridge the gap in the Panamerican Highway between Panama and Colombia? Before we could answer that question, we had to make it to Panama City, halfway across the country.

Crossing the Panamanian border won the country two awards for border crossings: fastest and easiest in Central America (commendable), and most dangerous anywhere I’ve seen. Also, Panama uses Balboas as their currency, which for some reason means they use USD bills, but mint their own coins, which look exactly like ours for the same denominations… but even if they list prices in Balboas, points for not needing to translate currencies. Anyhow, the border between Costa Rica and Panama is a river, and on the northern border we used, the nations decided to make use of an old railroad bridge. Perhaps 500 meters long, the bridge still had the original iron rails and wooden railroad ties. Wooden planks, warped with use and weather, had been roughly nailed longitudinally and three abreast to the ties on either side of the iron rails, but not in between them. Down to one lane, guards allowed one vehicle to pass the bridge at a time. Cars and trucks drove with the train tracks between their tires, and aside from being on rails and treated to a perhaps bumpy ride, they were safe. Motorcycles, however, were another story.

Looks like fun, huh?

For us, it was a nightmare. Unable to use the safety of the middle of the bridge, which was still the original ties, we were forced to choose a side to ride down. Large iron nails had been used to attach the planks, and stuck out dangerously (for our tires at least) everywhere. Chainlink fence seemingly originally meant to serve as protection was now bent and warped. In the middle, the bottom of the fence had wandered several feet from the planks, treating us to unobstructed views of the river below. Dodging large nails and larger gaps, we slowly navigated the left side of the bridge. The wood was damp and flexed under our weight. We started on the middle of the three planks with our feet on either side to steady us, all too aware of the large amount of steadying a couple high-slung overloaded motorcycles need at low speed. When the outside plank disappeared, we moved to the inner plank, steadying ourselves with one foot on the ancient railroad rail, sliding along in the water, gazing at the fence bent by unknown accidents of old.

Ever so slowly, we reached the other bank of the bridge, and were once again in the wonderful world of paperwork. A guard told us where we could park our bikes and promised to keep an eye on them. He also had a motorcycle, and talked to us about them. We began the border process with our bikes, always the most complicated thing. As usual, we needed photocopies, and there wasn’t a photocopier in sight. The agent told us where to look, but that didn’t stop a score of children from trying to “help” us find it hoping for money. About 200 yards past the border building, there was a cell phone shop that made copies, and we marched back, picking up child beggers in both directions. We finished up our bike paperwork, and moved to the line for customs. In line with us were 4 other people we’d seen the night before at Rockin’ J’s, a group of three Americans and a Spanish woman. The other Americans and us found we were special cased by Panamanian customs, and had to buy tourist cards before we could enter.

$10 later, we were back in line at customs, and joking with the guard with the motorcycle. He gave us directions to the main road out of town (which was remarkably difficult to get to), and told us if we thought the bridge we’d taken to get to this side of the river was bad, we should look for a new definition of the word. He said there was another bridge, like this one but over a kilometer long, about 12 kilometers up the road, and that around 8 motorcycles fall off it a year. He advised us to take the left side of the tracks, and to walk it first so we really knew what we were getting ourselves into. Mulling over the thought of crossing a worse bridge than the one we’d already done, we completed our paperwork, amazed that it’d only taken about an hour, and with no dirty looks.

We followed the guard’s directions out of town, which  was extremely handy since there were absolutely no signs, and the road he had us take didn’t look anything like what we’d expect to be the road out of town. A litte ways out, and we were stopped by a major roadblock: a rail had descended across the roadway, and bunches of bananas suspended from the rail were hauled across the roadway by people riding donkeys. I got a video on my camera, but sadly, no worthwhile photos.

The next town down was even more confusing. We had to ask for directions numerous times, and twice passed a turn we were supposed to take (completely non-obvious and totally unlabeled) only to have everyone on the street (or in a car) waving and pointing us the right way. It was clear that foreigners had trouble getting out of town, and we hardly had to ask for directions before cops, taxis, and pedestrians were pointing us in the right direction. Panama had so far been flatlands, but the one road out of town went up a mountain, then descended to the bridge we’d been warned about.

Next to a construction project for a new, sensible bridge was the kilometer long bridge of death. Construction workers stood at either side of the bridge, taking turns letting one direction of travel past. We parked our bikes and scoped things out. It was terrifying. Similar to the previous bridge, there were nails sticking up, boards missing, and vast stretches along the middle of the bridge where there was no guard rail to speak of at all. We psyched ourselves up to the point of being thoroughly terrified, asked the guy letting people across to let us be in the back of the pack, waited our turns, and went.

Even more fun than the first!

Trying my best to not look down, I inched my way down the bridge. Rushing water and bone-breaking rocks stared back when my eyes wandered. Time was the one thing moving slower than us, and it seemed like I was stuck on the bridge forever. Though we’d been at the end when we started, seeing how slow we were moving, the guy at the bridge let more people behind us on, though thankfully none of them honked or tried to rush us. I’d have to guess we were on the bridge for 8 terrifying minutes, but it seemed like an eternity. To date, this was the most dangerous thing we’ve done on the trip…

But we made it across, relieved to be alive to ride another day. The road then took a jog up what seemed like the only mountain range in the country, with views over endless flatlands of trees, and the bay of Bocas del Toro, which also sports a rather scenic archipelligo. Perhaps it was just the risidual adrenaline in my veins, but only one mountain range up and I was thinking Panama had some of the most beautiful scenery to date.

