If you do plan a trip to the Lago Atitlan area, especially if you will be doing the driving yourself, keep in mind that certain areas around the lake regularly experience high levels of armed robbery.  I’d suggest reading this thread on ADV.

After my lunch break, which included saying no to about three dozen vendors, I made my way to the colonial town of Xela.  The main reason I went there was to look for a new front tire.  Xela, being one of the larger upcoming towns on my route, offered about the only real possibility of success during the next few weeks.  The town was a nice place, located in the mountains at 7,654 feet.  Popular reasons for visiting center around studying spanish and hiking the local volcanoes.  However, restaurants are apparently not of much interest to locals, as a decent one was nearly impossible to find.  In town I tracked down a Yamaha dealer.  The salesman thought that their warehouse might have what I was looking for.  He called the next morning and no dice.  I asked at a couple other shops and found nothing.  I did manage to get my oil changed, which was needed, but my front tire, with about 7,000 miles on it was not giving me a lot of reassurance on dirt.

Funny enough, the salesman at the Yamaha dealer managed to track me down on Facebook a day later asking if I was still in town.  About 10 minutes after I left the shop, they managed to find my tire.  So, if you ever find yourself in Latin America, hoping to buy something other than rice, beans or beer, budget a couple days for the process.  If you are successful sooner than that, you can be pleasantly surprised and do something productive with the unanticipated free time, like sit in a hammock and drink beer.

I really like Guatemala.  The country is beautiful and fantastically diverse in its landscape.  The people I encountered were extremely friendly and the cost of living was surprisingly low.  However, one thing about the country that is incredibly frustrating is Guatemala’s complete and utter lack of road signs.  Towns usually don’t even have a sign identifying themselves.  So, travel in Guatemala is regularly interrupted by the need to ask locals where you are and what road you are on.  To make things even more fun, highways generally disappear when merging into towns.  Of course, there is usually no indication where the exit is located.  Given that most town roads are one way streets, one gets to play a fun mystery maze game of trying to find the correct exit route on the other side of town.  Depending on the size of the town, this game is one of instinct, deduction and interpreting the directions provided by locals.  In one town that had unfortunately few locals out and about, plus a big construction project running down the main street, I managed to make three laps before finding my way back onto the highway.

From Xela, I wanted to take the scenic country route to the town of Coban.  I spoke to another motorcycle traveler who had taken the route a couple months earlier and spoke highly of it.  I left Xela, traveling deeper and deeper into the mountainous Guatemalan countryside, really enjoying the ride, the climate and the fantastic scenery.  Given the lack of road signs and the poor quality of my GPS map, I stopped often to confirm with locals that I was on the correct road.  “Yep, keep going straight ahead to Coban,” I was repeatedly told.  The towns got smaller, the terrain more mountainous and the road became increasingly sinuous.   It was a great ride.  At one point, the pavement ceased and I was on a muddy, rutted mountain road.  I asked for direction again, and the locals confirmed I was on the right road and to continue on my way.  I was having a good time and excited to be only about 30 miles from my destination.  I continued along the very rough dirt track, through several small indigenous villages, sharing the road with pedestrians, chickens and donkeys.  Then, within about 20 miles of Coban, I saw a sign.  “No Hay Pasao” it said.  A little while later, I saw the sign again, followed by a large dirt berm.  Beyond this, I saw the remains of the largest landslide I have ever seen.

Two years ago a large landslide destroyed the road.  I gathered that it was possible to walk across the debris field, but trying to get a large, top-heavy motorcycle across looked to be a fools errand.  When a greasy looking local suggested that he and his friends carry the bike across, for $100, I decided that I had enough.  I double checked with two local guys on motorcycles and no, I would not be able to get across.  Here I was, about 20 miles away from my destination and I was stuck.  I wondered out loud why no one bothered to mention the derrumbe (landslide).  For goodness sake, I had asked more than 12 people for directions.  One would assume that something like the road being impassable would have come up.  But, it didn’t…

One big lesson I have learned on this trip is that (no offense intended) folks in Central and South America generally don’t know how to read maps and are very bad at providing directions.  I think part of this has to do with the fact that many people in Latin America rarely travel outside of their home town.  Many people don’t have cars, so, in reality, they have absolutely no idea which way to go, or how long it will take to get to a nearby town, or what condition the route is in.  For some reason, they seem to fail to remember that last time they went to town X, they needed to catch a bus, exit the bus, ride on a donkey for a while, cross a river on a suspension bridge, switch buses again and then thread their way around a landslide to yet a third bus.  Plus, it’s a very regular occurrence for people to provide directions when they clearly have no idea what they are talking about.  So, the only successful strategy I have found is to ask about six people the same question, preferably women with children (because they will tell you they don’t know) and then average the results.

Thanks to my seriously incomplete directions and the landslide, I was stuck in Guatemalan farm country for the night.  I remembered passing a few hotels not too far back and started retracing my path down the very rough and muddy dirt road I had just come up, with thoughts of Banditos in my mind.  As the sun was setting, I happily pulled into a “good enough” (smelly) hotel, got a pizza delivered and passed out for the night.  The next day I was off on a circuitous 11 hour detour to Coban.  The ride took me back the way I came, to the Pan American highway, through the capital city where I was lost for about 30 minutes and finally north, through warmer and warmer weather, to another landslide.  I got to wait behind a police barricade for about an hour before I was finally allowed to be on my way.  Guatemala, I was quickly learning, with its heavy rain and very mountainous terrain has a lot of trouble with landslides.  It doesn’t help that the clean up crews are generally armed with nothing more than shovels and wheelbarrows.

I finally made it to Coban.  It was one of those towns that I really didn’t like.  The ridiculous hostel that I stayed in didn’t help matters either.  The place offered private rooms at a premium price as well as more properly priced dormitories.  No one was in the dormitory, so I took that.  After settling in, I was informed that while yes, the place had wifi, I couldn’t use it, since I did not book a private room.  “Can I pay for the wifi” I asked?  No, you are in the dormitory.  “But I can’t pay you extra to access wifi?”  No.  Its only for private rooms.  “Why didn’t you tell me that earlier?”  Bla bla bla, about cost of running the hostel.  This went on and on for about a half an hour.  There was no reasoning with the old nutcase woman who I quickly began to dislike.

I left promptly in the morning for the town of Flores, a jumping off point for Tikal.  The ride was nice, traveling through a very beautiful countryside.  As I got nearer to Flores, I was met with some of the hottest and most humid weather I have ever experienced.  This would be the norm for the next few days.  On the way to Flores, I got to experience yet another river crossing on a ferry.  I was very happy that this barge seemed to be much less homemade than the last one I had taken in Bolivia, which I was certain would sink at any given moment.

Flores is located on an island, in a lake, not too far from the ruins of Tikal.  It certainly is a touristy town, with hotels, restaurants and shops covering the island.  But, I really found it to be a fantastic place.  I enjoyed the hostel, even though it was overcrowded with people sleeping everywhere in hammocks (I wisely opted for the private room).  I ate some good meals with people that I had met both in town and previously, in other locations.  Best of all, the town had a couple of swimming piers on the lake.  The water was the most perfect temperature for swimming I had ever encountered.  A group of us spent several hours in the lake and on the piers.  After sunset, a thunderstorm rolled in, and for a while, I swam and watched the lightning off in the distance.  That night it rained like I have never before experienced.  Sorry to all the people sleeping in hammocks!

