We overnighted in Panama City and met a couple of guys on a KTM and a BMW 800 who were going to Argentina and were staying in a nearby hostel. Their spirits were very high with the hope of booking passage on the 40 meter schooner, Stahlratte,org to Colombia, my dream trip.
I was set to thinking after receiving a phone call from Kris Nijs, a friend of mine living in Lima, Peru who rode for four contiguous years around the world on an ST1100 Pan European. He suggested riding to Lima, then fly the bike back. Excited by the prospect, I asked him to check out prices from Lima to LA with the bike. I even found a space on the Stahlratte for the bike but not for me. I would have had to take a smaller boat or a plane. Kris call me back and had a price from LAN Airlines of $7,000 or 8,000 USD, so that idea was out the window. It has to do with a Homeland security category called “Dangerous Goods”
The kids from the hostel would have to sail the high seas on their own. Best of luck to them.
The three of us rode toward the Darien Gap out of curiosity, mostly Valerii’s interest in whether or not he should make the overland crossing attempt on his bike against all warnings that it is “not recommended”.
He took the advice and started a search for a boat to Colombia. The road to the Darien was rough and not particularly pretty so we turned around at a deserted point and got some nice pictures of the bikes lined up in the middle of a long straight section of the road.
Ulli and me then made our way up to beautiful Portobelo on the Carib side while Val searched for tires in Panama City. Val met us later after an unsuccessful tire hunt. Portobelo was great, so relaxing and scenic with islands out over the water to stir the curiosity. Ulli did SCUBA and I snorkeled the local waters near our hotel. The only fly in the ointment, other than the no-see-em’s, was that the staff of the hotel did not smile much at all and in some cases they were a bit curt. It may be a cultural thing related to the local tribe of Spanish speaking blacks that are numerous there. They may be ambivalent about the tourist money flowing freely there driving prices up for the locals.
One thing for sure, the town really gets a loud party atmosphere on Saturday night with even the local busses looking like rolling discothèques, pumping out their own beat and lightshow.
This is also one of the towns where one would find a captain and a boat to Colombia. There are unseen lines to cross though. As far as we gathered, there are certain captains that get recommended by certain hostals and even towns in the area. The Captain we talked to in “Captain Jacks Bar” was three sheets to the wind by 8 PM but I asked questions anyway. He told us in detail how to secure a bike on the deck and how to protect it from salt water. Four point ratchet down the suspension, spray the entire* bike with a can of WD40, then wrap it with Saran wrap completely. Well that’s what he said anyway.
We said goodbye to our riding brother, Valerii, who went on his own to seek a captain and find out about customs and immigration related to taking a boat to Colombia while making his way south to Argentina.
Ulli and I rode out toward Costa Rica getting a visit in at the famous Mira Flores Locks as it opened for visitors at 9:00AM. Very impressive to watch the big ships float on through past the visitors center.
As Ulli and I rolled care free toward my friends in Boquete, near the Costa Rica border, we were abruptly stopped at a protest march on the Pan American Highway. Apparently, from what we could gather, it is the indigenous tribes protesting the government plans for strip mining their land for gold and copper without much in the way of compensation for the devastation and pollution it would cause. That first protest set us back an hour and a half. Then after rolling out of that, about an hour later we got stopped at another one where someone said shots were fired. Both had a heavy police presence including riot brigades with full gear.
Now we are about 2.5 hours behind and this put us into a heavy rain downpour during the last 20 KM to Boquete. It was during the deluge that I noticed the Datel voltage readout standing at about 11 volts. I brought the electrical demand to bones minimum but didn't want to pull over because I may not make it on the electrons left in the battery and there was no cover from the rain.
Well, we made it to Sharon and Mickeys house OK, but when I shut the bike down it did not have enough to start again.
The terminals were a little loose and there was some corrosion. I cleaned that up and charged the battery on Mickeys car charger. Everything back in and without all the farkle wires on the battery, the bike started but only shows 12.5 or so with a few tenths increase with revving the engine.
Right now I have the charged battery disconnected and I'll see if it holds the 12.7 it currently has by the morning. (It does)
Two days later I had the right mechanic, Neil, who made a house call to the bike with a pile of tools.
The alternator had a burned section with a broken wire. Parts are on order from Costa Rica and may take 5 to 7 days according to the general manager at Moto-Suzuki in San Jose, CR. Nothing to do now but sit back and try to enjoy Panama. I took a room in a hostel in Boquete in order to give some privacy back to Sharon and Mickey. This was a good move and gave me an opportunity to take in the local day to day life in the area. I met several interesting English speaking travelers. One was BC fellow riding a V-Strom 1000 south to meet to Stahlratte.org where he will be taken to Cartagena on his way to his home country of Brazil. We shared a couple of meals together before he mounted up and rode off to Panama City.