When we descended from the mountains, we were in the port town of Almirante. The road instantly became confusing, and had no labels. We tried stopping at the first hotel we saw, which happened to be called “2 Gringos,” but a couple kids came up to us and told us it was closed (after waiting for someone to answer the bell for a couple minutes). One of the kids on a bike also offered to help us find a different hotel, and led us down a dozen side streets before stopping by a shipping yard with a hotel across the street. It was full. Just up the street though, he led us to what may have very well have been the last hotel in town, not that you’d have known it, since it didn’t have any sign. It also didn’t have any rooms with two beds, so we splurged and got a third. Ahh, it’s great to be a “rich” American.

The next morning, we had the pleasure of once again trying to find the right road out of a Panamanian town. After a few lucky guesses, we were once again ascending in the mountains overlooking the ocean. Here we had a new twist on the always-spectacular mountain road. At each (frequent) bend of the mountains was a typical mountain river – a trickle of water tumbling down the mountain. Besides being incredibly common thanks to the cloud forest at the top of the mountain, each innocent trickle ran through a path of destruction of colossal proportions. Fifty feet or more of road was often shifted down the mountain several feet or swept completely away, great paths of boulders, broken pipe, asphalt, and upside-down trees cut through the vegetation, and there were boulders so large the road workers had given up on moving them from the highway and had instead painted them bright pastel colors in an attempt to improve their visibility.

This used to be the road...

and there's where it went.

Not so innocent after all

We ascended up into the cloud forest feeding the streams, once again driving down a road that disappeared into swirling fog off the side of the mountain, the temperature rapidly changing from blazing hot to cold as blazes. Thankfully, unlike in Costa Rica, we crossed this ridge in the middle of the day, there was far less traffic, and we were descending again in a matter of minutes instead of hours. Our descent quickly showed us that the Panamanian government was trying to recoup some of its obviously significant roadway expenses thanks to the water, and had built a rather impressive dam.

The Hoover it is not.

But it does have a cool spillway.

Over the dam, into the mountains, we crested a final ridge and descended, through glorious lush vistas, and back into the Central American heat we know so well.

Some of the best views yet...

Sadly, our descent brought us down to the vast coastal plane that defines southern Panama. From there until Panama City, it was nearly all flat, hot, and consistent (read: boring by comparison) scenery. Stopping for lunch at a truck stop with a store in it, we were extremely pleased to see the result of being in an inexpensive country with a major international shipping port, as nearly all manner of goods were available at amazingly cheap prices as long as you didn’t mind that the labels were often in Russian or Chinese.

We ended our second night in Panama in the town of Santiago, which is relatively large by Panamanian standards. We found a wonderfully cheap and sleazy motel right on CA-1, and went out in search of dinner and civilization. We found Santiago to offer little of either beyond a sizeable soccer stadium, and we ended up eating at a food kiosk directly outside of it. As is nearly always the case when we stop at places most American tourists don’t stop, we seemed like the most popular guys in town. Afterwards, we gave up on finding any nightlife, and sleep came easy to the sound of our room’s air conditioner (hooray sleazy hotels!).

The next morning began the home stretch to Panama City. The two lane highway became crowded, then doubled to four lanes, and finally, we climbed a mountain and crossed the infamous Bridge of the Americas over the Panama Canal. Overlooking vast shipyards, a line of freighters and tankers adrift in the ocean, and the dense, skyscraper-heavy, and thoroughly modern Panama City skyline peaking out between mountain peaks, it was quite a sight for a couple weary travelers.

A portion of Panama City's impressive skyline

Panama’s issue with poorly marking its roadways was blatantly apparent in its Capital, with the delightful addition of extremely heavy traffic (consisting, of course, of drivers with absolutely no respect for motorcyclists), major intersections with no signs or traffic lights, and numerous one way streets. About a mile into the city, we asked at a gas station where we could find a nice cheap hotel, and they sent us towards the water to a district known as Calidonia.

Calidonia consists mostly of a major shopping district, the current civic center, and at least 30 hotels, packed in like sardines. Once we were off one the main shopping road, we parked our bikes and Joe went off to find one of the plethora of hotels that would suit our needs, at least for the first night. The first three hotels were all in the $40 range, and we eventually settled on the Hotel Covadonga, which still fell into the upper $30 range, but had off-street parking, hot water, and air conditioning – which were the only things we really needed – plus an elevator and a roof deck pool, offering us nice view of a beautiful city.

Panama City was an enigma to me. An international city thanks in no small part to the canal, Wikipedia also claims tourism is the most important revenue generator in the city, and Panama City boasts the 2nd highest in the world! The international influence was apparent in many ways, the most obvious being the construction: there are 127 high rise buildings and 110 new ones under construction… and nearly all of them are condos!And yet on the streets and in the restaurants, we were met with scowls and absolutely abhorrent service. We once waited over a half hour to order 2 cups of coffee, and another 20 minutes without receiving them before giving up and going elsewhere. Besides the high rises and new condos, most of the rest of the city seemed to exist with a complete dearth of maintenance.

At least something benefits from the lack of maintenance.