I left Flores on a bus the next morning at 4:30 a.m.  Our goal was to get to the Tikal ruins early in the morning to avoid the mid day heat.  I took a guided tour of the site, which was only ok.  After the tour, a group of us went off exploring on our own.   I found Tikal to be a very impressive place and it has really increased my interest in Mayan history.

I definitely recommend visiting Guatemala and the Tikal ruins.

After touring Tikal, I went back to Flores for one night.  I had a couple of great meals, then went swimming in the fantastic lake again.  Guatemala turned out to really be an interesting place.  From one end to another, the country is packed with great scenery, very diverse climates and friendly people.  I hated to leave and can’t wait to come back, but for now, I am off to Mexico.

I wired the GPS into the bikes electrical system, on a relay, so I don’t need to worry about a 12v cigarette style connection.  It’s turned out to be a really handy tool and I’m very glad to have it.  Of course, a GPS only works as good as the underlying maps, which has been the source of frequent problems.  In the best cases, I can navigate straight to an address.  In the worst cases I can at least tell if I’m going in the correct general direction.

Below are a list of the maps I used for each country, links to each providers website and my review of each maps functionality.

Argentina and Chile: Proyecto Mapear – This map covers Argentina, Chile, Uruguay and Paraguay.  Best of all, it’s free.  For most locations, this map was excellent.  It provided about the same level of detail and accuracy found in the proprietary Garmin maps used in the U.S.  It supported routing and was able to provide directions to specific addresses in most cities.  Highly recommended.

ConoSur GeoRed – The newest version of this free map contains information for Argentina, Chile, Bolivia, Peru, Paraguay and Uruguay.  I only used it for Bolivia, which I found not to be very impressive at all, but slightly better than nothing.  For example, it showed the the city of La Paz as only having about five streets.  Others have commented that this is a pretty good map for both Argentina and Chile.  Recommended.

Viajeros Mapas – Another free map rumored to cover parts of Argentina, Chile, Bolivia and Peru.  I was not able to get it to function after trying for several hours.  In fact, it lead to several hours of frustration and the deletion and re-installation of several programs on my computer.  Apparently, the program only works with a seriously old version of Garmin’s Mapsource software.  Not recommended at all.

Bolivia: I used the ConoSur GeoRed map listed above as I was not able to find a specific map for Bolivia.  As far as I can tell, there are no high quality maps available for this country.

Peru: Perut - A free map for Peru.  The map quality was slightly better than what I could find for Bolivia, but it was still nowhere near the quality of the maps available for Argentina, Chile or the U.S.  I found it good to have along, but disappointing.  Recommended.

Ecuador: I was not able to find a GPS map for Ecuador.  Please let me know if you are aware of any maps for this country.

Colombia: Colrut - A free map for Colombia.  It was much better than the maps available for either Bolivia or Peru, but again, not near the quality of the maps available for Argentina, Chile or the U.S.  The map supported navigation to addresses in some major cities, but often got one way streets wrong.  Still, a good map for the price.  Recommended.

Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala: GPSTravelMaps.com – I was not able to find any free maps for Central America, only the expensive single country downloads from GPSTravelMaps.com.  Given the $50 price tag per country, I was very disappointed with the quality.  In major cities, streets are often not labeled and one way streets are generally incorrectly identified.  Most roads, other than the Panamerican highway, have simply not been included in the software.  Even more surprising, many small towns, and even many cities fail to show up in the maps.  I was very disappointed with these maps.  I felt that  they were a waste of money and would not recommend buying it.  Not Recommended.

BiciMapas – I later discovered that BiciMapas, a paid service ($159), also offers a Central America atlas for Garmin GPS units.  Given the very poor quality of the GPSTravelMaps, I’d recommend trying the BiciMapas for Central America.  Recommended.

Mexico: BiciMapas – In Mexico I used the $104 BiciMapas Mexico atlas.  The file is huge and the maps provide a high level of detail for most places that I have been.  Border areas seem to be a bit limited in their scope and sometimes the routing has been a bit flawed, but overall, the maps are quite good.  My primary disappointment is that the program is generally not very good at routing to a specific address.  Often it will provide a location at the start or end of the street specified, omitting the house number.  This is a good tool for Mexico.  Recommended.

Having a GPS undoubtedly saved me a significant amount of stress and trouble during my trip.  Across most of Latin America, road signs are few and far in between.  Streets are frequently routed in a very confusing manner when entering and exiting towns and getting directions from locals is often counterproductive.  With the GPS, and even the most limited electronic maps, the information provided can be very reassuring and helpful.  My strong suggestion for anyone contemplating a similar trip would be to purchase a significant stockpile of paper maps prior to leaving home.  Also, coat any non-waterproof maps in something like REI’s Map Seal.  I’ve found that in most Latin countries, good quality maps are often difficult to find.  Having a decent quality paper map to compare against the GPS information has proven to be a good strategy for me.

After a couple hours of riding I made it to the El Salvador / Guatemalan border.  It was more of the same check out of the previous country, wait in line, check in to the new country, change some money, pay the moto entrance fee, and then get my sticker.  I’m happy to report that the process actually went quite smoothly and quickly.  The experience was so much better than what I went through the previous day leaving Honduras, that it put me in a very good mood.  While at the border, I met a friendly Guatemalan guy.  He owned a Honda Africa Twin and his dad owned a KLR.  He gave me his number, email and asked me to let him know if I needed anything.  I was liking Guatemala from the beginning.

Back in the rain, I followed the main road, which was a nice modern highway that lead higher and higher into the mountain.  Eventually I made it to Guatemala City (5,256 feet).  By then I was in a full on downpour and getting cold.  For some reason, and it really was due to the particular road that I took through Guatemala City and the heavy rain, I was reminded of back home (Los Angeles).  Car dealers, motorcycle shops, hotels, chain restaurants…  I saw a lot of signs, cars, places and buildings that reminded me of home.  About 45 minutes after leaving Guatemala City, I finally made it to Antigua, where I checked into a hotel and began the lengthy process of drying off.

My first day in Antigua was a lazy one.  I got some laundry done, had a few good meals and enjoyed not being outside, on the bike, in the rain.  I had a chance to explore Antigua a bit and really liked what I saw.  It’s certainly one of my favorite colonial cities.  Guatemalans have a reputation (along with Colombians) for speaking very clear and proper Spanish.  I honestly felt as if my comprehension of the language increased dramatically here.  Because of the way Spanish is spoken, Guatemala’s very low cost of living and the amount of interesting things to do in the area, Antigua has become a popular destination for taking Spanish courses.

The next day I was up at the crack of dawn, on a minibus on the way to hike Pacaya (8,373 feet), a volcano near Antigua that had most recently erupted on May 27th, 2010.  The eruption was significant enough that at least one person was killed, with volcanic ash being dropped on many local cities.  I had met a number of people who visited the volcano prior to the eruption and they were fortunate enough to see large streams of flowing lava.  Some even had pictures with people roasting marshmallows over the orange streams of molten rock.  Since the eruption, the lava streams have stopped flowing.  On my visit, I got to see the volcano cone and a post apocalyptic waste land. I was pretty amazed by the amount of ash and volcanic stone that had accumulated from the eruption, especially on the roofs of some of the remaining small buildings in the area.  Being so close to the steaming cone of a volcano was fascinating for me.  Enough so that I decided to start hiking up the hill with an equally game Englishman, to get a better vista.  After we made a good bit of progress up the side of the volcano, our local 4’6″ tall female guided became greatly troubled by our plan of action.  She started shouting, waving and saying things like pelegroso and something about how our deaths would be very bad for tourism.  So, we relented and returned to the lower areas, which I am convinced really weren’t any safer than the area around the cone (there is significant concern about further eruptions).  One of the highlights of the hike was seeing the distant volcano Fuego shoot off a few minor ash cloud eruptions.  It was exciting to see geography in action like this!

