T - Well we both slept in fits and starts last night. Chantelle dragged her mattress out onto the floor and slept there and I curled up on my sagging bunk. I kept waking up and scratching at myself. I had phantom bed bugs crawling in my hair, my beard, my undies, everywhere!



C - It was a little warm in the room and the fan couldn’t reach both of us at the same time, due to the placement of the powerpoint. So I just dragged my mattress on the floor and slept next to Todds bunk so that the fan could reach us both. Bliss!

T - But it was nice to get a good sleep and I felt it was much needed.

We had an email about the new boots. Basically the courier company from the UK had given the package to the Nicaraguan local postal service. Groan! From what we knew this meant that it would now be stuck in customs for weeks on end.

C - I did not really know how to proceed, other than to try and call the postal service. My spanish is not terrible now, but I was concerned at my ability to comprehend rapid speech over the phone. I gave it a go.. But alas, it just ended up with the poor girl on the other end getting frustrated with me because she was obviously telling me something simple but I just could not grasp what she was saying.

T - We ran around making phone calls and trying to find a translator so we could ring the postal service and sort it out. 15 phone calls and many hair tearing hours later we finally managed to stumble onto a gentleman who spoke English and told us he would try to sort it out for us. It was pretty late in the day and we knew he would be going home in two hours, plus it was a Friday so we weren’t to hopeful of a resolution.

But then, 1 hour after his knock off work time he rang us back. He had managed to get the parcel out of customs, with no duties, into a truck and on its way out of the city and that it would be delivered tomorrow. Thank you Mr Postal man!

C - I was really pleased with this news and felt cautiously optimistic!

T - So we went and had a to celebrate and treated ourselves to a good dinner, some tv and some relaxation time. Both of us thankful that there was light at the end of the tunnel.



Tomorrow we shall, fingers crossed, pick the boots up and head to Grenada! Cross your fingers and toes for us.

T - Today is the day. I can feel it in my waters. We are going to get moving again.

We were at the post office about 3 seconds after they opened and soon we were staring at our box. Sitting right there. But we couldn’t have it. It didn't have Chantelles name on it, only the name of the friend of a friend who was going to take delivery of it. Damn it. So close. We tried to explain to the post office that it was our package but she wouldn't release it to us without the ID of our friend. But she eventually said she would accept a copy of his ID via Whatsapp.

C - It was so close! I was not entirely surprised that there was one more hurdle to jump. I thought the courier company was going to address the package to me, but put care of the hotel owners name. I felt terrible bothering him again, but a quick phone call and he was more than willing to send me what I needed to collect the package.

T - So we went and had some breakfast while we waited. In the end we had the box and Chantelle was soon sporting her new RST Adventure boots. What a saga!



C - The customer service rep from RST is seriously going to have the best Monday ever when she reads my last email and realises that she never has to hear from me again! I am sure the Nicaraguan postal service feels exactly the same way about me. But I dont care… por que I have NEW boots!! Thanks RST!

T - We zipped back to the hotel and soon we had the bikes packed up and idling in the street. It was time to head to Granada. Around 3 hours worth of riding.

We hooned down the highway, both of us feeling free again! Such a good feeling.



It didn’t take very long and we were soon skirting around the edge of Managua city and turning down the highway towards Granada. The traffic here is cray cray!





We rode into Granada and instantly fell in love with the city. It was colourful and lively and had beautiful Spanish architecture! We found our hotel after riding down a narrow street that was crowded with markets and pedestrians.







After we unpacked it was time to walk into the town square where we ate the local specialty of Vigoron - yucca, cabbage, pork and pork crackling. Very tasty.









We then climbed a bell tower over in the nearby church and took in the views out over the city. Beautiful! After which we enjoyed a nice and wandered back to our room where our mate Aaron had also decided to stay.















The three of us wandered off into town as darkness descended for some dinner and chatting.









Tomorrow we are going to head further on south possibly stopping at Ometepe Island which is formed from volcanoes in the nearby lake, or we will head for a town near to the border with Costa Rica.

Those damn boots have been a chore and a story unto themselves
At least insert a piccie & a scratch & sniff panel thanks guys

__________________
My memory is becoming that good, I should be able to organise my own surprise party soon

Haha. I cant believe I forgot to put a pic up of the things. So I have included a photo of them in todays update! Scratch and sniff? Haha. I dont think you would want to sniff those things. Channy has had her sweaty, stinky feet in them all day.

