2006 Adventure - Missouri to Panama

Day 1
From: Columbia to: Russelville, AR
Started the "adventure" on a cold morning (about 45 degrees not counting the wind chill on a moto). I had not realized that Highway 7 into Arkansas would be so so amazingly winding and slow going with many curves indicated to be 20 mph. As beautiful as the scenery was, I was very glad to finally make it to Russellville. A good hot bath was welcomed.

Day 2
From: Russellville to: Ruston, LA
More cold. More highway 7. Wow! By afternoon warmth came and I was able to enjoy the amazing scenic highway with its numerous "25 mph" curves. Very exhilarating drive. Arkansas is very beautiful. Lots of new highway construction into Louisiana. I should have a short ride to Lake Charles where I will greatly enjoy visiting with my very good friend Steve Wieschhaus. I will probably see some sad reminders of Katrina. 

Day 3

From Ruston to: Lake Charles, LA

Rainy, nasty day also cold. Arrived at Lake Charles and had a little difficulty finding Steve (picture on the left). My maps got me close
 and and usual, I had to ask directions. I've known Steve since he was a kid growing up in Hermann, Missouri about 40 years ago. I had a great visit with Steve and his wife Connie and their daughter. Their warm hospitality was wonderful. Sadly I had to get up early for a long (350 mile) ride the next day. The forecast was for lots of rain.

Day 4
From: Lake Charles to: Beeville, TX
Rain. No, RAIN!!! Incredible, scary, major downpours. Many downpours. And wind. Gusting and frightening. Well this is an adventure. The amazing traffic on the Houston beltway was great fun on the back of my Kawasaki with visibility of about one car length. My adrenaline was ready to be bottled. It was one of the worst riding situations you can imagine. I pulled off the interstate shortly after passing a "rear-ended" car. I waited under an overpass along with several other cars that couldn't see in the deluge. After seeing three wreckers assist with damaged vehicles, I began again as the rain slowed. I arrived in Beeville at 6:00 with "rain wear" that was proved not to work and "rain-proof" boots that I poured water out of. Of course wife Brenda said I was crazy. Maybe she was right. Harold Brooks was waiting at the motel in Beeville. Tomorrow we head for the border.

Day 5
From: Beeville to: San Fernando, MX
Harold and I made it thru Customs at the McAllen/Mexican border in about an hour and one-half. Borders are notoriously trying. This one went pretty smoothly although finding the customs building wasn't easy. Then we promptly got lost in an amazing labyrinth of Reynoso back streets. We even found ourselves on a one way street riding the wrong way of course. It was a day of very strong wind. For some reason Harold's Suzuki didn't seem affected but as he rode behind me he thought there were times that my KLR and I were going to be blown over. If you've never ridden a bike in the wind, you will not understand the sensation of being pushed abruptly with your machine and you forced to "lean" against your will. This adventure stuff is pretty trying and its our first day in Mexico. Our day eventually ended on a good note.

The motel we found in the smallish town of San Fernando was wonderful. They offered us parking space for the bikes right outside our door inside the courtyard. We walked three or four blocks to the business area and found a place to eat and our first cervezas. It was good to relax. 

Mexico

Day 6
From: San Fernando To: Tuxpan, MX
Amazing "topes" in every town and sometimes just out in nowhere.Topes are "speed bumps" on steroids. Single and in pairs and small groups. Every journal that I've read have commented (cursed) these things. Most are a simple concrete or asphalt strip across the highway and about 4-5 inches tall. Some are much taller. At small towns people sometimes stand in the middle of the road to sell stuff as vehicles slow to a stop when encountering these monsters. Some highways are super and for a good distance the pavement is great then bam. . . pothole city. I guess its like having one county keep up repairs and the next county not. Tomorrow we go past Veracruz and on to Minatitlan, a long day of over 375 miles. Note: Oaxaca was scratched from our schedule after reading about civil unrest and violence as we thought it was enough to risk our lives just riding.


Day 7
From: Tuxpan To: Minatitlan, MX
Sunday morning. Nice, cool, bright. Good highway and scenic.The day turned into another monster (by my calculations, that 4 out of 7 days so far qualify as monsters). Add tolls to the topes and terrible drivers and you've almost got it. Topes at small towns and topes in the middle of no-where. Roads being repaired and roads needing repair and you have us reaching Minatitalan at dark. The original plan was for about 250 miles per day average. Of course on good highways that could be more like today's 375. However we didn't adjust the schedule. Very bad. I think we've seen everything "but" ships burning off the shoulders of Orion.