After the volcano hike, I moved out of the nice, but boring hotel and into a very pleasant hostel.  I believe I paid something like $5 per night, for one of the nicest dormitories in which I’ve had the pleasure of staying.  Plus, they had good parking for the moto and a great breakfast.  I love Guatemala, so much to see and so cheap!

The next day, I met up with O.X. Tours, an American run hostel / tour group located near my new hostel and went on their advanced mountain bike ride.  While I deeply missed my mountain bikes, and their features such as hydraulic brakes and real off-road tires, I really enjoyed the ride.  We started by riding out of Antigua, through a very scenic farming area, up a cloud covered mountain and then down a fun single track route on the other side.  After that, we made our way through a few villages, then a coffee plantation.  Due to the three hour or so length of the route, the company doesn’t run the trip often, so we did some extra curricular explorations.  This ended with us hiking the bikes into a coffee farm, through some bushes and over a fence.  Then, back to Antigua for a very nice meal.

I decided that I wanted to get another look at Guatemala’s volcano’s so I signed up for an overnight backpacking trip with OX up a volcano called Acatenango (13,044 feet).  After a nice meal and good nights sleep, eleven of us, plus our guide set off, to pick up our armed escort. Yes, armed hiking.  Guatemala is not too far removed from a several decades long civil war, reaching a relative state of peace only in 1996.  So the country is still dealing with large number of armed criminals, in addition to widespread poverty.  In recent years, there has been a fair number of armed robbery incidents in remote areas, including many along the popular hiking destinations in the country.  So, the prudent companies run their trips with a police escort.

After a long ride in a crowded van, we made it to our drop off point.  We were in a farming area, the crops were primarily corn, just below the volcano’s cloud forests.  It was such a peaceful, pastoral area, that it was hard to imagine bandits being active in the forests.

We began to hike.  Most of the group was pretty fit.  I got along with a couple of the people very well.  Unfortunately, one young lady from Illinois was, let’s say, not in hiking shape.  She was dying.  Somehow I ended up playing chief cheerleader/motivator for the girl.  I found this odd, given my general lack of patience for pretty much anything and anyone slow.  But a guy from Northern California hung back with me and we had good conversations.  Plus, we were closer to the police should we have seen any banditos.  After enough of the slow poke hiking, I engineered a scheme to steal the girls backpack.  Then, the guy from Northern California and I shared the burden of carrying the girl’s backpack, because we were a bit tired of going so very very slow.  This carrying of the extra backpack did little to speed the young ladies progress.

While in the very interesting, dense and beautiful cloud forests, our group stopped at a clearing and ate lunch.  I was still having trouble comprehending how such a tranquil location could be host to thieves and bandits, but I was provided with more than one story of such events.  I found the police fun to talk to.  They told me many interesting things about life in Guatemala and explained  fascinating cultural phenomena, such as the country’s high birth rate.  According to the police, people in Guatemala have so many children because it gets very cold at night, they have no heating and possibly most importantly, they have no televisions.  This may provide some important insight on how to reduce world overpopulation.

Not too long after lunch, the rain came.  It basically came as we were exiting the cloud forests and making our way up the mountain to a saddle for our camp.  The rain and then hail came down hard enough that our group took shelter under a couple trees for about 20 minutes.  Then the lightning came.  It was very close and the noise was deafening.  A bit exciting (and terrifying) actually.  Fortunately, the thunder cloud moved on fairly quickly, leaving us with a nice drizzle for the rest of our hike.

A short while later, we made it to the saddle, which was to be the location of our campsite.  The group put the tents up quickly and most of us changed into a bit warmer clothing.  The area had a great view of the surrounding countryside.  We could see towns in one direction and forested areas in the other.  Before long, the temperatures began to drop.  I would guess the temperatures made it to the low 50′s or high 40′s that night.  Apparently, it can sometimes make it to the freezing mark.  Once again, here I was in the middle of hot and sunny central America, wearing all the clothes I could find.  While watching the sunset, the volcano Fuego (12,346 feet) which is joined to Acatenango, once again began erupting minor ash clouds.  We couldn’t see the volcano, but periodically, the ash clouds would dramatically roll into view.

The next morning, we set off before dawn, to watch the sunrise from the peak of Acatenango.  While enjoying coffee and a breakfast roll, Fuego once again treated us to several small eruptions.  Amazing is all I can say.

The hike down was long, but fortunately without any rain.  I really enjoyed the cloud forests.  The guy from northern California, a botany student, was having a fantastic time collecting the local flowers and doing his best to identify them.  I can see how having a knowledge of local flora would make hikes more interesting.  Once again, our young lady from Illinois was basically dying.  About every five minutes, she would slip on the muddy trail and end up toppling into a messy heap.  I felt slightly bad for her, especially when the rest of the group, including her friend basically abandoned her, so once again, I stayed behind, prodding her along and helping botanist dude collect flowers.  At this point, even the very mellow police officers were getting annoyed with the young ladies progress.  I asked one how much further and he responded “for you, ten minutes.  For her, one and a half hours.”

Soon enough, we were back in Antigua, eating a big meal, then enjoying some choice beverages.  I really liked the town and hated to leave.  But, time was running short and I wanted to check out Lago Atitlan.

In my humble experience, I’ve noticed that countries have personalities, sort of like people.  The smaller the country, the more homogeneous it seems to me that personality or reputation is.  In the case of Honduras, nearly every moto rider who has gone through the place has a story of some type of bad encounter with local authorities.  Keep in mind that on account of the country’s reputation, most riders take the shortest way possible through Honduras, a 90 mile route from Nicaragua to El Salvador.  I heard a story from one guy who seemed particularly unlucky, who was stopped by the police approximately ten times.  When he finally had enough, got himself into a high speed chase with a road block that happened to have an F-350, instead of a moped.  He lost and so did his wallet.  Even travelers without vehicles have generally seemed to have negative things to say about the country.  From my many conversations on the topic, I’ve heard repeatedly that the locals are quite rude and unfriendly, and the police are constantly on the take.  I had one acquaintance get himself arrested when he reported that $300 had been stolen from his room.  The police didn’t like him accusing the hotel owner, the guy with the only key, as being a party to the crime.  Later that night, after getting out of jail, he saw the hotel owner and a squad of police drinking heavily and eating a fine meal at a local restaurant.

As I got closer to Honduras, I came upon another Nicaraguan police officer.  This one was also overweight, but had an AK-47 and got directly in my way.  I stopped.  He asked to see my license.  I gave him the laminated copy I carry.  He was sweating profusely, while seeming kind of pathetic and stupid to me, so I started asking him for directions to change the subject.  Then, he made his pitch.  He wanted money to buy a soda.  I laughed a bit and told him to have a nice day.

My goal for Honduras was to get through the country without having anything to do with corrupt police or bribes.  Even though I had heard loads of awful stories, I tried to keep a positive outlook and stay calm.  I’ve realized on my little trip that one’s attitude plays a large part in how events and encounters shape up.  Having a negative attitude simply never helps.