Kathleen, a resident of Marin County, CA was at the second hostel that I stayed at and is traveling Panama with her 3 year old adopted Guatemalan son, Jade. We shared a few meals and did a bit of touring together. Jade made a few friends with local kids so a couple of our meals turned out to be draped with hungry kids, their parents were nowhere to be found.
Ken, from BC is a retired longshoreman and an avid traveler with extensive knowledge about the world and Panama particularly. I met him in a coffee shop. We rode in his rental car up to the Carib coast and Bocas del Toro, a great little community on the Island of Colon. The ride was slow and we needed to stop often to ask for directions and take pictures of the impressive mountains and rivers. Ken likes to stay about 20KPH under the speed limit so the brakes in his rental got a real workout in the mountain hills and turns on the way to Bocas, which is as good a place as any to wait for my parts to come in.
While in Bocas, I got word from the Horizonsunlimited.com site that BC riders Fred and Larry are in town but heading north soon. I met with them for breakfast where we shared Central American motorcycle travel info and news. They wished I were up and running so I could travel with them and I felt the same way, but without the stator failure, I would not have met them at all. They told me they plan to be in Cancun for a week in March, if I am in the area I should visit. It was a meal for the soul as well as the body. I appreciate people more now I am in such a vulnerable position.
It’s been lazy days of eating, yoga classes and lounging in Bocas del Toro. We took a free tour of the Smithsonian Institute Lab here on the island where they do valuable research on environmental concerns in the waters and land.
Friday, February 18, 2011
Monday, February 14, 2011
Honduras, Nicaragua
Val and I were amazed at the bureaucratic gridlock at the border from Guatemala to Honduras up by Copan. We felt encouraged falsely by the speed at which we got both our bikes and our selves checked out of Guatemala, about 15 minutes. Shortly after that we had our selves checked into Honduras. The rest of the six hours we spent at the border was only for the last step, to check the bikes into Honduras. We never were sure why it took so long but it sure seemed like the big man in charge of this process was toying with us. When it was my turn to sit in the office with him, he slowly removed his sunglasses as if to say, “we’ll be here a while”. He looked at my passport and said “Ahh, Italianiano” Then pronounced my name wrong but close so I complimented his getting it right. He smirked, and slowly moved my passport to a point almost a full arms reach to his right, then tossed it down at the last moment.
He never asked me for and “fees” that were not receipted, but I got the impression things would have gone faster if there were a $20 bill inside the passport.
He only spoke Spanish and with what I understood I proceeded to go through a merry go round of making copies, paying the bank, and going back to the big guy for stamps.
…Then the computers died and everyone was waiting for three hours for them to come back up.
Anyway, long story short, the amount of aggravation we endured seemed to correlate to the amount of freedom we felt once we were at our first stop at Copan Ruins.
Nearly starved we first needed to eat and while waiting for our burritos I went next door to see if there is a room available at the hotel. Nice place, $20 USD converted after her asking price of $22.
A fellow in the street said he had a room for $20 but we said no gracias. “OK fifteen” ! Again we said no just because he was soliciting us like a time share salesman. As we walked away he said “$10” and at that Val thought we should at least go with him to check it out. I agreed and when we saw what he had for the money, that’s where we stayed for two nights while we checked out the Copan Ruins and the great little town.
We met Pete in the hotel , he has been spending as much time in Honduras as his job back in Philly would allow. He said, “If you’ve been to Chitzen Itza or Tikal you’ll be disappointed in Copan” and to a point he’s right in that they are not as tall, but as I recall Chitzen Itza did not have as many large sculptures still mostly intact and on display.
The ruins were an interesting walk around the old rocks and sculptures. I imagine the things that went on at the site and the way people lived before Columbus came.
The ride out of Copan was in showers but still fun in the twists and turns of the Honduran mountains in the north.
The roads were mostly good in the non-construction areas and the detours for road repair were usually short and sweet, a few hundred meters of rocks and mud …just the right off road for the WEE.
Almost everyone we encountered was either friendly to us or neutral in expression, apparently treating us as they would anyone else.
The Honduras/Nicaragua border was better at about 1.5 hours of morasses. We stopped for lunch in a medium sized town not to far from the border where we found a burger wagon at the park centro. While eating the huge double cheese burger that Val ordered for me while I used the pay bathroom ( 30 cents).