We arrived as it was beginning to get dark and beginning to rain. Minatitalan is an extremely large city with extremely fast drivers and bad streets. I felt like I had been dropped into a giant blending machine. Thank goodness Harold keeps his cool much better than I. Huge pot holes and "topes" everywhere in the city and we were trying desperately to find a hotel. We rode all around the huge city for more than an hour without spotting a hotel even thought we stopped several times to ask locals for help. I was so tired and "wired" that the hotel we finally found was a blessing Did I mention that earlier before reaching our destination, we rode approximately 125 miles on a toll road with no gas stations, no towns and only one exit (to God knows where). I've never ridden anywhere for that distance without a service exit. We are enjoying the Mexican food and I've been trying many things I can't pronounce. And and I haven't seen at restaurants back home. Every hotel so-far has had bottled water in the rooms. 

Day 8
From: Minatitlan To: San Christobal
Wow. Today made up for all the crap in the last several days. Although we found pot holes in the expensive toll roads and a few more topes, it was a fantastic day. We began heading southeast which took us through mountains ever-bit as breathtaking as the Rockies. It was purely AWESOME. We arrived in San Christobal about 4:30 and located a small hotel in the downtown business district. By business I mean every kind. Across the street is a bank. next door a open air cafe. On one corner is a home that opens with a large door to what appears is a family room that doubles as a tiny cafe. Its really quite interesting. Unlike evenings thus far, we had the time and energy to walk about and see a few sites. Tomorrow we head for the Guatemalan border.

1 & 2. Halloween parade with lots of kids having a great time.

3. Wonderful old church in San Fernando

4.The beach at Vera Cruz was worth stopping to take a picture.

Guatemala

Day 9
From: San Christobal To: Hue Hue Tenango, Guatemala
More beautiful mountains. Breathtaking. So green and clouds hanging lower than we were riding. Flying above the clouds is quite different that riding above the clouds. Slow going for most of the ride and endless pick-ups jammed with people in the back. Everyone is at least amused to see us. I do get the feeling that moto traveling is not terribly common. Its interesting the number of horses, goats, donkeys and cows that we have seen tethered nest to a highway. All thru Mexico and now Guatemala. we pass animals munching by roadside. They are tethered and usually only one at a location. I assume the owners are making use of the free State grass. I guess when you see that most homes don't even have grass in their yards its understandable that the critters eat out.

Harold and I stopped at a village on the way to the Guatemalan border named Teopisca. We met some very nice people and as we were leaving, the town was having a children's halloween parade. It was great fun. I had a nice visit with a restaurant manager that knows a bit of English. But the mountains take "the cake" and tomorrow we will nearly cross Guatemala traveling thru more majesty.
More and more beautiful mountains. Except for "chicken buses" coming around a curve on two wheels! In this part of the world buses are in great quantity as most people have no cars. Many of the buses are highly decorated and have paint jobs that rival a NASCAR car. Apparently they are individually owned. The buses fill to the brim with individuals and the top of the bus is loaded with stuff. In mountain curves that should be taken at 10-30 mphs they typically come screaming down at over 40-60 mph. Remember that's on curves. And don't get behind one going up. . . they belch the blackest smoke I've seen.

Guatemalians are beautiful people and very friendly. Every where we go they come over to us and smile and test our Spanish ineptness. We've discovered that at borders there are individuals that make a living "helping" you with the paperwork in the crossing process. This our second crossing was pretty smooth with the "assistants".

Days 10 and 11
From: Hue Hue Tenango To: Antigua, Guatemala
I had no idea what was in store for us when we reached Antigua. With a major active volcano and two others a short distance away overlooking Antigua's busy tourist streets we decided to stay two days. The number of foreigners here is astounding. Harold and I have walked for what seems like miles on the extreme cobblestone streets and loved it. A couple of the best meals have been had here. Although we didn't take in any tourist attractions, there are a number of them ranging from ruins of ancient churches to the volcanos themselves. For visitors that like warm American hospitality mixed with their latin experience, I would recommend "Casa Rustica" owned by Darryl Hicks a bike enthusiast who had internet, cable and small bar in the center of town. casarusticagt@hotmail.com. We will sadly leave tomorrow for the Honduran border. Our hotel bill was $10 per night for a basic room with private bath. For more info on Antigua.

