Soon enough I was at the border.  Honduras has a Byzantine process for entry, especially with a vehicle, that rivals any of the nonsense conjured up by the Nicaraguans.  Secret booths.  Angry women on cell phones.  Multiple copies of pretty much everything.  Fumigation.  Insurance.  A $35 fee for the bike or me, I’m not really sure.  All in all, a bunch of useless nonsense to help secure a few jobs for folks otherwise unemployable.  Once again, I hired a helper for a small fee.  He, at least knew where everything was and what it would cost in total.  He was a pleasant enough guy, but I trusted him about as far as I could kick.  His friend, who seemed remarkably slow, took the initiative to guard my bike.  I didn’t really feel this was necessary, but he was resolute in his determination.  He was equally resolute in wanting $1 when I left.  Oh well, at least I still had all my things.

Long story short, the process didn’t go too bad until the Adauana (customs) chica asked me for my registration.  No one had ever asked for this before.  Now, while my California registration for the bike is current, as I paid it online, I hadn’t bothered to print out the registration form.  She caught the expiration date pretty quickly.  After a surprisingly civilized conversation, I explained to her that I had paid the fee, but was unable to get a new copy of the paperwork by virtue of the fact that I had been on the road since February.  She saw my logic and offered to give me a 36 hour transit pass to clear through Honduras.  Great I said, I plan to be through the country in a few hours.

In hindsight, I have a feeling that my little amigo helper friend made some mental notes at this time.  With my paperwork done, I headed out, hoping to quickly cross the country.  Note to self, when dealing with difficult borders, wake up earlier!  About 30 seconds out of the border, I got waved over and by a Honduran police officer.  He quickly rounded up a friend and wanted me to pay the $1 municipal tax.  I knew I should have just kept going when I had the chance.  Stopping for these scoundrels (without vehicles) just causes more problems that it is worth.  I had a strong suspicion that the tax was nonsense.  But, they had a printed up receipt and weren’t going to let me go.  Another dollar paid to a louse.

That done, I started up again, only to be stopped about five minutes later.  This guy wanted to see my license.  I started with my friendly “no hablar Espanol” bit, plus a lot of “gracias” and “me gusta Honduras.”  I gave him my laminate copy.  He wanted the original.  I played on.  I thought he was going to give up, but then brought a guy over who happened to speak English.  Well, with two guys there who didn’t really seem to be too connected, I felt safer.  I showed him the original and after some small talk, I was finally on my way with no harm done at all.
After that, things went pretty well.  What little I saw of Honduras was a mixture of rural land that was either wooded or pasture.  The road was well shaded and of decent quality.  Plus, it wasn’t too terribly hot.  Things were going fine until about half way through the 90 miles when I was stopped again, by a group of police officers.  These guys however were a pleasant surprise.  They were young, friendly, and after a quick chat, they wished me luck on my way.  I enjoyed talking to them.

Then it started raining.  Hard.  In hindsight, this may have been a good thing.  I was soaked, but because of the rain, I noticed that the police at all the remaining police road blocks that I passed were all hiding in buildings or under some type of cover.  Perhaps this saved me some headache.

Then, after about three and a half hours and one big time wrong turn (don’t ask), I finally made it to the El Salvador border.  I was elated that I was about to make it through Honduras without a problem.  Then, things slowly started to go south, in a bad way.  I am suspicious that my previous helper had called ahead to let a helper buddy on the other side of the country know that a gringo was coming through with a problem in his paperwork.  This was the key that these corrupt animals needed to string me up.

In hindsight, I should have told the Aduana staff and my helper to f#%k off and headed back to the nearest city to wait until the next morning.  But, I took the bait.  I got my passport stamped out without any trouble.  The, the Aduana guy came over and said they couldn’t process me out as my registration was expired.  Long story short, I was stuck, at a hostile border, passport stamped out, surrounded by the scum of the earth and only had a 36 hour transit permit for my moto to boot.  They started the fear campaign off with the Aduana person instructing that I would need to get the original registration sent via DHL, which could take three days.  My good cop, the helper, outlined the seriousness of the problem, then offered to go figure out a way to make this work.

Ever since this incident, I’ve been kicking myself for falling prey to such a trick.  I can’t help but to ask what would have happened had I made more of a scene?  For example, why didn’t I go on the offensive and ask why I was let into the country and given a 36 hour transit visa if there would be a problem upon exiting (probably a bad idea).  Or, why didn’t I just go find a hotel and try again in the morning (I really wish now that I had done that).  After the fact, I don’t have any answers and only know that I got taken for a ride.  The basic deal senior pendejo worked out was I needed to pay $150 to get my self out of the horrible country.  $50 to the Adauana guy, $50 to the federal police and $50 to someone else who was lost in translation.

At this point, I was caught hook line and sinker.  Up until then, I had thought that I had become a rather savvy traveler who could deal with whatever might come my way.  Ego completely deflated, I was stuck.  I paid the bribe, while my helper friend, curse his soul, explained how I could never talk of this to anyone and how he hates doing things like this.  Well played old chap.  You caught me and I’m sure that you made a nice penny from the deal.  I hope you catch the plague.

Finally, after entirely too much time in Honduras, and with a much lighter wallet, I was in El Salvador.  Things continued to be chaotic, disorderly and poorly planned (if at all).  One can tell that very few Germans or English settled in Nicaragua, Honduras and El Salvador.  My passport was stamped quickly, but then I began the task of finding the customs office.  Of course, it was located in an office, in the back of a warehouse building, at the end of a parking lot for trucks, all guarded by a couple guys with shotguns.  The customs process for the bike moved at a glacial pace, albeit without anyone asking me for money.  After about an hour of waiting on who knows what and then driving up the street twice to get copies of various documents (why do you insist on this nonsense!) at a place also guarded by a guy with a shotgun , I was finally done with paperwork for the day.  Good lord, what a relief to be finished.

I motored about 30 miles from the border and spent the night in an air conditioned and otherwise unremarkable hotel, in the small town of Santa Rosa de Lima.  For whatever reason, I was unable to adjust the air conditioning.  It was either on or off.  I preferred on.  However, since I only had a light sheet, having left my sleeping bag locked with the moto, I spent most of the night huddled into the fetal position, freezing.  My dinner, at the best place in town, was KFC like fried chicken.  On my way out of town in the morning, I had to do a few laps because I found the town to be such an odd place.  There were literally multiple pharmacies on every block.  For the life of me, I couldn’t figure out why the people there needed so many pharmacies.  As far as I could tell, a majority of the local populace were either employed by pharmacies or stores that purchased gold.   Very odd place.

And yes, this is the only picture that I took that day.

From Tamarindo, Costa Rica, it didn’t take me very long to get to the border.  Leaving Costa Rica was simple enough, but upon arriving at Nicaragua, I got my first taste of nonsensical Central America border crossing procedures.  First, I needed to find a secret booth to get my passport stamped.  Fortunately I had hired a kid that seemed to be about 12 to help me find this place and sort out the nightmare process.  Once I found the secret immigration window, I discovered it was staffed by an angry woman who was annoyed to be interrupted from a personal cellphone call.  Eventually I got the necessary stamp in my passport and moved on to customs for the moto.  Yikes.  I needed copies of my license, passport, passport page with entry stamp, title, the magna carta as well as the lyrics to Bob Marley’s No Woman No Cry.  Next, I had to pay for insurance.  Then, when I had my insurance and numerous copies, I was was given an official looking paper with several stamps.  I paid the 12 year old something like $4 and was finally free to drive about the country.