T - Granada is a nice little city, I would rate it as one of my favourites since Mexico. It was full of life and charm. A beautiful place for sure.

We checked out of the hotel pretty early as we had decided to cross into Costa Rica today. Both of us are keen to get to South America now. So we said catchya later to Aaron and hit the road. The border was about 100km’s away.







The ride there was pretty uneventful and we just sat on the Pan Am as trucks and cars whizzed by at crazy speeds. One truck came flying up behind us, swerved at the last minute, overtook us on a blind curve and rattled off into the distance. 10 minutes later we caught up to him. He was stopped in the middle of the road and there was a small crowd forming near the cab. Initially I thought it was maybe a road block and already was preparing a way to talk our way through.

As we got closer though I saw a very bent bicycle laying in the road, it was twisted and buckled quite badly, and in the centre of the crowd lay a man. Face down on the bitumen and not moving. Crap. It looked bad. It appeared the truck had hit him.

Chantelle and I have had some very basic Ambulance training in the past and we spoke quickly about stopping to help the guy. But being as there was 20 or 30 people now crowding around, some filming, and more running towards the scene plus the wail of an ambulance coming down the road, we thought it best if we silently moved past and carried on our way. The guy wasn’t moving and by the looks of his bike I suspected he may have been quite badly hurt.

We both rode along in shock for a while. That stupid truck driver could just as easily have taken us both out. The locals weren’t letting him go and were trying to get him to park off of the highway. Some of the drivers in Central America have been downright stupid.



Eventually we made it to the Nicaraguan exit point. It took 1.5 hours to exit. The longest so far. It was just a lot of waiting around, collecting stamps and signatures, and just generally trying to be patient. It was without a doubt the most inefficient process I have seen. Until we tried to get into Costa Rica.





C - It was such a ridiculously, ridiculous exit procedure for the bikes. Find a policeman in a light blue in the uniform, wandering around in the carpark and market somewhere. Get a form from him, fill it out. Find him again. Get him to check your form and your vehicle import and stamp both. Then go find another policeman, but one wearing a black uniform, and get him to stamp both of your documents as well. Then walk through the incoming immigration counters (this is just a weird border control situation) and into the baggage scanning area for incoming people. Thats where the exit customs desk is?? We laughed a lot through this crossing!

T - The process to get us into Costa Rica was easy and straight forward. Line up, get a stamp, done. Plus it was free. The we had to tackle Customs for our bikes. First we had to go to one customs office to get our documents checked, then copied, then rechecked. Then to another building tucked away from the others where we had to fork out $30 each bike for mandatory insurance, then another customs office to import our bikes temporarily. This process took just over 2 hours. It was crazy and made no sense. There was no signs, no directions, no smiles, nothing. I rate this as the worst border crossing I have ever done to date.







Finally though. We were free to ride into Costa Rica! After we had stopped at a gate and shown another man our papers again so he could recheck them all.

Costa Rica was green and cool and the road from the border had a few nice twists in it as we climbed a little bit. We decide to head for the town of Liberia today, just 80kms away, from where we could make a plan for getting our yellow fever shots in the city and ride some twisty roads.



C - Upon approaching Liberia, we noticed how much more modern Costa Rican cities are. There was no rubbish and modern buildings and roads. But it is a little bit lifeless.

T - We were soon checked into our very expensive but very basic room and wandered off in search of food.



I have some repairs to do in the morning on the two bikes, Mabel is spewing oil out of an oil seal on her stator and Rosie needs her new clutch plates.So after that we will head for the city of San Jose for our injections before moving ever southward to Panama.

T - I was up at dawns own crack today. I wanted to fix Rosies clutch and Mabels leak before we started to tackle the mountains to the south east of us. It wasn't long and I had Rosie keeled over on her side, her old innards ripped out and her new ones chucked back in. I had the whole thing done and dusted in about 20 minutes. Similarly Mabels stator was out and hanging by its wires and her new oil seal being jammed into place with every else that looked like a oil seal of some type receiving a good splash of RTV silicone. Hopefully both bikes will be back to their usual slipless, dripless selves again for a while.



Channy was soon up and we packed up our bikes, checked our oils and headed for San Jose. We need to get our yellow fever injections and WHO certifications otherwise we may not be allowed to go back home! It was going to be a long day and our intended route was about 260 kms of mountains and lakes and city traffic.