Calidonia by day was a jumping neighborhood, with an endless market street packed with cars and foot traffic, and with massive shopping complexes spilling out onto the streets offering incredible bargains on name brand merchandise no-doubt freshly off a container ship destined for a country that marks goods up far more than Panama. I bought two name-brand polyester shirts to suppliment my supply for less than half what they would have cost in the US. Yet by 8pm, the area was completely desolate. Restaurants, stores, shops, everything was closed and shuttered. We’d often have to settle for hotel restaurants because they were the only things open. The streets were utterly unrecognizable at night from their promenance during the day. It was a complete dissappointment for me, who had hopes of a cosmopolitan city with troublesome nightlife… I found none.

We did find a cheaper hotel for our second night, and ended up spending the next 6 nights in the Residencia Touristica Texas, go figure! Stuck on the 4th floor, we lost our elevator, pool, and roof deck, but for under $30, we weren’t complaining. To save money, when we left, the receptionist would flip a light switch from a large bank of them behind his/her desk that turned off the power outlet to our air conditioner, so we never came home to a cold room. For internet, there was one wall in the 4th floor hallway I could hold my computer up to to recieve just enough signal to check my email.

We did a decent amount of touring around Panama, visiting Casco Viejo (the old part of town), the Amador Causeway (built as a tide breaker for the enterance to the canal extending far into the ocean, offering wildly overpriced restaurants as well as stunning views of the city and the ships waiting in the ocean to enter the canal), the canal (obviously), the former military base in the Canal Zone, and the most ridiculously americanized mall, the food court alone sporting a McDonald’s, Burger King, KFC, Popeyes, Wendy’s, Dunkin’ Donuts, Baskin Robbins, Pizza Hut, Subway, China Wok, and Dairy Queen! In our downtime, we also fixed some issues with our bikes, did some shopping, and did laundry for only the second time on the trip, though we do periodically hand-wash our polyester clothing in the shower for the kind of clean feeling you won’t see in Orbit Gum commercials.

This mall is in Panama?

But tourism and laundry weren’t our major enterprise in Panama, and our days were dominated by our goal of escaping Panama and drinking great coffee. Existing on instant coffee since leaving the states, in Panama, ordering a coffee got you a Cafe Americano – espresso mixed with water – and it was wonderful (and $1 or less!). We called every logistics company in the yellow pages and also got advice from a friend of a friend of Joe’s, Fernando, who works in shipping in Ecuador. We sent dozens of emails in the persuit of quotes and information. Our first quotes for shipping by water were reasonable, but a few rounds of questioning later, we’d ferreted out the approximately $600 in fees they’d forgotten to mention, and continued our search. We finally settled on a transport method – air – and a shipping company – Girag – Tuesday, picked up plane tickets on Wednesday, drove our bikes to the airport on Thursday (a 20 minute ride in no traffic and $3 in tolls per bike, and for us, a $1 per person bus ride back!), cabbed it to the Airport Friday morning, and had our bikes back under our well-rested asses by the late afternoon. The catch? We were in Bogotá, Colombia, the only country we’d planned on not going to on this trip!

We have been here a week now, and I am going to combine all those days into a single post.  We stayed in our original hotel only one night, then moved to another, Residential Texas, that was almost as nice, but less expensive.  We have stayed mostly in a central area of the city, where there are dozens of hotels located.

This is a very strange city;  modern and bustling in some ways,  yet limited and lacking in many others.  There are sections with towering high-rises and skyscrapers, and construction is everywhere;  but the traffic, noise and dirt are among the worst we have experienced.  Other sections are dilapidated slums and zones with little more than rubble and dirt.  Modern stores and malls are close by to street vendor stalls and ancient market areas.  After 7:00 in the evening,  it can be darn tough to find a place to eat,  yet the same area at noon looks and feels completely different, with open restaurants on every corner.

Levi read online somewhere that ¨this city suffers from a lack of city planning¨,  and maybe that sums up what I am trying to say.  The traffic is horrendous, and every important thoroughfare seems to be under construction at the same time.  Partially completed bridges and overpasses are everywhere, and important roads are closed at random times and then open again later.   At times, very large, noisy crowds gather on busy streets and wait for busses to arrive for them.  Last night, the power was out for several hours in a large portion of the ‘downtown’ area.  For a city that seems large at first, you realize after a while that it is actually not that big at all,  just very spread out along the Pacific shoreline.

We did do some sight-seeing.  We visited the ‘old city’, which was a very cool colonial area that was allowed to become completely dilapidated and run down.  Partially surrounded by tenement slums and 60’s era public housing projects, the old city is now being renovated on a large scale, and will someday be beautiful again.  It was amazing to see how badly this historic area was allowed to decay before it was decided that it should be restored.

We re-crossed the Bridge of the Americas, which is a very impressive structure itself, and affords a very dramatic view of the city.  We rode out on the Amador, a causeway that extends out quite a ways into the Pacific, and offers exceptional views of the canal, the city, and the islands at the canal entrance.

We visited the Miraflores Lock, and the Canal Zone museum, which were interesting and worth the drive.  Seeing the remnants of the US presence was interesting, also.  The architecture and landscaping of the old Canal Zone area was very recognizable to anyone familiar with other US military installations.  We stopped for lunch at the largest indoor mall either of us had ever been in.

We spent a lot of time this week making calls and trying to arrange our passage from here to South America.  We finally arranged air transport for the motorcycles to Bogota, Columbia.  That is ironic, since Columbia was the one country we were going to try to avoid.  But the cost and convenience won out, and Bogota it is.  We dropped the bikes off at the Tocumen airport this morning, and paid large sums of cash money to get them to Bogota airport by tomorrow morning.  Any other plan was just too difficult and/or expensive to consider.  We have reservations on a flight out of here tomorrow morning, and we hope to be in a hotel, in Bogota, reunited with our transportation, tomorrow night, Friday.

