Geoffh Just , for completeness' sake it is worth noting that there is a THIRD good border crossing between Costa Rica and Panama not only the two crossings of Sixaola at north coast and Paso Canoas at south coast . These two are quite busy ,particularly so at Paso Canoas on the PanAm highway .

The third option is the small crossing at RIO SERENO ,Panama which is in the foothills on Pan 43 west of VOLCAN . It gets very little commercial traffic and no busloads of travellers to clog the border processing .It is open for service during daylight from 8 in the morning to 17 in the afternoon PANAMA TIME ( Eastern) and on the Costa Rica side you will ride into the town of SABALITO and then SAN VITO and the CR highway 237 west to San Isidro de el General, etc etc etc . This border crossing is easy and in wonderfully scenic countryside in BOTH countries . In Panama make it a point to tour around the Volcano landscape at Volcan - you will be hard pressed to believe you are in tropical country like Panama.
No sweating masses lined up to worry about at Rio Sereno .
There is a small hotel right in Rio Sereno and the Costa Rican border towns also have hotels so show up in the afternoon, have an easy crossing and/or find the hotel and do it in the morning . No reason to rush or ride at night .

Also note that liability insurance is advisable for all CA countries ,even if most of the locals drive un-insured . For Guatemala this is tricky because they make no effort to sell it to tourists at the border and small town insurance dealers wont want to bother .
If you use this email address ealvarado@todoriesgo.net you can connect with a Guatemalan insurance agent in the Peten who sort of makes a specialty of helping foreign motorcycle riders get the liability insurance , The company he works for is based in GT City . The rates are very reasonable ,and better than trying to argue at roadside if somebody tries to blame you for a ding in their fender which you did not cause . That does happen- be verrrry cautious when moving around in city traffic .

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