C - It was very exciting to get on Rosie and be able to ride up hills without dropping back to third because of her slipping clutch. It was wonderful to be zipping back in front of Todd and Mabel each time we ventured up a hill! I also had my overtaking power back, so it was nice to be able to overtake the slow cars and trucks again.

T - We were stuck on the Pan Am highway for a while but soon we were turning off onto the backroads. We climbed a little and then started zipping down hills and around sharp little bends. We miss this kind of riding! There was a few cars on the road and even on our little slow bikes we eventually ended up stuck behind traffic. This was to become the norm for us from this point on. We would pass a car, or truck and then catch up to another, and another, and another.













The lake we skirted around was absolutely gorgeous and had we not been intent on getting into the city today we would have stopped and camped at one of the free camps listed on iOverlander.

















We were soon spat out on a super busy freeway type deal and after paying a 10c toll each we immediately were stuck in a huge traffic jam. It went for miles. We sat in the line for quite some time and it took us 40 minutes to do just one kilometer. Then I saw an opening and twisting Mabels throttle wide open we roared into the closing gap in the traffic and started forcing our way to the front. Sitting in the heat behind a bus belching out fat diesel fumes was no longer fun. We scraped past bumpers, squeezed down drains, and raced through fenced off roadworks and eventually we were free, back into clear traffic again. It was actually fun to be riding so aggressively.







C - The traffic was absolutely nuts, with Todd commenting that it seemed to be busier than our ride through the streets of Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam. There were cars, buses, trucks, motorbikes, cyclists and pedestrians all vying for the same space of road. Just insanity. We passed so many accidents and it was easy to see why - it was every vehicle and person for him or herself.

T - By the time we hit the city it was 4pm and it was a snarling angry mess of hot cars, big accidents and traffic jams. We ducked and dodge and weaved and ran red lights, we needed to get to the hospital before 5pm come hell or high water. We made it there at 4:35pm.

In no time at all I had a 17 inch long 2 inch wide needle gouging its way through the sinew and bone in my arm to deliver an icey cold shot of live yellow fever into my system. I do not like needles. No I don't.



C - The vaccination was simple and painless… except for the cost of course! But its all worth it in the end. I do not need yellow fever to add my travel experiences!!

T - We couldn't get our certificate for the injection tonight so we decided to find a cheap hotel in the dodgey part of town for the night. The cheap hotel was a love motel and they happily relieved us of $32 for a basic, ugly little room that had tiny little towels, with free secure parking for our bikes. The room was worth maybe $10, max, but it was dark and we didn't want to be wandering the streets of the city for too long.



We found a cheap place for food nearby and then it was time for a movie and sleep. Tomorrow we were going to go and meet up with a Canadian guy who lives in Costa Rica but we have to get to Panama and get the shipping for our bikes organised. So we will head for the border to Panama. Our last Central American crossing.

Reaver per chance ?

__________________
My memory is becoming that good, I should be able to organise my own surprise party soon

C - We awoke nice and early this morning to get to the Ministerio de Salud offices nice and early. The nurse thought they opened at 0730, so that's when we arrived. They didn't open until 8, but we found a little cafe nearby for breakfast and wifi. The love motel did not offer wifi as one of their services!

After a security guard checked our documents at the health offices, we had to find an internet cafe to get a photocopy of the certificate. Back to the offices and we had two forms to fill in before we an official sighted everything and gave us our official certificates.

We quickly packed up the bikes and were leaving the city by 9am. Yay! San Jose was not a terribly enjoyable city for us - we did not get much to look around or check out the highlights, but it was dirty, polluted and had an uneasy vibe to it.

T - It was so busy in San Jose. The traffic was crazy and buses and taxis just pulled up and parked where ever they wanted, across lanes, intersections, footpaths, anywhere! Enough to drive every other road user crazy! We saw buses reversed into cars, cars t-boned into other cars, crashed bikes, it was nuts and I for one couldnt get out of there fast enough.



C - They way out of town was all a bit confusing, but we were soon on our way to what we had been told was a very enjoyable motorbiking road. As soon as left the traffic behind, we started to climb, climb, climb. We passed through beautiful villages and got some fantastic views back over the cities valley.