 I have had enough of Panama city, and will be glad to be leaving it behind.

Got off to a fairly late start, with no breakfast or coffee.  Fairly boring ride through flat agricultural land;  both of us complained of being sleepy and tired.  Stopped for lunch at a roadside bar, and continued on until finally breaking out at the start of the Bridge of the America’s,  a very picturesque and beautiful entrance to the city of Panama.  We wandered briefly in the confusion and traffic of this large and spread out city, and then lucked out by stumbling into a very commercial and government district with dozens of hotels, seemingly on every corner.

We checked a few hotels, and picked one that seemed reasonable.  We felt lucky to have found a place so easily.  The hotel had a pool, which we both made good use of, and found good food for dinner.  We made an early night of it.

As of today, I have been on the road for 58 days, and have logged 7,000+ miles since leaving Michigan.  Arriving in Panama City is really a major milestone on this long ride south;  it may not be half-way in terms of time or distance, but it does represent the end of the first phase of this journey.  We will rest here, get geared up and re-equipped for the next leg of this fantastic adventure.  We both have the same enthusiasm and determination that we started with, and are excited to have made it this far safely.  We have to keep reminding ourselves (and each other) where we actually are, because sometimes it seems unreal even to us!

Nicaragua was harder to leave than it was to enter, with horrible signage at the border for exiting, and with every helpful soul asking for a tip. After about an hour, we escaped to Costa Rica… only to find an incredibly massive line for immigration. When we first stood in line, there were at least 300 people in front of us. I had my Dad, who was watching the bikes, bring me my book, and I made it through a good 40 pages or so before entering the building to have our passports stamped (side note: my Dad was still watching the bikes, and they stamped both passports without looking twice at me. What could the possible point of the process be if it doesn’t even matter who’s passport is being stamped?). Next up was customs, where we always have to deal with the vehicles. Of course, there was no one in the customs building when we arrived, and I stood around outside for 15 minutes waiting to talk to anyone. When he finally showed up, he gave papers to fill out for the bikes, and walked away again. We finished them, waited another 10 minutes, and he came back and told me we needed copies of our paperwork, and to go to the copy place inside the immigration building. This time, I already had the copies from a previous crossing, and despite only having to walk back to the bike and retrieve them, he was gone another 10 minutes before taking them, scowling the entire time. “Insurance?” he asked in gruff and impatient voice. Again he points to the immigration building and walks away. We pay the insurance scammers $16 each for 30 days worth of insurance, and waste some more time outside Customs before finally being sent on our way with a casual wave of his hand, saying we’re good to go.

Well, it’s of course never as easy as they make it sound. We made it to the final gate, only to be turned around again lacking a permission slip. We double back and to another building off the path where rooms full of massive piles of stapled papers loom in dusty corners, and crowd empty desks. One room so stuffed with 6 foot tall stacks a US Fire Inspector would hardly be able to contain his tears also had two men at desks and a line out the door. We waited in the line for awhile, staring in awe when at one point, a woman from another office enters and spends 10 minutes sifting through the most recent stack of papers before pulling out the one she was looking for for some other people. Finally, we entered and I was greeted by a jovial Costa Rican who retyped the same information we’d filled out for Customs into a computer so he could print out and stamp additional paperwork, one copy of which he stapled and put onto the top of the stack, and the other which allowed us to finally leave the border crossing. At least… almost.

This time, we approached the guard who’d turned us around previously by jumping in front of a line of trucks (with all the drivers waving us by), and he allowed us by. Directly after his booth, however, was a traffic jam of enormous proportions. There was a line of trucks jammed together waiting to head into Nicaragua, and pushing outbound traffic far to the right. Buses and cars on the way out were completely immobile, and stretched farther than our limited vantage would allow us to see. We jumped across a ditch on a small bridge and started driving over rocks, lawns, and driveways in an attempt to circumvent the insanity. At one point, I was completely stuck behind a car and a large van that was being used as a small bus. After waiting 5 minutes, I discovered we were only waiting for the truck, which was halfway off the road because of oncoming truck traffic, was waiting for the small roadside restaurant to finish a plate of food for him, and backing up all the traffic behind him. Insanity.

Hello Costa Rica

Goodbye Sun

Immediately after the border craziness, we were greeted by lush Costa Rican countryside. It was like someone flipped a switch after the border. Nicaragua, whether flat or mountainous, was a lot of grassland and sparse trees, and mostly arid. Costa Rica was home to lush impenetrable jungle, and dirty brown, fast-flowing rivers every other mile! I’ve never crossed so many rivers in so little space in my life. The country also rolled out the red carpet and treated us to multiple rainbows over the mountains. The first real city we reached was called Liberia, and discouraged us nearly instantaneously when the first three hotels we went to were $67, $72, an $77, in that order.

We managed to find the road into the old downtown, and after one more disappointingly expensive hotel, we stumbled upon a Hostel where we paid only $20, could keep our bikes inside a gate, and the room included a free cocktail at a nearby restaurant! We moved in, got our cocktails, and began getting used to the new money, which had seemingly managed to devalue itself to ridiculous proportions: the ATM dispensed $10,000 bills (worth <$20 USD) and spat out a receipt saying I’m a millionaire in Costa Rica! Regardless of the large bills, Costa Rican prices were by far the highest to date, with meals costing as much as they do in the US.