1- Darryl Hicks of Casa Rustica jokes with Harold.
2- A group relaxing in Antigua's city plaza.
3- At a restaurant we met these bikers who were a very friendly group.

Honduras

Day 12
From: Antigua to Copan, Honduras 
The day started out with a bit of rain and a bit of insanity (at least we had three good days in a row). We left Antigua heading for the Honduran border in the mountains. Unfortunately a city of over six million with no reasonably marked roads lay in our path. Guatemala City is daunting. It took well over an hour to cross it. Rain and highway construction made things very difficult and detours took us away from Highway 1 and even with Harold's expensive GPS we had a tough time getting back on track. Finally the day calmed with a good road and the rain withdrew.

Our easy riding lasted for perhaps 45 minutes until we crested a hill and could see nothing but cars and trucks going nowhere. As far as we could see (mostly trucks) the vehicles sat with occupants milling around. We assumed there must have been a major accident and after sitting for several minutes decided to ride in the unused on-coming lane (in other words move up and butt into line). This is a rare advantage to being on a bike and we passed perhaps a hundred or so machines before tucking into within what appeared to be a short way to the scource of the problem. After standing around for a while I tried my espanol on a couple of military types and was told it was a road block and it was political. The bottom-line was a small town was protesting some conditions by blocking a major two lane highway with burning logs! The impasse lasted for about an hour (much longer for those getting there before us.

Harold poses with
the group of
young people we
met while waiting
for the road
blockade to end.

A group of young people came by an were intrigued by our bikes. One of these was a young woman named Karen who had lived in Los Angles for 10 years before returning to Guatemala. We took advantage of her English to learn more about the road problem. When we finally started up, I estimate about three miles of vehicles began to move. The final phase in this strange day found us back into the high mountains and reaching the border around 2:00. This border was a bit crazier and took a little longer than the previous crazy borders. It's strange finding that the customs office only signs (stamps) papers but you must walk a distance to find an office that "copies" the papers. And of course it would have taken a lot longer without the paid assistant. Our 4:00 arrival at Copan came just as rain began again to fall. Copan is a major site for those interested in Archeology. Remains of major Mayan civilization bring people here from all over.

Day 13
From: Copan To: Siguatepeque, Honduras
Harold and I spent the morning doing a self-guided tour of Copan ruins. For more info on Copan. It was very interesting and within walking distance of the little town. Leaving Copan around 11:00 gave us only a half day of riding but it was as usual. . . an adventure. Topes are no longer a regular occurance but bad pavement is. Especially in the mountains where I'm normally paranoid because of the "chicken buses" and other crazy drivers. Actually Harold is probably more paranoid that I as he saw one bus on two wheels rounding a curve. And two pickups apparently racing, came around a curve in his lane. Bad pavement in the mountains make you wonder if you could get that two wheel thing between your legs to fly. On one super tight switch-back there was a huge chunk of asphalt missing right in my lane. Also we encountered mud floods in three places that recent rains created. We carefully followed a semi thru one of the bigger slides as it crept through leaving a trail which we gladly followed.

Three or four times today we encountered cows. Mostly accompanied by a farmer or farmer's kids and each time in the middle of the road. The food continues to be wonderful We usually have two "good meals" each day. Sometimes having a spanish breakfast and an evening meal. Other days we've started out with just coffee.


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3.

4.

1. Copan Ruinas is an ancient Mayan ruins that hosts colorful birds as well as magnificent relics.
2. View of a Mayan temple.
3. I got to pose with a group that was fascinated by the two old gringos.
4. The armed guard seemed pleased to have his picture taken. He worked in a camera store.

Nicaragua

Day 14   
From: Siguatepeque to: Condega, Nicaragua 
Instead of talking about the roads and the border nonsense or arriving in Nicaragua on an election day with a U.S. issue at stake, I think I'll first focus on the "Brown Highways". I promise not to try competing with William Trogden (Blue Highways).

