More details in the City

I am now hanging out at Niels house. He has a nice place with a large pool. No internet though!


So yesterday I spent time
finding a new front tire
finding someone to mount it on the rim
touring the MiraFlora Locks
finding and buying 20w50 oil for the bike

New years eve day:
washed the bike
changed the oil
did the laundry
paid the speeding ticket

Touring around in Panama City

I spent the 93 degree day exploring, rode the bike on the new highway over to the Atlantic side to the seaport of Colon. As it turns out it is an all busyness seaport with not anything to do. So I had beakfast and came back to the city. I found the old US fancy residential area and toured around that taking more pictures of really beautiful ironwork. Then I rode out to Chamai meet Niel, the friend of a friend. American guy moved to Panama to start a granite countertop business. I have the option of leaving the bike at his place for 80 days and then return it and ride it home.

I rode down to the City again to meet the local BMW Club guys for a Club event at the Local Hooters Bar. I got all sorts of suggestions of what to see in the City. The service manager is supposed to call me if he has a new front tire in stock...mine is plumb wore out.

The owner of Hooters..George (who has a drop dead georgous girlfriend) was quite nice and suggested a nice hotel here in the downtown area. So I spent the night there, avoiding a ride back out to the country late at night. George also plans to ride a bike down here from Atlanta in the spring, so he had alot of questions about that.

I plan to tour the Miraflora Locks today, arrainge for a new tire, and then go back to Niels in the country.

You can see from the GPSpoter that my 2 Buddies have made it over to Bogata and are long gone. Good luck to them and there travels down there. I think they have another 7500 miles or so in 6 weeks.

Bye till, tomarow...

Arrived at the Canal !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The final section down from the hotel in CR is quite scenic going thru palm tree plantations and beautiful flora of all kinds. Again it looks like a planned garden environment in an episode of Lost in Space! I did catch a view of the local palm oil factory which explained alot about the plantations. I think that oil is very unhealthy, but will have to check into it!

We had a great "helper" at the Panamanian Border this morning. The final negotiation with him for his fee...he spent 2 hours with us, went nicely, in my opinion. Again, John, took one of his (in his mind) "principled stands" and refused to pay the $10/person. He offered to pay the man $5 and the guy cursed him and told him to put his $10 where the sun didn't shine. It was funny because most of the time these folks are forced to take what they can beg. My view is that in the end you want to be fair and make people feel okay. When you are traveling the world you are an ambassador of your country.

The ride down thru northern Panama was boring after what ours eyes have seen. Of course I met another of my Policemen friends and another $200 speeding ticket. This cop must be the only one in Central America that has a radar gun!! Anyway, just one of the small sacrifices made by the leader of the pack! Of course safety in the middle is cheaper but less scenic!.

My rear end is sore after approximately 4400 miles and 7 border crossings in 17 days. I need to take a few days to relax and decide on my plans to get back home. I really miss my little dog Foey, but I know he is well and that it is 20 degrees at my house. As usual, it is forecast to be 92 and sunny here.

My 2 friends are making arraingements in the morning to airship their bikes to Bogata. Remember that the PanAm highway does not go thru the Darrien Gap. I'll wish them well and thank them for all the memories! They are already talking about riding the "Road of Bones" from Europe across Siberia to Alaska!!!!!

I'll work on the blog a bit in the next few days to patch it up a bit!!

Nice riding thru CR....Costa Rica

The ride down from Liberia Costa Rica to the border near Panama is quite beautiful. The way through the countryside up to San Jose is nice. but there is a bit of traffic. Not the Honduras kind; big SUV's with rich Americans in them!! The place is noticeably quite clean without the normal roadside trash fires. They must also really enforce littering laws. I navigated quite quite well thru San Jose, coming out of the City on the Southwest and out toward the volcanoes. The Pan Am highway here rises about 4000 feet above sea level. It got really cold, maybe down to 50 degrees, and then began to rain. I passed many trucks and slow vehicles going up that grade, which is great sport and perhaps should be added to the Summer Olympic Games. Fog set in and we needed to go about 5 mph to be safe. Finally we reached the crest and began the decent down to sea level and 90 degrees in the sun. Went another few hours and found a hotel!!