T - As the city fell away and the country side enveloped us, the riding just got better and better. And steeper and steeper. Poor Mabel was groaning and struggling to cart my back side up the mountain. She was back to third and sometimes second for about 40kms as we wound up up up.

C -We spent the morning climbing to a dizzying height of 3308mts! Much of this time was spent stuck behind trucks and slow moving vehicles, but when we got some clear air, the riding was sensational.







Once we reached San Isidro, the road flattened out, but we took the minor road down and followed the coast for the a while. The ocean was the bluest we have seen since we left Australia and it was lovely to see tropical beaches with white sand.







We pushed on to campsite we found on iOverlander and we are so glad we did. The camp is beautiful, with real lawn to pitch a tent on!





Tomorrow, we will head into Panama and complete our final Central American border crossing. We are both super excited about crossing into Colombia and can not wait to get the paperwork organised for the shipping!

T - One last border crossing in Central America. Thankfully! I get really stressed at borders. I worry about our paperwork, I worry that we will be one of those horror stories we read about, I worry about all the potential scams and bribes we could possibly be subject to, and most of all I worry about being stuck in no mans land. Its a silly thing I know, but I get really stressed and anxious and its not until I have the new immigration stamp in my passport that I start to relax.

Chantelle has been the rock for our little team though. She isn’t fazed at all by the borders or the officials and so I was worried today when she told me she was stressed and feeling unhappy too. The biggest shock was when she told me that she had been thinking she might want to go home.

But she also knew that as soon as she booked the plane ticket she would regret it. After we chatted a bit about it we both knew we wanted to continue the trip. Chantelle has been the one who has been under all the pressure to speak Spanish at all the borders, deal with all the changes in Spanish from one country to the next, she has been doing all the leg work for dealing with finding hotels and dealing with new currencies and the constant almost weekly crossing of borders has taken its toll.

I know people think that travelling like is easy. But all though it is amazing and we do love it every day, it is damn hard too. It has a whole heap of other stresses that we never realised we would have to deal with. Little things that all add up. Where do we eat? Where do we sleep? Language barriers that wear us down and all those types of things. The one thing we don't really stress about is the bikes. I worry about them in the heat, but they are solid little things and we know they will be easy enough to repair should the need arise. So I would like to give a big shout out to Channy. You have done an amazing job and should you ever truly need to go home, I will be there with you.



C - We have crossed a lot of borders recently, and each time there is a slight change in language, but there is also a lot of cultural changes. Ordering food, getting accommodation and all other interactions are just a bit different. Then the money is different - getting used to different notes and coins and then having to do different currency conversions, constantly checking your change and what you are charged. It's all added up recently and I had this sudden feeling of just wanting to go home - where I know how everything works, I speak the language, I understand how much everything costs. But I know that I do not really want to go home - I would instantly regret that decision if that's what we decided to do!

T - The crossing today. I had read a little about it on the internet so we could go in prepared. It always helps to know where each building is, customs, immigration and insurance, plus of any issues we may encounter. This looked like a complicated border and along with each set of instructions there were horror stories of corrupt officials and hours and hours of waiting time. One guy had to wait 14 hours! Yikes.



When we got there it was the usual chaotic mass of honking trucks blocking the highway and we did our usual trick of zipping past them and parking up the front of the line. We were soon stamped out of Costa Rica and had the bikes temporary import permits cancelled. Then it was onto Panama.

The immigration and customs centre was packed. Cars and trucks blocked any access to it and there were people everywhere! It looked to be the busiest crossing yet. We parked at what we thought was the end of the line and started taking our gear off. An aduana (customs) official came over and told us we could bring our bikes to the front of the line if we wanted. Well ok then! It meant our bikes were in seeing distance for every step of our immigration and importation process, which I was happy about.





In the end it went quite smoothly. Officials and truck drivers seemed to be keeping an eye out for us and whenever we either looked lost or wandered into the wrong office someone would come and get us and show us the right place to be. People were being lovely and again this has been our experience for our entire trip. Canada, USA, Mexico, Honduras, everywhere. People just wanted to help and wanted nothing in return. The only people we have found to be scammy bastards and shifty in general have been the money changers. Sure we know they are just making a living too but they are tricksters and we have had to be very careful any time we use them. This was certainly the case here at the Panama border.