In Central America you travel down black-tops like those in the U.S at speeds averaging around 60-65 (of course some much faster). You will on any given day see handsome brown skinned men, women and sometimes children on the side of the road. Most roads don't have much of a shoulder. On week days we see adults carrying wood or other things while some attend to a cow or horse. Others are simply walking. To where, isn't clear. Frequently we see people miles from a town or visable village. Many times an individual may be just sitting . On the weekend its even browner. Mothers and their kids, children on bicycles and an assortment of individuals walk along side the roads. Harold and I have seen kids as young as around four walking somewhere (unattended). Sometimes large groups are common, we have seen a few. As you would expect, the closer to a town the more people are on the road-side. But even in the mountains where you wouldn't expect anyone there, walkers are in great quantities.
Our stay in Condega was a bit tense. It was election day in Nicaraga and this small town was somewhat surreal. There was a loudspeaker with speech making going on well into the night. The owner of the hostel confided in us that he was worried that the pro-sandinista candidate (an anti-American group) might win the election. The sandinistas when previously in power were known to take property away from business people. 

Day 15 
From: Condega to: Liberia, Costa Rica
Two note worthy items today: first we rode easily to the Costa Rica border and found the most incredible mess of back and forth between checking out and checking in. Normally it seems that there are two processes in checking out of a country (one for the person and one for the vehicle) also two processes checking into a country. Not so with Costa Rica. Besides a stop (and a charge) to have our vehicles "fumigated" I stopped counting at six additional offices. A whole industry has developed at these borders. It took over two hours to get thru it with the help. Imagine how long it would have taken otherwise. . . no don't. About midway between the border and Liberia in a low mountain area we passed a bicyclist laden for long distance. Shortly after we pulled over to put on our rain gear and it was starting to fall. The cyclist caught up and we spoke for a few minutes. I didn't catch his name but he was from the Czech Republic (sp). He's been riding for three months heading for Ushuaia. He started in Anchorage and is averaging 2000 miles a month. Wow. 

1. View of interior of hostel showing center courtyard with plants and washbasin.
2. Harold visits with the English speaking owner of the hostel.

Costa Rica

It may not look like it, but it was raining very hard

Day 16
From: Liberia, To: San Ramon, Costa Rica 

Heavy rain fell mostly on two motorcycles in the Costa Rican

mountains today. We had to stop twice because of visibility. One stop was at a mountain side restaurant were I managed to dry out a bit (even with good rain wear, you would be surprised how wet you can get in a downpour) We sloshed into San Ramon, a very nice small town just as the rain let up. Of course.

We met three young ladies from Switzerland who were staying at our hotel. The evening was pleasant with yet another great meal. The riding is wearing on me. I would probably take more time off but its a two man adventure and Harold has assumed the lead. He has repeatedly told me that I should set the pace but its clear that he really wants to press on.

Would you like to know the size of pot-holes in Costa Rica? We passed a man placing a 55 gallon barrel into a hole in the road. It fit easily and looked to go down about 10-12 inches. For those of you that haven't seen a 55 gal drum. It's about 32 inches accross. Cars are constantly weaving across both lanes to keep from hitting the huge pot holes!

Day 17
From: San Ramon To: La Palmas Norte, Costa Rica
This day was the worst! Harold, acted on a tip about a Costa Rican coast highway that would avoid the mountains thru San Jose with the infamous chicken buses. The road was fine early that morning and we had great views of the ocean. In attempting to stop at a little road side viewing area I attempted to park my KLR on the little bit of pavement available and it promptly fell over putting a mean contusion on my right leg. It took a bystander, Harold and my self to upright it. Then Harold reparked it. . . it fell again!. Bending the clutch lever and pushing the handlebars out of alignment. I got a couple of great pictures and we headed off for more adventure.

It turned out that the supposed good highway reached a point where there was "no more highway" there we had to ride about 35 miles on a road that was being constructed. Being constructed! The worst surface imaginable. No pavement of any kind. Like riding on a dry creek bed. Except after a few miles it wasn't dry anymore. And the hole were now filled with red watery mud. We rode between 0-20 mph. When the rocks and giant potholes weren't jarring my parts silly, we rode thru mud and water holes all the while meeting and sometimes passing big trucks. I was so tired after the two hour ordeal I didn't know what to do.

Tonight I'm thinking seriously about flying home when we reach Panama. I feel hurried and I don't think I'm up for the same challenge that Harold is. The original plan to ride only on paved roads is now history.

It wasn't Harold's fault that we encountered such a road however he was ready for more and I clearly wasn't. I spent nearly 11 months reading journals and studying maps and its disappointing to find that we are "winging it". If I were a younger man I might welcome more of a challenge.

Beautiful view of the Costa Rican coast.