We had a relatively uneventful night in the Hostel, had breakfast at a Peruvian restaurant where I had a nice conversation with the owner, a Peruvian from near Machu Picchu, about our trip and his country. I went to Peru 12 years ago and have been excited about going back ever since. After breakfast we hit the road, crossing a few dozen more rivers on our way to the Capital, San Jose, where we planned on cutting up to the Caribbean coast. The closer we got to San Jose, the larger and more crowded the road became, eventually becoming 10 or so lanes and jammed with cars, and with no signs for our northbound highway, we were dumped into the middle of San Jose when the freeway ended.

With no signs to guide us, we wandered through the downtown part of the city before stopping to try to figure out what our next steps should be. We were approached by a man on the street who was strangely wet from head to toe, and offered us directions for some change. He told us to turn left on the next road, which we did, and as we followed it out of the urban part of town, it had signs saying we were on CA-5, a decent road! Our good fortune didn’t last long, and we ended up at multiple dead ends and strange turnoffs, getting suitably lost several times, asking more people for directions, but eventually ending up on the road we were after with most of the day behind us.

We gassed up at the outskirts of civilization and as the road went up into the mountains, rain began to fall, and the daylight began to wane. As we climbed, we entered the so-called cloud forest, and the fog slowly but consistently thickened into hardly passable soup. The road wound dangerously through the mountains, traffic was bad, the road was wet and dotted with downed branches appearing in the road, and the fog was impenetrable in the pitch-black night. I was riding in front, gazing into my silhouette projected in front of me from Joe’s headlight behind, with the edges of the illuminated fog killing my peripheral vision (and I had no way to tell him to stay back a little farther). The closest thing we had to salvation was reflectors that had been installed on the edges of the road, red to our right and yellow to our far left, with no indication to the center line. The red reflectors illuminated perhaps 30 feet in front of me, and disappeared entirely when approaching sharp corners, where the vegetation creeping onto the roadway would finally show up and indicate the way I had to turn. Oncoming traffic made the fog and rain light up like Times Square. We maintained 20-30mph for what seemed like an eternity, with some cars still zooming past dangerously, and others lining up behind us, when we eventually came up behind a big rig truck in another slow-moving caravan in front of us, and things were temporarily better. With the trucks lights to follow, it was far easier to stay in our lane, and headlights from oncoming vehicles were partially blocked. We followed along at about 25mph for maybe 20 minutes before the road turned uphill and the truck we were following slowed to a crawl that was nearly unsustainable on a motorcycle. I passed the truck, but as soon as I did so, my Dad’s headlight disappeared from my rear-view mirror. I once again slowed to a crawl, and a van passed by waving at me, and I once again knew something had happened.

The road had practically no shoulder, instead quickly disappearing into mud, rock, and dense jungle. I found a spot wide enough to pull off the road and got on my radio, but received no response. I put the parking light on the bike on, grabbed a flashlight, and began walking back along the side of the road. It was slippery, completely black, foggy, muddy, and dangerous. I came inches from falling into a massive sinkhole along the side of the road. Just a few minutes after I began walking, I got a call on the radio from my Dad. He’d fallen off the road, was OK, and needed help getting the bike back up. I continued walking, but less than a minute later, he radioed back that someone had stopped and helped him lift the bike. I turned around and slipped and slid my way the quarter mile back to my bike, and about 2 minutes later my dad showed up. A few minutes later, and we passed a ridge and the fog mostly dissipated, leaving us to contend with just rain, dark, and mountains for the last 20 minutes before we hit the valley and stopped for coffee and recuperating.

Not far from the restaurant, we came to the first hotel after the death-defying road from San Jose, a small white building called Casa Blanca. We considered moving on since, with no visible lobby – just a bell to ring, we weren’t quite sure what to make of it, but rang the bell to at least get a baseline for what to expect from hotels in the area. I rang the bell and we stood around a minute, noticing a sign next door to the hotel for Mecanico Gringo, and were laughing about that when a woman’s voice in spanish rang through an intercom on the wall. I asked about the price for a room for the night, the girl said something I couldn’t understand, and then a man’s voice came through and after a minute, he asked in Spanish what language I preferred. I answered in Spanish that English was best, and the voice answered back in obviously American English, and explained they’d been hesitant to open the door because they saw I was holding a motorcycle helmet, and the area had problems with bandits on motorcycles.

While we waited for the voice on the speaker to emerge, a man on a motorcycle pulled up to the place next door and began speaking to us in English with a full-on North Carolina drawl – the resident Mecanico Gringo, James. The door opened and out came the owner of the Hotel, one Pete Muñoz, who we quickly got along with. The rooms were nice and affordable, the place was pretty, and Pete was fun to talk to, so we obviously decided to stay. We hadn’t had dinner yet, and he assured us Kattia could take care of it for us. A few minutes later, we had an amazing meal of smoked pork chops, eggs, fried cheese, waffles, and plantains, and all for the most reasonably price we’d seen since hitting Costa Rica. What a find! We stayed up awhile and talked to him before it came time to sleep, during which he sold us on accompanying him to a sauna by a river the next day.

I awoke bright and early at 9am and continued into the dining room where the free coffee was already on, with the free crackers on the table. Pete was out and talking to us, and breakfast followed shortly. Once again, we were entirely spoiled by the delicious food. Kattia is truly an excellent cook. After breakfast, we accompanied Pete to the nearby town of Guapiles, where he showed us around and ran an errand, and then we collected Kattia and were off to the Sauna! Along the way, we passed and stopped at a few glorious rivers…

So many rivers...