Chantelle had $90 US worth of Costa Rican Colones to change. Normally we would work off of around $85 for that after a bit of haggling and allowing that the money changers need to make something. Sometimes we get more than we allow for, say in this case we may even get as much as $100. Not here in Panama though. $74 final offer or go away. We went away and stewed on it. Chantelle was mad. We found out we could use the Colones to pay our way through the border crossing process, but man we got a bad rate and soon we had spent $40 on $30 worth of services. In the end we had to suck it up and take what we could get from the money changer as we had nowhere else to change out the Colones. Going back the second time we got an even worse rate and he wouldn’t budge a bit knowing he had us over a barrel. I wanted to smack the smug wanker right in the face.



C - Exiting Costa Rica and entering Panama was nice and easy and relatively straightforward after the convoluted steps of some of the other Central American crossings. I was glad to exit Costa Rica - I found the country a bit confusing. It looked western, but felt Central American and things worked in the typical Central American fashion. The prices were similar to that in the US for Central American services. Strange! But the strangest thing of all, was that I saw not one person smile the entire time we were there. The minute we approached the Panama border though, all the officials smiled as they greeted us!

We had one hiccup on the Panamanian side though - other travellers had warned us to carefully check our documents, because Colombian officials are fastidious on document checking. We noticed on our vehicle import permits, the bikes were listed as Australian, but our nationality was listed as Austriaco. Austriaco? I questioned the Aduana official, but she was adamant that Austriaco was Australian. We were positive it was not. But without internet, we could not double check and I was not quite sure how much I could argue with an Aduana official?

T - Then we were free. Our wallets empty and sad looking. We were in Panama. No more Central American crossings left.

We rode down the smooth 4 lane highway to the town of David where we had cheese and tomato sandwiches and then headed up into the mountains to the town of Boquete. We were contemplating a free camp to try to recoup some of todays losses in the money department but we needed to sort out the shipping of our bikes around the Darien Gap. So we found a cheapish hostal and soon had emails and whatsapp messages flying back and forth. It looks like we may have a chance to get on a sail boat with our bikes from Panama to Colombia so heres hoping that works out!





C - On riding into the town of Boquete, the town looked very pretty, nestled in amongst a valley surrounded by clouds and mountains. We rose 1000mts in the 30km from the David, and the cool air was sensational. David had been stiflingly hot, so it was lovely when it started it rain on our ride up to Boquete. The freshness of the rain and the coolness of the air did make a nice end to the ride.

We ventured into town for a look around and wandered into the grocery store to pick up some dinner and breakfast. We were both very excited to find red wine to be so cheap and so splurged on a box (yes, a box! For $3). It was just what was in order and surprisingly, the wine was from Chili and damn good! Although it has been a very long time since I tasted red wine!!









Once back at the hostal, we used the free wifi to check our TVIP document and sure enough, Austriaco is Austrian in spanish. So, we will need to head into an Aduana office tomorrow and hopefully they can correct it. We would hate to arrive in Colombia and be sent back here to correct a such a silly mistake.

T - Tomorrow we return to David and then head for the big smoke of Panama City. Both of us are feeling very excited to ride over the Bridge of the Americas!

T - Have you ever had a day where you not only went forwards but you also went all the way backwards too? Well we now have! What a day.

We were intending to be up early so we could be at the aduana office 40kms back down the mountain for when they opened. But the bed was comfy and we were still lounging about come 800.

Finally we pulled ourselves together, slugged back a litre of milk mixed with oatmeal for breakfast, packed everything up and got under way.

The ride back to David was quite nice. It was reasonably cool, downhill all the way, and the road was fairly quiet. We were soon navigating the slow very calm traffic of David. Everyone here in Panama seems extraordinarily nice and we are really enjoying it. So many people have come and spoken to us in the street, cars stop and allow us to merge into the traffic, its all so lovely and civilised after the chaos of the last countries.



We made it to aduana and an official was soon telling us that he could fix it no problems and we could just take a seat and he would sort the documents out. About 1.5 hours later he called us in to sign the completed new forms. Which after checking the VIN numbers, our passport numbers and then making sure our nationalities were now listed as Australianos we signed them. Just as I was walking out the door I noticed that the official had put down the exit date as the same day as the entry date, So back we went. Third time lucky right?

Wrong.