Granada was my first stop in Nicaragua.  My ride there, and the city itself was a bit of a pleasant surprise to me.  The countryside is very green, rural and scenic.  The city is an old colonial city, with a large number of restaurants and tourist services.  It was a little too tourist for me, but not a bad place.  Its located on the shores of Lago de Nicaragua, which is a pretty cool place!

The most interesting thing I saw in Granada was a minor accident between a taxi and a horse and wagon.  The taxi driver (and I am assuming here), was most likely driving like a maniac, which is standard taxi driver protocol, and he got a little too close to the wagon.  When I arrived, the taxi was wedged tightly against the wagon.  As normal in Latin America, a crowd quickly gathered to watch the show.

After a day in Granada, I was off to Leon.  It’s another colonial town, but was quite a bit different when compared to Granada.  Leon is a university town that was the starting point of the country’s revolution against the Somoza family.  Leon didn’t have nearly as many of the restaurants and tourist hotels as Granada.  It did have easy access to local volcanoes and the pacific ocean.  The locals I met were very friendly and I enjoyed talking with them.  I ate a lot of comidas typicas and even had a meal of hairless Portuguese goat, which I thought was pretty good.  I had another local dish, I forget what it was called, but basically it had two tortillas, with melted cheese between them, smothered with slightly browned diced onion and a type of runny cream.  I was not a fan.

Bicycles…in the U.S., many of us spend thousands of dollars on bicycles.  We lust after carbon fiber frames, ultra light components and the latest wheels.  In Nicaragua, people buy a bicycle for $50, use it for most of their transportation needs and often carry a passenger over long distances.  Daniel, I think there is a business opportunity here for a cheap bike with a second seat and some type of basket  on the handlebars.

In Leon, I decided to go volcano boarding (sledding).  I had a vague idea what it  would be all about and thought it sounded fun.  We left for the mountain early in the morning.  Our first task, obviously was to climb up the volcano.  In the caldera, there were some neat fumaroles which were putting off quite a bit of steam.

Once at the top, we dressed up in odd looking clown suit outfits, complete with an overalls, gloves and knee and elbow pads.  Conspicuously missing was a helmet and goggles.  Once dressed, we walked to the edge of a nice smooth slope and hopped on the sled.  It was great fun, and one could go quite fast, but it was one of the dirtiest things I’ve ever done.  Any attempt to control ones direction or speed was met with a face full of volcanic rock and dirt.  Fortunately, there were a great many crashes (fortunately minor) to watch once done.

Leon was a nice town and I met a lot of fun people during my three days there.  I especially liked the hostel I stayed at, the Lazybones Hostel.  One guy at the hostel was an American / Nicaraguan who had ridden his V-Strom down from the bay area.  I spent another afternoon with a Brit kayaking in an estuary that ran along the pacific coast, about 20 miles from town.  Not the best beach by far, but a fun little outing.  On my trip I really am finding that I have the most fun in small to medium sized towns.  With the motorcycle, they are easier to navigate and I find much more relaxed.  Plus, I find the residents to generally be friendlier in smaller towns.

The border was basically in a Caribbean jungle and about as hot and humid as possible.  Leaving Panama took me about ten minutes.  It was wickedly efficient for a Latin country.  After crossing the international bridge, which I would describe as one lane only, terrifying and certainly not up to OSHA standards, I quickly got my passport stamped.  But, the Adauana (customs) people were apparently on a eons long lunch break.  No worries, I told the guy with a gun.  Yo tengo un libro.  So, I sat, and sweated, and read for about an hour while the customs folks did their lunch thing.  When the office opened, I was happy to be greeted with AC.  Never again will I downplay the luxury of AC.  Then, an Adauana employee emptied about half a can of spray deodorant.  I hope it wasn’t too correlated with me.  The staff were very nice and they politely helped me out with the paperwork.  They sent me twice to an oficina down the street to make copies of random things, which was annoying, but ok, because the oficina sold Gatoraid.  Finally, after about an hour, I was done.  Why didn’t I take any pictures?  Simple.  It was too damn hot!!!

Then I was off, through miles and miles of banana plantations, beautiful Caribbean beaches, strange sections of washed out roads and eventually, up into the Costa Rican mountains.  Costa Ricans, I found, drive like dyslexic grandparents.  They go extraordinarily slow, then, stop in the middle of the road for no apparent reason.  They are also big fans of the Latin trick of making a left turn from a right lane and vice a versa.  Eventually, I made it to the pleasant town of Turrialba.  It was a nice little place, with a blessedly cool temperature.  I was having a little trouble finding a certain hotel, so I asked a group of locals.  One guy, who turned out to be the heffe, took charge.  He spoke a bit of English, and was very eager to help.  He turned out to be a great guy, fun to talk with and instructed one of his employees to lead me to the hotel.  This is what traveling is all about; meeting real people and seeing how most of the people in the world are are very willing to help when you ask for it.

I checked into a nice little hotel that cost me $12 per night and blessedly had secure motorcycle parking.  Rumor has it that Turrialba is a mecca of sorts for kayaking and white water rafting.  But, after I inquired about kayaking, no guides could be found.  So, I moved on the next day.

After a pleasant mountain ride, I made it to San Jose.  The capital city is a clean, pleasant place, up in the mountains.  But I have to admit, it is very boring and looks like it was the home of an ugly building contest.  The word suburbia mixed with American chain restaurants sort of sums up the place.  At this point, I needed a new rear tire.  Six hours later, after a thorough scouring of the pathetic motorcycle shops in the town, I was the proud owner of a Pirelli MT-90 Scorpion rear tire.  But, no new front tire.  While at the shop, a mechanic and I took my fancy Stebel Nautilus horn, which was not working, apart.  The horn, which is an electric motor driven air horn, was great, when it worked.  But, upon further inspection, turned out to be full of water, mud and corrosion.  We tried to clean it up, but it still did not work.  Great, I am in crazy driver land, without a horn.  Need to fix that one ASAP…

I really wasn’t interested in staying in San Juan any longer and decided to make my way to the beach town of Tamarindo.  It was a long drive and I got rained on a lot.  Mention the name of Tamirindo seems to either bring squeals of joy or looks of disgust when mentioning it to those who have been there.  Why?  Well, on one hand, it has great beaches, good surfing and a pretty laid back small town vibe.  On the other hand, it has muchos Gringos, a pizza hut, a TCBY, Subway, a TGI Fridays and the town’s official language is English.  I stayed in a beat up little beach hostel and loved it.  Tamirindo was hot.  But I surfed a lot and when I was not surfing, I usually had cold beer.  There was a really great group of people staying / living at the hostel and I enjoyed their company.  I spent time with a pair of French Canadians, an English guy, two people from Holland, a couple Americans and some Ticas/Ticos to round out the group.  The surfing was basically right out the back door.  Sometimes we crossed a river that, rumor has it, has crocodiles, but they were “mainly up stream.”  At night, we had some good food and were treated to a couple pretty amazing thunder storms.