There was a down and out looking man who was standing less than seven feet from us while eyeing me when he thought I wouldn’t notice. I thought he was going to ask me for money but instead he just stood there wobbling a bit from the hip bottle he gulped every few minutes. I guess we all knew I wasn’t going to finish that burger and when I couldn’t eat another bite, I offered the remains to this poor guy. He took it without hesitation and walk swiftly off into the crowds like he had the winning lottery ticket. I was hit with a wave of gratitude for all the luxury problems I complain about routinely.
While at a bank to get cash, we meet a great guy who gave us good information and even invited us into his house to get a copy of a map. He learned English in the States and spoke it well. I set a way point in case I was through that area on the way back north.
That night we made it into Granada and began a haphazard search for a place to put the tents. At Lago Granada there were places that looked good for tenting but were warned intently that it is “not recommended” so we took an inexpensive hotel that was apparently in a section of town that was dangerous to outsiders after 11PM unless we took a cab. Val and I agreed we didn’t like the ambiance in Nicaragua so we made a fast getaway the next morning after taking a few pictures of the historic colonial town architecture.
While making a dash for the Costa Rica border, Val hit a pretty good sized rock with his front tire which caused a sudden deflation and loss of control. I didn’t see it as I was in the lead but when I got back to him he was all exclamation points about almost getting killed, flailing his hands describing the incident.
While discussing our options, which were few after examining his front tire and tube, Ulli rode to a stop just in front of us. Ulli is a German fellow on a Yamaha XT 600 and just happened to have the same size front tube in his pack. He was very helpful in getting us up and running again and he was happy that we invited him to ride with us to Panama. So the Ukrainian riding around the world, the German on a four week holiday adventure tour, and the New Yorker ride off slowly south to favor the damaged tire on Vals bike.
An hour or so past the Costa Rican border, we cut west to the Pacific and found a perfect free camp site at a fishing boat dock on an inlet. Ulli was not equipped for camping so Val and I flipped a coin. Ulli was a perfect gentleman sharing my little four by eight tent. “We are family now“, I said. The German and the Ukrainian laughed at that idea. “You’ll see” I said.
The Pan American Highway to San Jose is pretty flat until it starts to climb the mountains just before the city. It got cool and was twisty until we hit into the city traffic. I led using GPS to Ulli’s contact “Wild Riders Moto Adventures” where he knew the owner, a German guy. The owner referred us to a hostal a few blocks away that had secure parking at about $15 each for the night with internet.
Next day we toured the sites of San Jose and Val bought a 300+ gigabyte hard drive for his pictures and videos. That afternoon we rode over to Ulli’s friend and fellow German, Freddy in the town of Orozi, just southeast of Cartago where we had a nice visit and tour of his Moto Adventure Tour company. He also gave us a good referral to a hostal close by at about $8 each for the three of us in one room. We all had a great dinner together.
Out of Orozi at about 8AM we rode into the majestic and misty highlands on the way to the retirement hotspot, Boquete, Panama where Sharon and Mickey are waiting for us. My friend Steve referred me to them and it turned out to be a great visit after we finally found the place. They just love living in Panama, and only need about $1,000 per month to live well, and that is with heath care, maid service and yard service. They had a guest, Lisa Rogak, the author of forty books including, “Death Warmed Over” and “A Boy Named Shel”.
It was an interesting evening even after the stimulating conversation was over and everyone found a place to sleep.
The house has a metal roof and it is the windy season in Panama so I had images of sleeping on an old ship with all the creaking and clapping sounds.
It was Friday the 4th of February the next day, when I finally saw the Bridge of the Americas over the waterway that leads from the Pacific Ocean to the Caribbean Sea. It was a long road to get there so no surprise I was a bit emotional about attaining my goal. A tear tinted time to celebrate the view of the boats waiting to traverse the isthmus from one ocean to another while navigating the flow of traffic in the right lane and snapping a few haphazard pictures.
Pics at https://picasaweb.google.com/Digiamo
He never asked me for and “fees” that were not receipted, but I got the impression things would have gone faster if there were a $20 bill inside the passport.
He only spoke Spanish and with what I understood I proceeded to go through a merry go round of making copies, paying the bank, and going back to the big guy for stamps.
…Then the computers died and everyone was waiting for three hours for them to come back up.
Anyway, long story short, the amount of aggravation we endured seemed to correlate to the amount of freedom we felt once we were at our first stop at Copan Ruins.
Nearly starved we first needed to eat and while waiting for our burritos I went next door to see if there is a room available at the hotel. Nice place, $20 USD converted after her asking price of $22.
A fellow in the street said he had a room for $20 but we said no gracias. “OK fifteen” ! Again we said no just because he was soliciting us like a time share salesman. As we walked away he said “$10” and at that Val thought we should at least go with him to check it out. I agreed and when we saw what he had for the money, that’s where we stayed for two nights while we checked out the Copan Ruins and the great little town.