He apologised profusely and said that he would again need to cancel the new permit and reissue yet another one. So we went back to the sitting area and waited it out. It was at this point Chantelle realised she didn't have her phone. I had used it last. In the hotel. In the mountains. 40 kms away. Damn it. We decided to ride back there to get it after we finished with aduana. We were called back into the office where we received the new forms and after checking them very very carefully and noted there were no mistakes we signed two copies and handed them back. The aduana official shuffled them together and handed us our new copies back. Phew. Done. Or so we thought….

C - I thought this fix would be quick and easy! Apparently not. It took the official two hours to do these forms for us. The office was nicely airconditioned though!!

T - We high tailed it back up the mountain and retrieved Chantelles phone before setting our GPS for the camp we had picked 200kms to the south. It was now 2pm and this meant we would probably ride in the dark a little.

We took a back road that brought us out on the Pan Am and soon we were riding through km after km of roadwork. About 50 km’s of road works all up. We had a few decent showers of rain but we really enjoyed it because it was sporadic and allowed us and the bikes to cool off for 10 minutes before the brutal sun would come out and steam us dry again.





At about 80 kms from camp we went through a police check point where we had to show off our fancy new and very correct import papers. The Policeman looked them over then came over to me and said “Theres a problem here” I was expecting some type of shakedown or something. Nope. He was right. There was a problem.

When the aduana official had taken our signed correct papers back and shuffled them about he had mixed in our incorrectly dated ones. So we had two import documents now. One was my correct one for Mabel and the other was my incorrectly dated one for Mabel. Chantelle didn't have any proof that Rosie was in the country legally. That is a very bad thing. It can mean impounding the bike, fines and or arrest for Chantelle. Luckily the police officer didn't read the name on the import and was only concerned that there was a mistake on the dates. He told us it was no problem but that we should get it fixed as soon as possible in Panama City. I hurriedly took the papers from him before he could see they were both mine and thanked him profusely saying that we would rather return to David and have them fixed straight away. He seemed a little confused and even unhappy about this but we kept stressing that we knew they were important documents for the bikes and so on. So we turned around and rode back to David, just as the rain came belting down.

C - I was somewhat concerned about this. We had a choice of 70km to camp (where we had arranged to meet a fellow traveller, Aaron, for the evening), then onto Panama City (about another 300km) and hope the aduana there would be helpful, or just return 80km back to David. I wanted my bike on the road for the least amount of time possible! The rain was already bucketing down and we were drenched before we could our wet weather gear on. We both decided it was way too late to consider the wet weather pants, our boots already half filled with water. Sigh. I had just been thinking this morning ‘how could I have wanted to go home yesterday’?

T - Feeling extremely low on the morale front we decided to stay in a nice hotel with hot showers, enjoy a steak for dinner with a brownie and icecream for dessert. So after a total of 280 kms of riding today we ended up right back where we started.

I enjoyed 2 very hot, very long showers as my leathers and jeans drip dried in the room. Although part of me is so annoyed and so down about this I am glad we discovered it when we were close enough to return to David and not when we were in Panama City trying to export the bikes.









C - The hotel was perfect! The dinner was perfect. We both went to bed happy with our choice to stay here. It was worth every penny! Then, just when we needed it, we got a beautiful message from a blog reader in Australia, Simone, which made us both smile! Thank you to everyone out there who has been so supportive.

T - So tomorrow we will have another try and see how we go.

T- We certainly splurged last night, but it was worth every single penny! I was one very happy boy with my steak filled tum. We received a beautiful message this morning from a lovely person who has been following our blog. She really helped lift our spirits and made us grateful to all of you out there who have supported us even when you have never actually met us. It means so much and I cant begin to say thankyou enough.

So this morning we were at the aduana office right on opening time. The gentleman who helped us yesterday greeted us with a very confused look on his face. We explained to him about the mix up with the papers and he soon had us heading back out the door with the correct ones in hand. Time to head down the road and meet up with Aaron for a camp out.

The first half of our trip was a repeat of yesterdays ride and the second half was pretty well exactly the same. Mile after mile of roadworks. It was quite warm and both our bikes were working very hard.



Finally though, we pulled into the campground, met the lovely hosts and soon had the tent hoisted, a glass of cheap red wine poured, and we were settling down and chatting away.





Not long after we arrived another couple turned up on push bikes. They were cycling from Portland in the States to Patagonia. Bloody mad they are!

We spent the evening swapping stories from on the road and soon enough it was time for lights out.