While at Tamirindo, I learned, second hand (fortunately) that Ticos are small, but like to fight.   I also learned that I really love to surf on an 8′ fish and warm water surfing is way more fun than wearing a wet suit in California.  Oh, I also saw how big iguanas get out of trees.  Basically, they climb to the top, then fall down.  Making a great racket on the way, ending with a loud thump!  Even better, there were frequently monkeys in the trees around the hostel.  One threw a mango at me.  Monkeys are awesome!

Unfortunately, my time was short, so I had to leave my little beach paradise and head to Nicaragua.

We returned to the hotel in the late morning after a night of no sleep. That afternoon was the world cup final. So, after about an hour nap, I wandered down to take part in the festivities. It was a fun party, but I honestly didn’t watch any of the game. I spent my time next to the grill, which I found more interesting. After a late night, I woke up the next day to find that the cold that I had been trying to shake since Bogota, Colombia was back with a vengeance. So, I went white water rafting. Then, I really started to feel wiped out. I spent the next two days relaxing, doing basically nothing but eating and watching movies in an attempt to recover.  About the only exciting thing I did during this time was a couple fun motorcycle rides around the nearby mountains, which are very scenic and full of little farms and coffee bean plantations.

Feeling better, I decided that I needed to get out of Boquete. I left town and made my way to Bocas del Toro, a group of tropical islands on Panama’s north western Caribbean coast beach destination. On my first full day in the area, I went on a fun, day-long boat tour. The first stop was in a bay full of dolphins and jellyfish. There were dolphins absolutely everywhere. Next, we went to a fairly boring, but nice snorkeling area. We followed that with a visit to an extremely overpriced but scenic restaurant built on stilts over the water. Finally, we went to Bastimentos Island, which is home to a very beautiful white sand beach and fantastically warm waters.  The island has some of the nicest beaches I have ever visited.

After spending three nights on Isla Colon, home of the island group’s main town, I wanted something quieter and left for a nice hostel on Bastimentos Island. The island is a fantastic tropical paradise, that’s unfortunately undergoing a significant development phase. While on the island, I spent a day scuba diving and another hiking and enjoying the beach. I’ve spent today, my final day here waiting out a rain storm, contemplating the heat and now, heading off to the beach.

Tomorrow I’ll be taking two boats back to the mainland. To be honest, I’m really not looking forward to changing out my board shorts for my extremely hot riding gear. I think I’ve really been procrastinating here in Bocas, because its very comfortable and also because riding in the tropical heat is tough. But, I have a long way to go and as usual, not much time left.

But for now, I’m off to the beach!!!

And then, in the morning, off to Costa Rica.

Anyway, with the bike loaded and running, Mark and I set off for Panama City. Our first obstacle was a large river. It was wide, but fortunately not very deep; it was approximately up to my knees in the deepest spots. We both crossed without problem and were on our way through an interesting unpaved jungle road. The road closely followed the topography of the land and was either pitched steeply up or steeply down, while being very curvy at the same time. It was a fun road.

We had something like 120 miles to travel to Panama City. About 45 minutes away from the beach landing, we spotted a lavendaria and got the motos washed. I was concerned about all the time my moto spent in salty air and wanted to do everything possible to avoid electrical problems. After the starting problem that happened earlier in the day, I wish I had spent a couple hours applying dielectric grease to connections before leaving the U.S.

With clean bikes, we were on our way. The ride was pleasant and followed a fairly quiet country road that lead us through farms, jungles and small towns. Things changed rapidly, and dramatically on the outskirts of Panama City. We quickly went from lush green landscape to sprawling city, with very heavy traffic. Following my GPS and its more or less useless map, we continued on, headed for the hostel at which we planned to meet the rest of the crew from the boat. What a mess. Panama City in rush hour is a traffic nightmare. Plus, the one way streets and randomly blocked off intersections really caused a great headache. We went in circles for what seemed like an eternity in the scorching hot weather, frustrated by the never ending standstill of traffic. Finally, after breaking many laws, including going the wrong way down several streets, we found the hostel. But no, we found where it used to be several years ago. Thank you Footprint Guides for not updating your material on a timely basis. 2009 edition, yeah right! At this point, I was not very happy and it was starting to rain. Mark chatted with some locals, who where nice enough to help us find the correct address. With a set of interesting directions, we were back on our way. In the mean time, a torrential downpour had begun. We arrived at the hostel soaked from head to toe only to discover that it was full, our friends were not there and the internet was not working.

The rain quickly turned into deluge. Mark and I pondered our options. Apparently, after waiting for us for quite a while, Brian had left a message at the desk, but none was to be found. The hostel suggested a hotel nearby. I checked it out and it turned out to be a love hotel. Clean, but not really an inviting atmosphere. Shortly thereafter, the internet was back in action and we found out where our friends were. It was not close. The hostel receptionist basically informed us that it was not possible for us to find our own way there, especially in the dark. She helped us out with the address and basic directions, then Mark and I hunted down a taxi cab. With my somewhat unpolished Spanish, it took a bit of time to get the driver to understand that we wanted to follow him to this address, on our motorbikes. Our new leader got the idea and we were off. Not to be disappointed, this driver went about his work as to be expected; driving erratically, usually fast and with many seemingly unnecessary lane changes. Even better, it was dark and the sky was still belching rain at an impressive rate. I felt like I was cruising around Panama City on a jet ski, but just fully clothed.

After a couple wrong turns (by the taxi driver) and even more rain, we made it to hostel number 2. It was a decent place, with good parking and dry spaces to sit. I ended up staying there for five nights. During this time, I hung out with the original boat crew, an American guy who drove and surfed his way down from California and a Colombian family with an interesting story.

Before he left, Brian and I took a cab to the Miraflores locks on the Panama Canal. Its an impressive place.

The next day, Mark and I signed up for a tour. It first brought us to Panama Viejo, the site of the original city, which was sacked by the pirate Henry Morgan once upon a time. After that, we went to Casco Viejo, the historical walled part of the city. Casco Viejo is an interesting area. It seems to be made up of a few interesting old buildings that are very well kept, with the remainder of the buildings being decayed and ready to fall down at any given moment. The old neighborhood is a huge contrast to central Panama City which is full of a maze of modern, new, shiny high rise buildings and shopping malls.

The next spot on the tour was another visit to the Miraflores locks. Finally, we wrapped up the tour by visiting a beach area near the Balboa Yacht club, where we taught a bar tender how to make iced blended coffees.

Oh, before I left on this trip, a number of people asked me “how will you get over the Panama Canal?”  I took a bridge to the other side.

The next day was the 4th of July. The other American and myself though it would be fitting to head to the Balboa Yacht Club for a day of BBQ, Hot Dogs, beer and fireworks. We enlisted the support of a Colombian and a Mexican to join us for this festive event. Upon arrival, we discovered that the even had been mobbed with hundreds of angry retirement aged gringos. This group does not travel well on an empty stomach. The retirement aged VFW gringos who were hosting the event seemed to be somewhat confused. They had tremendous difficulty making change and selling food tickets. Inadvertently the four of us ended up at the front of the line, saving ourselves approximately one decade of waiting. Some of the gringos viejos did not like this, but all they did was make indirect snide comments. We got our food. It was not good. Then, after nearly getting into a fist fight with a Colombian family over a table, we ate some of the BBQ. I’m glad I did not wait three hours for the meal.

Our group largely abandoned the food and transitioned to buckets of cerveza. Now that the old gringos were getting fed, they were more pleasant. Add some beer to this group, and they become reasonably friendly. It was a very strange crowd. I got the impression that many of the people had grown up, lived or worked in Panama during the canal days. The U.S. built and operated the canal for almost 100 years, so the area had a very significant American presence for generations. Especially military personal. The canal only changed hands in 1999, and up to that point, many people, including multi-generational families lived around the canal zone.