Volcanos on left Playa on right

Okay, sorry for the delay. Riding thru Guatamala was fantastic and yes...there were many volcanos on the left and the pacific ocean on the right. The surface was fantastic and we went quickly. There were many donkey carts and wild dogs to watch out for. Just as it was getting dark we got so lucky to find a halfway decent hotel. We awoke early for Christmas and rode in to the Honduras border crossing. It really looks like a banama republic like in the movies. We were so lucky to get there early on christmas because is was not busy. We had to call the customs guy to come in to help process the paperwork. We rode thru san salvador....which I think might have be the most beautiful country yet. The road was high quality thru the mountains and we all agreed that we would love to be on some liter bikes (1000 cc race track motorcycles)!!

The border crossing into Nicaragua was okay. We found a great hotel in Leon...Jack the pirates place. There is a huge traffic police problem in Nicaragua and we were pulled over 3 times..about $120 in fines. I was always in the lead and as normal I "waved" to the cops as I flew by. John followed but Mike was pulled over by a road block. Mike and I came back after waiting about 10 miles ahead when a trucker told us that Mike was being arrested. Basically all they want is money..very much like Ohio!!!!

The border crossing into Costa Rica was a mess and took us about 4 hours. We are now in Liberia safely in the hotel. We met another rider here coming north from brazil. Drinking beers and swapping tales.

The bike is running perfectly and is a great choice for the ride. It is all great pavement. Bye for now!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Making some progress now

We departed Veracruz about 7:00am and made it all the way south to the Mexican State of Chipas. Chipas is the southernmost state and the poorest. We rode thru some of the most beautiful terrain I have ever seen in the world. Mountains, lakes with huge islands and in general huge vistas. Unfortunatly were were so high upo in the mountains we were in the clouds for about 1/2 the day. When we entered the town of Texpa I pulled up to 2 people on an old 125 Hondfa and pretended to race with them. Then at the next traffic light asked them when the economical clean Hotel was. They understood and lead us thru the city to a very nice little place. We just checked in.. it is $10 per person!!

The owner of the Hotel took us downtown for dinner. The town is quite prosperous and there is lots of Christmas activity. Of course NO SNOW and about 70 degrees!! I also want to add that the women here are quite striking, in shape and with very nice features. I think we must have seen at least 10 Penelope Cruz look alikes.

Lots to do in Veracruz

Scotts brother and girlfriend arrived last night and Scott got out of Intensive Care today. He is doing fine and might get home for christmas. In all a happy and fortunate ending.

I want to also say that at the moment of the accident I had a bad feeling about dealing with the local Mexican infrastructure.....health care and police specifically. After all the bad stuff that is drumed into our American heads about corruption and dysfunction of Mexico, I really had a sinking feeling. But after dealing with at least 10 policemen and 20 medical people over the last few days I can honestly say that everyone of them was as professiuonal as you would find in the States. Everything we hear is mostly bullshit and really a shame.

Over the last few days I have been busy. I took laundry to the Laundramat, had the bike washed, and had my bike repaired (I did not mention that Scott tore off my throttle side pannier and support structure on his way into the back of the pickup truck). Enrique, the service manager at the Veracruz BMW Dealer was a fantastic help. He took me to a metal fabricator that rebuilt the support bracket well enough to get me to the Canal.

We met Jose Carrillo and his BMW Friends for dinner saturday night and had a great time. I am always impressed by the "BMW Fraternity" that exists. You really meet high quality people everywhere you go!

Today Mike and John oriented the brother and girlfriend with Scotts situation, so that gave me a free day to explore. I rode south down the Coastal Road to the Colonial Town of Tlacotacpan. It was really a unique place. I explored it on the Bike and took many pictures of some of the decorative wrought iron stuff. And returned just in time to meet the group for dinner.

We plan to ride in the morning 300 miles down to San Cristobal.