Tomorrow we shall head for Panama City, around 270 kms away.

T - The beauty of camping out means getting up nice and early. And this morning I was down by the lake before the sun even came up. The birds were singing, there was a little bit of mist rolling along the lake surface and I had my own little private moment and took a few pictures over the water.



We had a breakfast of porridge, a cup of tea, and then packed up the bikes before heading out. The camp was free but we left a small donation to the caretakers as we want to make sure others can enjoy it in the future too.



As we whizzed down the Pan Am the sun rose up and the temperature soon followed. Aaron had decided to ride with us today and he sat behind us on his much bigger Suzuki DRZ400. We just basically sat on the highway and ground down the miles. Slowly but surely getting closer and closer to Panama.





There wasn't too much of note on this ride. It was a busy trucking road and there was quite a fair bit of traffic zipping past us. Then seemingly out of nowhere a door was flying in the air. I didn't see where it came from but I watched fascinated as it hung up there about 10 metres off the ground, fluttering and twisting in the air. I wasn't sure where it may land and so rode along keeping my eye on it. The amount of air time this door had was incredible. Then I noticed it's very odd, very unique shape. It looked to be a lid off of a coffin, but it had a window in it. Eventually it crashed down in the lane next to us just as a pile of thundering traffic blasted over it smashing it to bits. What a weird thing. Imagine the irony of that, being killed by a coffin lid.





Eventually we made it into the very busy city of Panama. It was quite a cool moment to be riding over the Bridge of the Americas and seeing the canal stretch off into the distance. It was definitely a milestone moment for sure. Next stop from here is South America.



C - The riding today was a real slog but seeing the Bridge of the Americas bought a huge smile to my smile. We have ridden from Alaska, the length of the North American continent on two small, little plucky motorcycles. What a moment!!!

T - We found a hostal after some searching around and ended up having to take a couple of beds in a dorm room, but soon we were off looking for a celebratory . We had made it to Panama.



Tomorrow we have to ride to the nearby, 100kms away, town of Portobelo to meet the captain of a yacht that will take us around the Darien Gap and into Colombia, and our bikes too of course.

T - We have not slept in a dorm room like this with other people before and I was worried about late night party animals coming in drunk, making loads of racket and generally interrupting my beauty sleep, of which I don't need much of course. Right?

But I slept really well and this morning I was awake at 6am and ready to take on the challenge of a free breakfast of cornflakes! Yummmmmmo!



After stuffing my face we decided we should get on the road to Portobelo to meet the captain and see how legit this whole yacht thing was. We haven't heard of this boat, or this captain before so we were keen to meet him and see the boat before we decided to agree to anything.







The road between Panama City and Portobelo was long and boring. It was basically a four lane highway and we just slogged it out over the next two hours.





Once we turned off the highway and onto the more rural road we started to see some very unusual things. Men covered in mud and dressed in reeds were dancing in the street, blocking cars, blowing whistles, drinking and asking for money. But when we came close to them they always let us pass straight through. It was very odd and we saw this repeated numerous times. I felt like they were witch doctors perhaps?





Finally after those guys and then masses of traffic jams we pulled into Portobelo and met up with the captain. He took us out to his beautiful yacht, showed us where our bikes would go, where we would sleep and then told us that it would only be four of us on board for the trip! We were pretty happy and handed over a small deposit each. He explained to us what we needed to do and what he needed to do in order for us to take our bikes from Panama to Colombia on his boat. Done deal!











From there it was back to Panama City where we got lost on the mess of highway junctions, had to sneak through toll road barriers, saw a ship in the canal locks, rode along the seafront and saw the city skyline, and generally just made a nuisance of ourselves.







After all that we all felt a little tired and decided to go out for a walk, find some and gorge on Burger King.





Tomorrow we need to go through the process of now exporting our bikes from Panama which isn't as simple as it sounds. So that will be fun!

Oh and as a side note, the yacht we are on is called the Calypsa. It is the yacht featured in 50 First Dates. Yep Mabel and Rosie are going to be on the same boat that Drew Barrymore and Adam Sandler were once on.

T - Now it begins. The process of getting our bikes out of Panama. We know nothing of this process except what the agent for the sailboat has told us. So this morning we had to go to a place only known to us as the DIJ where we would get our bikes inspected, wait around for the day, and then hopefully be given a certificate clearing us to leave with our bikes within the next 8 days.