... nothing but time

Then we hit the Sauna. It was a wood fired sauna in someone’s back yard, way out in the wilderness. They charged us $1 a piece, and another $1 for a big bag of volcanic mud. Kattia had brought a giant bag of leaves from medicinal and good-smelling plants, and when the sauna had heated up, we went in and tossed the leaves on top of the stove. After more than a month on the back of a motorcycle, it felt absolutely wonderful! Sweating, breathing fragrant and minty plants, covered in the kind of mud they’d charge you $20 in the USA, we were really living it up for $1.25 a piece. When we couldn’t take the heat anymore, we followed a handmade stone path through the jungle to a river the guy with the sauna also had in his backyard…

and in we went!

as did our gracious host, Pete

The water was an absolutely perfect temperature. Cold, but not too cold. We sat at the base of a pile of rocks and let the water rush over us. We played like children, piling rocks to try to dam the rushing tide. Eventually, we went back to the sauna, cooked awhile longer, showered, and left extremely happy. On the way back, Pete said he had a friend with a bunch of coconut trees that she wanted someone to cut the coconuts off of. We were happy to volunteer, and were brought to a beautiful property where an old woman’s driveway was lined by more than a dozen coconut trees simply stuffed with giant bunches of coconuts. Soon we were armed with a machete and ladder, and we each went to work…

First Joe...

then yours truly

For our efforts, and trust me, cutting down bunches of coconuts with a dull machete is not easy work, but we were handsomely rewarded…

Mmmm, fresh coconut milk!

We hung out at our hotel afterwards, enjoying another wonderful dinner, catching up on the news, and even getting a chance to quickly check my email on Pete’s computer. The next morning after our final delicious Casa Blanca meal, we managed to continue on our journey despite Pete’s hospitality. Thanks again Pete and Kattia! You guys are excellent hosts!

From Guapiles, we headed north to Puerto Limon, a large port on Costa Rica’s Caribbean coast. Obviously not a tourist spot, an unsure where exactly to head next, we first tried our hand at heading west along the coast. We found one beach, but no real civilization…

Pretty enough to stop and have a beer

So next we tried our hand at heading east, again following the coast, and heading towards a small border crossing with Panama that we figured could save us from having to backtrack all the way to San Jose to cross on CA-1. We’d also been told that Puerto Viejo was the place to go, and we figured we’d spend the night there if it seemed interesting. The ride along the coast was fascinating. The Caribbean side of Costa Rica is nearly completely virgin and uninhabited. There were certainly no big hotels or condos marring the beautiful coastline, and there was hardly even a village to be found. Rivers were still abound, with the added bonus of the bridges on the way to Puerto Viejo being one lane, nearly always on blind corners, and raised above the regular road elevation to make it difficult to see if oncoming traffic planned on crossing at the same time as you. Ahhhh Central America! Miles of jungle and volcanic beaches (sometimes called “black sand” beaches, but in reality, almost a brownish color) later, the road split, with one heading to the border and the other to Puerto Viejo. The road to Puerto Viejo was nearly instantly massive potholes and gravel.

After our bumpy ride and still in the early afternoon, we arrived in the very small, and obviously touristy town of Puerto Viejo. The center consisted of about 5 blocks of bars, restaurants, hotels, hostels, and convenience/tourist stores, with the main road into and out of town covered with an endless scatter of hippie-inspired cabanas, small hotels, and campgrounds. The entire place had a serious 60’s vibe, and the crowd screamed Hippie, much like Palanque (or at least the place we were in Palanque) had in Mexico. We stopped outside the first hostel we came to to decide where we wanted to stay for the night. While there, an ex-pat on the street came up to us and talked to us for a few minutes. Now a local, he told us the place to go was Rockin’ J’s, and gave us directions. He said there were tons of options in the area, but Rockin’ J’s was an institution, and that everyone stayed there. Who were we to argue? Rockin’ J’s here we come!

As our friend had said, the place nothing but easy to find. We opted for a cabana for $20 a night. Though it was obviously a bad year for tourism in Costa Rica, something many locals told us, Rockin’ J’s still managed to have a decent sized crowd, and the place was huge. Around 20 cabinas, over 100 tents setup for rent, and hammocks to boot. They also had a bar/restaurant (with a hookah), pool table, TV, wireless internet (for a fee) and their own beach. Argentinans, Spaniards, British, Americans, Canadians, Germans, and more, mostly young, often tattooed, and commonly sporting dread locks, wandered grounds, which were done up in never ending brightly colored tile work, paintings, and graffiti. After the drink of the day, an Obama Slammer, we unpacked our bikes, and the rain of the day came in. Our friend on the street had mentioned that the restaurant there had good food, and we had a great meal (Costa Rican super burrito’s still can’t beat Big Ten Burrito in AA) at the bar. Afterwards, we hung out with a business major who was about to start a job in Mesaya, the place we had a problem with the cops in in Nicaragua, and he bought a Banana flavored hookah for that end of the bar.

We mostly stuck around Rockin’ J’s, having the occasional drink, catching up on our internet duties, and relaxing, and venturing into the city in search of a good cup of coffee and some cubans to restock our supplies with (no luck). The crowd dispersed into cliques, which deteriorated a singing group of Argentinians eating hot dogs dipped in mashed potatoes (!) and a big hippie drum circle, that eventually moved down to the beach with a bonfire. We tried the downtown again for some sort of aperitif, and discovered it mostly closed and the few open bars mostly dead. We came back and after checking out the drum circle, which was as ridiculous as it was amusing, and went to bed.