We met Pete in the hotel , he has been spending as much time in Honduras as his job back in Philly would allow. He said, “If you’ve been to Chitzen Itza or Tikal you’ll be disappointed in Copan” and to a point he’s right in that they are not as tall, but as I recall Chitzen Itza did not have as many large sculptures still mostly intact and on display.
The ruins were an interesting walk around the old rocks and sculptures. I imagine the things that went on at the site and the way people lived before Columbus came.
The ride out of Copan was in showers but still fun in the twists and turns of the Honduran mountains in the north.
The roads were mostly good in the non-construction areas and the detours for road repair were usually short and sweet, a few hundred meters of rocks and mud …just the right off road for the WEE.
Almost everyone we encountered was either friendly to us or neutral in expression, apparently treating us as they would anyone else.
The Honduras/Nicaragua border was better at about 1.5 hours of morasses. We stopped for lunch in a medium sized town not to far from the border where we found a burger wagon at the park centro. While eating the huge double cheese burger that Val ordered for me while I used the pay bathroom ( 30 cents).
There was a down and out looking man who was standing less than seven feet from us while eyeing me when he thought I wouldn’t notice. I thought he was going to ask me for money but instead he just stood there wobbling a bit from the hip bottle he gulped every few minutes. I guess we all knew I wasn’t going to finish that burger and when I couldn’t eat another bite, I offered the remains to this poor guy. He took it without hesitation and walk swiftly off into the crowds like he had the winning lottery ticket. I was hit with a wave of gratitude for all the luxury problems I complain about routinely.
While at a bank to get cash, we meet a great guy who gave us good information and even invited us into his house to get a copy of a map. He learned English in the States and spoke it well. I set a way point in case I was through that area on the way back north.
That night we made it into Granada and began a haphazard search for a place to put the tents. At Lago Granada there were places that looked good for tenting but were warned intently that it is “not recommended” so we took an inexpensive hotel that was apparently in a section of town that was dangerous to outsiders after 11PM unless we took a cab. Val and I agreed we didn’t like the ambiance in Nicaragua so we made a fast getaway the next morning after taking a few pictures of the historic colonial town architecture.
While making a dash for the Costa Rica border, Val hit a pretty good sized rock with his front tire which caused a sudden deflation and loss of control. I didn’t see it as I was in the lead but when I got back to him he was all exclamation points about almost getting killed, flailing his hands describing the incident.
While discussing our options, which were few after examining his front tire and tube, Ulli rode to a stop just in front of us. Ulli is a German fellow on a Yamaha XT 600 and just happened to have the same size front tube in his pack. He was very helpful in getting us up and running again and he was happy that we invited him to ride with us to Panama. So the Ukrainian riding around the world, the German on a four week holiday adventure tour, and the New Yorker ride off slowly south to favor the damaged tire on Vals bike.
An hour or so past the Costa Rican border, we cut west to the Pacific and found a perfect free camp site at a fishing boat dock on an inlet. Ulli was not equipped for camping so Val and I flipped a coin. Ulli was a perfect gentleman sharing my little four by eight tent. “We are family now“, I said. The German and the Ukrainian laughed at that idea. “You’ll see” I said.
The Pan American Highway to San Jose is pretty flat until it starts to climb the mountains just before the city. It got cool and was twisty until we hit into the city traffic. I led using GPS to Ulli’s contact “Wild Riders Moto Adventures” where he knew the owner, a German guy. The owner referred us to a hostal a few blocks away that had secure parking at about $15 each for the night with internet.
Next day we toured the sites of San Jose and Val bought a 300+ gigabyte hard drive for his pictures and videos. That afternoon we rode over to Ulli’s friend and fellow German, Freddy in the town of Orozi, just southeast of Cartago where we had a nice visit and tour of his Moto Adventure Tour company. He also gave us a good referral to a hostal close by at about $8 each for the three of us in one room. We all had a great dinner together.
Out of Orozi at about 8AM we rode into the majestic and misty highlands on the way to the retirement hotspot, Boquete, Panama where Sharon and Mickey are waiting for us. My friend Steve referred me to them and it turned out to be a great visit after we finally found the place. They just love living in Panama, and only need about $1,000 per month to live well, and that is with heath care, maid service and yard service. They had a guest, Lisa Rogak, the author of forty books including, “Death Warmed Over” and “A Boy Named Shel”.
It was an interesting evening even after the stimulating conversation was over and everyone found a place to sleep.