Getting to the DIJ office was insane! The traffic banked up in every direction. It didn't take too long and we were lost. Our GPS maps just can't handle the on off ramps of the myriad of highways in this city. Eventually though we pulled up outside of a place with a huge DIJ sign. Found it!

Actually no we hadn't. It was the wrong DIJ. The one we wanted was about another 5kms away. This time we asked Aaron if he wanted to take charge with the navigation. It seemed his Google maps was way more up to the task of navigating us through the traffic than our GPS. In a very short amount of time we were pulling into a fenced yard full of dusty cars and soon we had our VIN’s checked and then it was just time to wait. We couldn't pick up the final paperwork until 2pm. So that left us a good few hours to kill.

What is the one must see thing in Panama? That would of course be the Panama Canal. A monstrous feat of engineering. So that's where we went.



There was a great little museum there and we were lucky enough to witness to massive cargo ships passing through the locks. Very cool!





C - I did not expect to enjoy the trip to the Canal as much as I did. It was absolutely amazing watching the massive cargo ships move through the lock system. The museum was also really well done - both informative and enjoyable!





T - From there it was back to the DIJ place to pick up our papers, which took ages and involved an earthquake, and then we were told by aduana that we were free to leave the country with our bikes! Woohoo! Colombia here we come!

C - There were a few dodgy characters hanging around the DIJ office, so Todd stayed outside with the bikes whilst I went in to organise the paperwork. Whilst waiting, I met a really lovely Australian couple who were overlanding in their vehicle.

After sitting down to wait, the whole building began to shake and the walls visibly shook with two massive wave like motions. It was incredible! Most incredible though, was that the entire staff began to evacuate, with not one person stopping to tell the tourists waiting what was going on. Eventually an American staff member approached us and advised to evacuate too. It was a very weird experience!

T - We planned to head straight to Portobelo for the night so we would be ready to load the bikes and leave tomorrow. But the traffic had other ideas. All the roads in the city were at a complete standstill. I have never seen traffic like it. No one was moving and it was damn hot. Luckily we managed to filter up through the traffic with most cars moving around a little to let us through. Even still it took us the best part of 2 hours to travel just 15kms.

Finally many many hours later we broke free of the city and rolled on towards Portobelo. A simple 100km ride turned into a four hour venture. We feel like we have everything in order now and trust that the Captain knows what he is doing.

T - We received a message late last night that we needed to be at the dock to load our bikes onto the boat at 11am today. We were all very excited!









Channy and I were both looking forward to having one last night here in Portobelo where we could relax and have a quiet corner of the world after the hectic bustle of Central America. But it wasn't to be. Plans were changed all of a sudden and without notice. The Captain wanted to sail today. It was a little upsetting, especially for Chantelle, as we were both aching for our own private space and to have just a smidgen of control over what was going on just for a day. Both of us have felt like it's all spiralling out of control at the moment.

C - It is high season in Panama and as a consequence, we have been destined to sleep in dorm rooms for the last four nights or so. Knowing that we would be trapped on a very small yacht with 5 other people for up to 5 days, I was really keen to have some quiet time for an evening. I love to be social, but I also very much need alone time every now and then to ‘reset’. So I was most upset to have my plans disrupted and feel like we had no control over the situation.

T - After the bikes had been dragged into a small dinghy and the hauled aboard the yacht, a very tense and scary 10 minutes, we proceeded to check ourselves out of Panama. Our passports were soon stamped, but not before the captain had to get a taxi to another town to get a different official to stamp them and then return to the immigration in Portobelo and also have them checked by immigration. I’ll be honest here, the whole border thing in Central America is crazy. I know it creates jobs, but for those of us who don't know where to go or what to do, these border crossings are a confusing and illogical nightmare.









Then we grabbed a few snacks to take on the boat and that was it. We were ferried out to the boat to swim and relax while the crew went and did some shopping for the trip. We chilled out and waited. And waited. And waited. We swam a little and then watched the sun go down. Still we waited.











Around 8pm the crew and the captain came back to announce we weren't leaving after all. In fact we wouldn't leave until possibly midday tomorrow. I hope we have made the right decision taking this boat. At this point Chantelle and I both agree that using an agent and either using a shipping container or just flying the motorcycles is a much better idea.

Tomorrow we sail for Cartagena! It will take us around 3-4 days dependant on the weather.