The next morning, we began the short ride from Puerto Viejo to the Panamanian border. Away from the ocean, we crossed a mountain range and began a beautiful descent into an endless valley of banana farms. At one point we were even stopped by a gate that came down over the road, and beside which men rode horses pulling bunches of bananas on a track that ran through the trees and along the gate itself.

Panama is not a bad country to travel in, relative to other central American countries we have experienced so far;  but it certainly has the worst road signage we have seen.  We needed a compass, lots of patience and lots of help to stay on the highway from Almirante to CA-1 (the Pan-Am ‘highway’).  Almost no traffic, fantastic scenery, unspoiled Caribbean coastline with offshore islands and idyllic bays, beautiful mountains and curving roads.  Also, lots of un-marked road hazards, like giant potholes and washouts;  boulders in the road so large that they do not have equipment large enough to move them, so they painted them bright colors and left them there!

After a beautiful ride down the coast, we turned south into the ‘real’ mountains, to cross the continental divide to the Pacific plain.  Back into cold, foggy, cloud forest, with rain and huge landslide areas, where large sections of the mountains had slid down and removed the road and everything else, creating huge scars in the vegetation, and rock-filled canyons with waterfalls and raging streams.  Very wild scenery, and a beautiful ride, as long as you went slow enough to avoid falling into the sections of missing roadway.

Finally, we descended out of the cloud forest, and down to the coastal plain, where we picked up CA-1.  Soon after getting onto the pan-am, Levi and I got pulled over by a traffic stop for speeding.  This time we paid the cop his money, and we were on our way again quickly.  Angry about the cost, but at least we did not loose half a day.  We go as far as Santiago when it started to get dark, so we stopped in what turned out to be another crappy town and a really crappy (but cheap) hotel.  Food and drink are very cheap in Panama, and that is nice for a change from Costa Rica.

It was raining hard in the morning, and continued to rain hard until noon,  so we hung around Rockin-J’s till almost noon, before heading out.  Rode further down the road we were on, just to see what was there,  until the wet and mud had us turn around and head back towards the ‘highway’ and the border.  The road was terrible and got worse as we approached the border.  Huge gaping holes completely unmarked.

The exit from Costa Rica was the quickest yet.  No muss, no fuss!  But, then came the ‘bridge of death’!  The only way to cross the river which forms the border between Costa Rica and Panama at Boca del Toros, is to ride across an old rail-road bridge that has been converted to automobile use.  They converted it by spiking down some old, twisted wooden planks on either side of the old steel rails, so that a car can straddle the rails and drive straight down the center of the bridge.  One lane, obviously.

the bridge is not a problem for automobiles, as long as you can drive slow and straight;  but, a motorcycle has to choose, either the right or left sides of the tracks, and then, must stay on the slippery, muddy, rain-soaked planks, which had gaps, were warped, or completely missing in some places.  If you lost balance and fell over to the outside, there was a good chance you could fall off the bridge itself, and 100′ to the river below.  It was a nightmare ride, and I was terrified.  We both made it safely!

The paperwork to enter Panama was easy and cheap, but took a long time anyway.  Everyone was very relaxed and casual about it all.  Many of the officials spoke some English.

Once we cleared the border, we were into the third world, for sure.  Roads were marginal,  but completely un-marked, with no directional signage at all.  We were never sure if we were on the correct road, and needed lots of help finding our way.  At one point when we were lost in a small town, and everyone kept pointing behind us as we rode along, to tell us we were going the wrong way.  Folks were very helpful and friendly.

About 12 miles into the country, we came to bridge of death #2.  Here the highway bridge was being replaced with a new one, and to carry traffic temporarily, the railroad bridge had been converted to car use, just like the one at the border.  Except this bridge was higher, longer (approx one kilometer!), and had no side railings left intact at all;  nothing to catch you if you fell off to the outside, which was incredibly easy to do on a motorcycle.  One slip could mean ‘goodbye, so long, been good to know ya’.   We walked out onto the bridge before attempting to cross, and I admit, I was terrified.  We positioned ourselves as the last vehicles in our set to cross, and slowly made our way, dragging our feet and hoping to not slip.  Again, we made it across, and pulled over for some celebrating and deep breathing.  I was covered in sweat from crown to toe.

We made it to another port city of Almirante before dark, found a really crappy place to stay near the docks,  ate Chinese food for dinner and crashed early.  This old man had had too much excitement for one day!  Sheesh!

We got off to a very slow start, what with another homemade breakfast and lots of goodbyes to Pete, James and Kattia.  It was an easy ride to Puerto Limon, the only town of any size on the Costa Rican Caribbean coast.  It is a big, busy commercial port, and a bit of town with it.  We tried going left at the coast, but that seemded to dead-end with little to offer.  We did stop at a public beach for a quick rest and a beer.