When I had enough of Panama City, I made my departure, ending up in San Carlos, a nice little pacific beach area. There I let a bi-polar old man who was manning a beach restaurant talk me into spending the night in an open air palapa, sleeping in a hammock. For $2, this sounded pretty good. I set up shop and went to the restaurant for lunch. They were closed, so I settled for a beer. I met a couple, a Slovakian guy and a British woman where staying nearby. They saw my shabby lodging and invited me to stay with them. At first I declined, but then, the wind kicked up with fury, and again, it started to rain. Walking on the beach felt like my legs were getting sand blasted. My stuff was all full of sand. I loaded up the bike and headed to their clean two story little beach house, very happy not to have to sleep on the beach.

The next day I left early and stopped at Playa Las Lajas to have lunch and watch a portion of a world cup game. After that, I made my way to Boquete where of course, I encountered heavy rain. I’m becoming very upset with my $300 riding jacket that is clearly no longer waterproof. I bought a big tube of silicon caulking and as soon as it is dry will attempt to fix this annoying problem. Anyway, I didn’t plan to stay in Boquete very long, but the town is up in the mountain and the weather was nice and cool. It never stops raining in the town, but at least I was not sweating.

Boquete is an interesting place. Due to its climate and very beautiful mountain valley location, it is home to a very large gringo retirement community. These folks seem to do everything possible to recreate Orange County in Panama. For example, most of them live in a secure gated community, with enormous Orange County style houses, a golf course and pretty much everything else found at Leisure World. From time to time, these retirees wander from their enclave and seem to be friendly, but seem to be surprised by the fact that the locals are difficult to understand. As far as I can tell, most speak less Spanish than me, which is not much.

When I pulled up to my hostel in Boquete, I was pleasantly surprised to find two other KLR riders there.  A couple days later, another guy came along on a KLR.  It was nice to be around so many other bikers.  Callum and Thomas were great fun to hang out with.  My first day in Boquete, we hopped on the bikes and wet to a hot spring situated conveniently along a river.  The place even had a monkey.

I spent part of the next day on a coffee plantation tour. We only visited one site, but it was pretty interesting. The farm was not a big commercial operation, which are frequent in the area. Instead, it was a small coffee farm owned by a very ingenious man. Not having any money, the owner has made all of his own equipment from various parts and scraps. For example, his roasters are made from car and washing machine parts. He’s taken two manual bean grinders, a 4wd transfer case and an electric motor and built a double electric grinder. I was very impressed by this latin McGuyver.

Taganga is a nice little Caribbean town in northern Colombia, near the Venezuela border.  Brian and I stayed in a clean and pleasant hostel called Casa Philipe, which had a surprisingly good kitchen.  The next day we wandered down to the beach and the two of us got into a boat for a day of fishing, spear fishing and snorkeling in the warm water.  We capped off the afternoon by eating our catch under a palapa, set on a remote, boat-access-only cliff overlooking the Caribbean.  Great views and great hammocks.  As we were eating, the skies opened up with a heavy downpour.  Our boat ride back to town was a bit damp, with a nice lightning show.

The next day, we left the small town for Cartegena.  Brian left early in the day via mini bus and I left a couple hours later.  It was a very hot, but interesting drive.  I rode through a lot of coastal marshlands with blessedly little traffic.  The ride went by pretty fast, except again, for finding the hostel.  Cartegena is an old city with a circuitous city plan, made up primarily of one way streets, dead ends, walls, lots of traffic and useless GPS maps.  It made navigating on a motorcycle a little difficult.

We also discovered that Brian likes fruit.

Cartegena is hot.  Really hot, as well as ridiculously humid.  We spent the first day in a hostel located in the old part of town.  It had a pool, but was not air conditioned.  I don’t think I ever sweated so much in my life.   At the hostel we met Mark, another guy on a KLR who would be sailing on the Stahlratte with us.  The next day, the three of us left the hostel for an air conditioned apartment in the newer part of town.  It was sheer luxury.  Finally, after several days, I was able to dry out my gear and enjoy a very comfortable bed.  Cartegena is an interesting place.  But, for some reason, I didn’t take any pictures.  I guess I forgot.  But, instead, here is a picture of my chin before I shaved this crap off.

My first visit to the Stahlratte was slightly alarming, as the boat was undergoing quite a bit of maintenance and had piles of stuff strewn about the deck.  But, the crew finished their work and tidied up the vessel surprisingly quickly.  My next experience with the boat was absolutely terrifying.  I had to ride my motorcycle off a low dock and into a zodiac (rigid hull, inflatable boat).  This took place in the Cartagena harbor, a saltwater environment.  After getting the bike into the very small boat, we motored out to the Stahlratte, where it was hoisted (on a somewhat old looking line) onto the deck.  I felt great relief when the boat was no longer suspended over the ocean and tied securely to the deck.

The next day, Mark, Brian and I arrived at the dock around 8:00 a.m. and after some shopping, exchanging of money and settling into the  boat, we were off.  As part of the deal, the Stahl Ratte had taken care of the exit stamp for our passports.  For the motorcycles, we were recommended to “not worry about it”.  I am hoping that this doesn’t come back to haunt me in the future.

Once on the boat, we got to work meeting the crew and passengers.  Brian, Mark and I turned out to be the only American passengers.  There was an Argentinian couple, traveling to North America by an interesting custom made 4wd camper.  The other twelve people were German or Swiss. One German couple was traveling in a Land Cruiser that they bought in South America.  A third duo, two very funny Swiss guys , were traveling to the U.S. in a Ford Econoline van, complete with a picture of Mr. T painted on the hood.  The Swiss guys and I conversed in a mix of bad German, Spanish and English.  We generally figured out the message.  Ludwig was the gregarious German captain, who had been on the boat for something like 12 years.  Nice job!  Ludwig taught us that Bob Marley was actually singing “German, German, we be German….” one night.  Ludwig #2 was a diesel mechanic, also from Germany.  Roli, also German, was at least 7′ tall and ironically, could often be found in small places like the kitchen and engine room.  Dexter, a great Swiss guy rounded out the crew.

On our first day we sailed into the evening and through the night.  Along the way, we had great meals and enjoyed a very beautiful night sky.  Being on the deck of the boat, at night, in a hammock was very peaceful.  Oh, and the boat has a diesel engine that is more than 60 years old.  It has never been overhauled.  I was very impressed by this.

In the late morning, we arrived a the San Blas Islands.  The Islands are Panamanian territory, but are administered by the Kuna people; the local natives.  It felt as if we sailed into a postcard.  I’ve never been to a beautiful tropical place like this before.  We spent two full days in the islands.  While there, I snorkeled, had some great meals, enjoyed a fun BBQ on the beach, with a bit of rum and really enjoyed the place.

When our time in the islands was up, we motored towards mainland Panama.  Again, terror ensued.  My (and Mark’s) bike was once again winched up in the air, over the ocean and this time, lowered into a dugout canoe.  Seeing my motorcycle laying on its side in a narrow wooden boat that some dude made with an axe did not give me a feeling of peace.  From the Stahlratte, we took about a 15 minute boat ride to shore.  Here, the bikes were basically manhandled out of the boat and up a steep and slippery muddy bank.  I was very relieved to have the bike back on land.  I was not happy about the bent shift lever.