The house has a metal roof and it is the windy season in Panama so I had images of sleeping on an old ship with all the creaking and clapping sounds.
It was Friday the 4th of February the next day, when I finally saw the Bridge of the Americas over the waterway that leads from the Pacific Ocean to the Caribbean Sea. It was a long road to get there so no surprise I was a bit emotional about attaining my goal. A tear tinted time to celebrate the view of the boats waiting to traverse the isthmus from one ocean to another while navigating the flow of traffic in the right lane and snapping a few haphazard pictures.
Pics at https://picasaweb.google.com/Digiamo
Monday, February 7, 2011
Portabelo to Boquete
In Lew of the mega update that is in the works I just wanna tell ya about yesterday and today.
Ulli and I said good bye to Val yesterday as he rode off to find a boat to Colombia and points south.
I entertained the idea of taking a boat with him after I got a call from my buddy, Kris Nijs, in Lima, Peru. Kris did a RTW trip from 1999 to 2003. Kris is on my Email update list so he knew I was closer to him than I am from home. We talked a while and he said I could fly the bike and myself back to the USA from Lima. Then we found out that the only airline that Kris found that would do it had a price of between 7 and $8,000 USD. That idea was squashed and so Ulli and I rode out toward Costa Rica getting a visit in at the famous Mira Flores Locks as the opened for visitors at 9:00AM. Very impressive to watch the big ships float on through past the visitors center. Pics on the way...
As Ulli and I rolled care free toward my friends in Boquete, near the Costa Rica border, we rolled to a stop at a protest march on the Pan American Highway. Apparently, from was we could gather, it is the the indigenous tribes protesting the government plans for their land. That first protest set us back an hour and a half. Then after rolling out of that, about an hour later we got stopped at another one where someone said shots were fired. Both had a heavy police presence including riot brigades with full gear.
now we are about 2.5 hours behind and this put us into a heavy rain downpour and the last 20 KM to Boquete. It was during the deluge that I noticed the Datel voltage readout standing at about 11 volts. I brought the Electrical demand to bones minimum but didn't want to pull over because I may not make it on the electrons left in the battery and there was no cover from the rain.
Well, We made it to Sharon and Mickeys house OK, but when I shut the bike down it did not have enough to start again.
The terminals were a little loose and there was some corrosion. I cleaned that up and charged the battery on Mickeys car charger. everything back in and without all the farkle wires on the battery, the bike started but only shows 12.5 or so with a few tenths increase with reving the engine.
Right now I have the charged battery disconnected and I'll see if it holds the 12.7 it currently has by the morning.
Hope it's not the alternator...anyone know the check to see if it is? I thought if there is a slight increase in voltage with reving that it might not be but I am not sure.
Ulli and I said good bye to Val yesterday as he rode off to find a boat to Colombia and points south.
I entertained the idea of taking a boat with him after I got a call from my buddy, Kris Nijs, in Lima, Peru. Kris did a RTW trip from 1999 to 2003. Kris is on my Email update list so he knew I was closer to him than I am from home. We talked a while and he said I could fly the bike and myself back to the USA from Lima. Then we found out that the only airline that Kris found that would do it had a price of between 7 and $8,000 USD. That idea was squashed and so Ulli and I rode out toward Costa Rica getting a visit in at the famous Mira Flores Locks as the opened for visitors at 9:00AM. Very impressive to watch the big ships float on through past the visitors center. Pics on the way...
As Ulli and I rolled care free toward my friends in Boquete, near the Costa Rica border, we rolled to a stop at a protest march on the Pan American Highway. Apparently, from was we could gather, it is the the indigenous tribes protesting the government plans for their land. That first protest set us back an hour and a half. Then after rolling out of that, about an hour later we got stopped at another one where someone said shots were fired. Both had a heavy police presence including riot brigades with full gear.
now we are about 2.5 hours behind and this put us into a heavy rain downpour and the last 20 KM to Boquete. It was during the deluge that I noticed the Datel voltage readout standing at about 11 volts. I brought the Electrical demand to bones minimum but didn't want to pull over because I may not make it on the electrons left in the battery and there was no cover from the rain.
Well, We made it to Sharon and Mickeys house OK, but when I shut the bike down it did not have enough to start again.
The terminals were a little loose and there was some corrosion. I cleaned that up and charged the battery on Mickeys car charger. everything back in and without all the farkle wires on the battery, the bike started but only shows 12.5 or so with a few tenths increase with reving the engine.
Right now I have the charged battery disconnected and I'll see if it holds the 12.7 it currently has by the morning.
Hope it's not the alternator...anyone know the check to see if it is? I thought if there is a slight increase in voltage with reving that it might not be but I am not sure.
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