Then we headed down the coast for 58 kilometers, to the ‘town’ of Puerto Viejo, which means old port in Spanish. The road got worse and worse as we left the main road towards this dot on the map, and there were several one-lane bridges with hidden approaches that I can only describe as ‘widow-makers’.  I put town in quotes, because, what is at the end of the road called Puerto Viejo is not really like a town, but a weird collection of hotels, bungalows/cabanas, restaurants, craft-shops, bars, discos, hostels, etc, all that cater to the new generation of ‘hippie’ travelers.  Almost a disney-land parity of a Caribbean vacation spot.  We stayed in a hostel-like ‘room’ (think closet) at a place called ‘Rockin J’s’ on the beach.  Lots of 20-something kids from everywhere on earth, sleeping in tents or hammocks;  drums and campfires on the beach at night.  We shared a hookah at the bar,  had some of Pete’s crackers and coco juice for dessert before bed.  It was a unique experience.  It was a short riding day (again) but it left us really close to the border for an early cross into Panama.

The Nicaraguan border crossing was a dream. There was practically no one at the crossing, the photocopy machine was actually in the border entry building, and one of the border employees were amazingly helpful, giving us directions to the nearest ATM, the best way to avoid bad traffic around Managua, and just generally being helpful. Meanwhile, the guy who actually had our papers that we waited an hour for was strolling through the parking lot smoking a cigarette. We were still there for more hours than any border crossing should take, but we left with a good feeling.

We found an ATM at the border town where the friendly guy said we’d find one, and proceeded to the first big town across the border – Esteli. The capital of the state, Esteli is a very decent sized town, and we found a decent hotel next to a Casino called “Atlantic City,” and again got to park our bikes inside. We search the area for food, but end up with bad fried chicken from a friendly but scamming (trying to move her leftovers from lunch since we came at that off-time between lunch and dinner) old woman.

When night came around, we grabbed a late dinner and I tried to see what the town had to offer. Again, the only places that I’d call bars were really restaurants, and the only other place to grab a drink was a disco, which didn’t really fit what I was after. I ended up back at the casino next to our restaurant talking to the guy behind the bar about the casino industry, and the guy next to me had come with a bunch of friends who’d gone to bed and he tried to convince me to go to a brothel with him. I tried telling him that I needed to sleep that night and leave tomorrow. He tried telling me there’d be 4-5 women and they’d cost around $17 USD. He also kept sniffing, so I’m fairly certain he was coked up, which would explain why his friends had gone to bed.

In the morning, we prepared to get out of dodge, presuming to make it all out of Nicaragua in the record time of one day. We passed a lot of friendly people, and some incredible volcanic formations. We followed the Border Agent’s recommendations on paths, and just as we were about to pass the second largest city in Nicaragua – Masaya – we ran into the trouble with the cops described here. Thusly stuck an additional day, and extremely frustrated, we searched for the southernmost spot to stop for the night in Nicaragua.

We discovered that after Rivas, Nicaraguan civilization effectively ended in a beautiful view of two, far-off mist-covered volcanoes on the far side of picturesque Lake Nicaragua. Captivated by the scenery, we had to backtrack about 15Km back to Rivas, where we had no end to trouble finding a hotel for the night. We stopped at a gas station to ask for directions and get more money (since we hadn’t expected to have to cover another night and meals in Nicaragua), and met a Canadian that had moved to the area and was conducting various land dealings. He was extremely friendly and even invited us over for drinks, though we never took him up on it. He also insisted there were hotels everywhere. Despite his assurance, we spent at least an hour wandering, and eventually stumbled across one out of the downtown and overpriced (around $30, but one of the cheapest we found in the area, which was seemingly the tourist destination of Nicaragua), but safe and comfortable. We went out for a giant, deluxe, Nicaragua-style pizza, and some cheap shots of amazingly delicious Tequila to get over the frustration of the day in Masaya, and hit the hay, ready for our 30Km jaunt to the border the next morning.

I managed to get up relatively early the next morning, but the extra cushion of time was burned away entirely when we spent another hour of our lives that we’ll never get back wandering on foot around Rivas, searching in vane for some, any!, restaurant with breakfast. We eventually gave up and settled on some tasty sweet bread from a bakery that didn’t even sell coffee. Our morning suitably wasted, we got our stereotypical late start out of town on the way to the border.

After a nice quite night in a comfortable and clean room, we awoke to the sound of heavy rain on the tin roof.  Pete Muñoz, the hotel owner, had left out coffee and a coffee pot, so we could brew our own pot of coffee – what a treat!  Then we had a homemade breakfast cooked by Pete’s young wife, and it was delicious and more food than we could consume!

After we ate, Pete offered to take us around his area, and show us some places he liked.  We went with him to town (Guapiles), and then out to see a scenic river near the hotel.  Then we all piled into his van and rode to a nearby farm where they had a sauna set up near a river through the forest.  For a tiny fee, the farm owner fired up the sauna, and we had a wonder refreshing spa with herbs and a shower, and the works.  Then a short walk to the beautiful river, where we could swim and relax in the warm rushing current… absolutely idyllic!

Next, our ‘tour guide’/host took us to a ladies house, who had dozens of coco trees along her drive, but was too old to harvest them herself.  She was more than glad to have us climb her ladder and cut down many ripe cocos with her machete.  We all sat in here drive and had coco juice and cobra until we could eat no more, loaded up the rear of Pete’s van with a dozen more cocos, and then drove back to the hotel.

Back at Casa Blanca,  we hung out with mechanico gringo James, another ex-pat that lived at the hotel and helped out.  Then another very good home-cooked dinner from Kattia.  After dinner, Levi did some work on Pete’s computer, and fixed a few problems for him.

All in all, it was a great, relaxing day for us in central Costa Rica.  Pete and his wife were the perfect hosts, and I cannot recommend his hotel highly enough to anyone passing that way.