Finally, ready to go, I got on my bike and hit the start button.  Nothing happened.  The engine did not turn over.  No sounds.  Tried a few more times and nothing.  This was not good.  I panicked a bit.  Mark offered some suggestions.  I figured it was something electrical so I first checked the battery.  Fine.  Then, I checked fuses.  I found one, not the main starter fuse, but one of the small 15 amp fuses on the side of the bike was very corroded.  I replaced it and the bike started up.  I was pretty happy about this but was not totally convinced that the two were related.

But, since the bike was now running, it was time to head to Panama City.  After crossing a big river…

Bogota is a huge city, ringed by mountains.  Eight million of Colombia’s 40 million people live here.  Some areas are very rough, but on the other hand, there are neighborhoods in the north full of modern, upscale construction with restaurants, bars and clubs that rival anything in California.  The one thing that surprised me most about Bogota was the weather.  Again, I was expecting hot.  But, given the town’s 8,700 foot elevation, it was cold.  And very, very rainy, which wasn’t surprising given the lush green landscape.

I made it to the hostel well after dark.  My progress was greatly inhibited by a maze of one way streets, with most of the important ones seemingly blocked off because of the upcoming election.  After parking the bike and settling into the hostel, Brian and I went to the Zona Rosa; the towns nice nightlife area.  It was a busy night since the town would be alcohol free for the next couple of days, courtesy of the upcoming election.  Again, after spending so much time in undeveloped places, it was a bit of a culture shock to see cars, buildings and fashion that would have fit into any Californian club.

The next day, Brian and I left Bogota on a bus for the Salt Cathedral.  It’s located near the town of Zipaquira, which is a pleasant little colonial town.  The cathedral is an odd place.  It seemed to be part cathedral, part discotheque, and has been carved out of a mountain, as part of a working salt mine.  In any case, it was quite impressive.

The following day, Brian took off via airplane for Santa Marta, a town on the Caribbean coast of Colombia.  Not really wanting to leave town in the rain, I spent the day first on a pretty interesting bicycle tour, then after, drying out.  The bike tour took us through some interesting parts of town, including historical districts, a very British looking district built by British Petroleum long ago for its employees, a fruit stand full of amazing fruits that I have never tried before and finally, the red light district, which was quite…interesting, especially in the rain.

The next morning I was feeling a bit worn down, so I decided to stay one more day.  I visited Montserrat, a mountain peak on the fringe of the city, accessible via cable car, with a church on top.  The views were pretty amazing and helped put the city’s size into perspective.

After Montserrat, I joined a local to play a Colombian game called Tejo.  Basically, it’s like horseshoes, but with a steel disk.  Instead of a steel rod pounded into the ground, one throws the disk at a target placed in a large wooden box, full of clay, set at an angle.  To spice up the game, the four triangular boundaries of the target are made so that they explode if hit with the disk.  I’m not sure how the scoring works, but the locals were very excited when I threw the disk in the middle of the target.  Oh, plus, one does not pay for the game.  One buys (a lot of ) beer and plays gratis.  The crowd playing Tejo, as far as I could tell, was the unemployed, or under employed set who happens to like drinking beer at 10:00 a.m.  So, its a bit of a rough crowd, but the people were very friendly.

The next day, I left Bogota for Barichara, a small town near San Gil, a regional sports destination.  Along the way, I went through all kinds of roads, primarily in higher altitude climate zones.  It was quite wet and frequently rained on me.  Then, about a mile after filling up at a gas station, I noticed that the road was becoming very uneven.  But it wasn’t.  I had my first flat tire of the trip.  It was of course my rear tire, which is harder to change.  Plus, the only place to park was in a puddle, in front of a run down house.  As I got to work, it began pouring down rain.  Then, I gained an audience at the house.  After I was about a quarter finished, they invited me to work on their patio.  I finished up there and since I was unable to get the bead to seat equally around the rim, no matter how hard I tried, I was unhappily on my way.  With the tire mounted unevenly, it was a bit like riding on a paint shaker.  But, I had a feeling that either it would correct itself, or I’d stop at a tire repair shop in the next town and pay them $4 to fix the problem.   The tire did not fix itself and I was very happy to have a smooth ride again for $4.

Barichara is a great little Colonial town with cobble stone streets and white buildings.  One day I’d like to return to this area and spend some time doing some of the outdoor activities available there.  When I reached the town square and was looking into places to stay, a very friendly family from Medillin came up to me, interested in the bike.  They all spoke great English and we had a nice conversation, ending with an invitation to dinner.  I stowed my stuff in a nice hotel nearby, cleaned up and headed up the street to a great Italian meal.  It turns out that the man is an pilot for cargo airplanes.  Flying lots of flowers, etc., to the U.S. and other Latin locations.  His wife lived in the U.K. and has traveled to a lot of the places I’ve visited on my trip.  Their two kids went to an international school and I am envious of their language ability.  Again, I’m really finding the people of Colombia to be fantastically friendly.

The next morning, I downed a bunch of coffee and left Barichara on my way to Taganga, a little Caribbean beach town.  Brian had been there for two full days now and I needed to catch up.  However, it turns out that my planning was not very precise and I got another lesson in why I should wake up earlier on big travel days.

The ride from Barichara to Bucaramanga was full of more scenic, but twisty, curvy mountain riding and pretty slow.  After that, things straightened out and my speed picked up a bit.  But, about an hour north of Bucaramanga, I had my most upsetting experience of my trip so far.  Near a small town, the name of which I forget, I saw a line of stopped vehicles.  Thinking that this was another normal traffic stop for construction, I began riding towards the front of the line, which is normal practice in South America.  But, the line kept going, and going, and going.  There were hundreds of trucks, buses and cars.  I could tell that this wasn’t a normal construction traffic stop and as I finally got close to the town, I saw an unhappy crowd and a bunch of soldiers.  In the distance I saw a pile of charred metal.

A soldier let me know in no uncertain terms that I was not going any further forward.  A couple friendly locals helped direct me down a couple side streets and I was able to bypass the accident.  People were milling all about.  There was a big crowd and they seemed a bit upset.  Curious as to what was going on, I stopped and asked a teen-aged girl.  She told me that no, it was not an accident.  A car bomb had gone off and some number of people had been killed.  This was apparently somehow related to the recent election and courtesy of the FARC.  As soon as I made my way past the bomb site, I really began feeling uneasy.  Since all the traffic behind (and ahead) me was shut down, the road was wide open.  So, feeling that this might not be the best place for a gringo, I pinned the throttle at about 80 mph for the next two hours.  Seeing the aftermath of the car bomb, as well as a few other events in Colombia really made me aware of how much pain, violence and death the cocaine habits of the western world have caused.  It’s really a great tragedy and upset me quite a bit.  Don’t do blow.

With the car bomb behind me, I was making good progress and hoped to get to Taganga just after sunset.  Then, I noticed that the road started to get very squishy.  I had my second flat tire in two days.  It was the front tire, which was easier to change than the back, but still, it took me about an hour to swap out the tube.  Unfortunately, it was over 90′ and right at sunset when this happened.  So, I finished the job in a farm’s muddy driveway, sweating buckets, surrounded by mosquitoes and in the dark.  I was quite miserable.

Finally, at about 10:00 p.m., I made it to Taganga.  It was a very very long day.