Panama and home

Day 18
From: La Palmas Norte To: Santiago, Panama 
Beautiful morning. Costa Rica is clean and such a contrast to the other central American countries. We traveled 60 miles to the Panama border and again found a confusing array of paper pushers. It took about an hour and cost about 35.00 to be on our way. Then it cost us each 60.00 for doing the same speed that we had been doing all through CA. We were speeding. If driving about 35 mph on a four lane, divided highway is speeding. No problemo. We had just passed the border and the policia gunned us. He then wrote out two tickets. Told us we could pay him the 60.00, which we did. . . then he indicated to us to "tear up the tickets" and put them in the car waste basket. Sound fishy? Well, similar to the last three days, we've had gushing rain storms. Fortunately we found an tiny old gas station to get shelter for about an hour. I'm definitely an old guy now and I'm feeling "old guy" aches. The toll that tension puts on you is major. It now seems that 8 or 9 of the 18 days that I've been riding have be tortuous.

This afternoon before the rain we were tooling along and coming upon a big truck and a car behind it. I heard a loud "pop" and all of a sudden a huge spare tire from under the truck went flying up into the air, came down on the pavement, just in front of the car I was following, bounced again and went off the side of the road. The car which was in front of me was missed by 2-3 car lengths. Man was I glad it bounced to the right and off the road. 

Days 19-22
From: Santiago To: Panama City, Panama
Sailed into Panama City in about 4 hours. Mostly stayed away from the center of town. We did see some of the "canal" and with more rain clouds looming we quickly found a hotel. To compare lodging such as that in Nicaragua with this "Forty Star" joint would be a job for Dave Barry. The palms and pool are just. . . soooooo. Anyway we checked in and then went to the cargo part of the airport and talked with the people at Girag who do most of the shipping for bikers to SA. Harold was told the right people to make a deal with would be there Monday. For me, I won't know until tomorrow when I meet with Panalapina Air Freight. Wish me luck. I definitely will not ride back the way I came. (if I did I would take 28 days not 18 like we did.Well the last day in Central America was bound to be a terrible day. Why? Because we've just laid around waiting for the day to get our bike officially shipped. Something that should have been a couple of hours (according to other travelers). Harold found his work with "GIRAG" completed in about three hours and he stayed a couple more waiting for me. Sadly I could only find a company named ARROW (a kissing cousin to GIRAG) to ship my bike back to Missouri. The manager kept me waiting from about 8:00 until 10:00 when he put his guys to work measuring my bike for a crate to be built. By 11:30 they informed me that I should go with their guys to buy lumber. I had to go so I could pay for it. . . interesting. We spent over an hour looking for a lumber yard that actually had lumber. It turned out that the fourth try got our lumber. . . at a saw mill. Green, heavy lumber. (guess how you get charged for shipping) By 1:00 a crew of three were hammering and sawing but nothing was working. The general manager was doing a lot of yelling and it was not looking good. By 2:30 I was in a panic. I knew paperwork was going to have to be done and I still didn't know how much it was going to cost. By 3:00 a basic pallet was made and the bike strapped on top of it to be weighed. Naturally weighing a lot more than expected.

By 4:00 the manager gave me papers indicating that the bike would be delivered to their warehouse in St.Louis. He had also until then, failed to tell me that there would be a "fumigation charge" of 20.00, a "dangerous goods" charge of 100.00, a fuel surcharge and two other charges I don't remember. The construction of the pallet and strapping is so amateurish that I only give the bike a 30% chance of coming home undamaged. And guess what. . . I've discovered that I've only been charged for the trucking freight from Miami to St. Louis. There was no charge for the air freight from Panama to Miami. I'll probably find that the KLR will be held hostage in the St. Louis warehouse on its return.

Harold is a real rider. Although he had his fill of buses and big cities, he is venturing on. He is a natural long distance biker. Where I would have wanted to stop every hour or hour and a half, Harold can ride for hours at a time. He hates to stop for gas or pretty much anything. I wish him the best. I know that he can make TDF. (note: Harold made it to Terra del Fuego and back home)














Parked near the airport in Panama were a number of "chicken buses" similar to those we encountered through out our journey. Chicken buses, I'm told, are named that because people are known to ride them with all their possessions including their chickens.


Summary of Mexico and Central America Adventure. 

Miles total 4246 Bob's top ten observations (not necessarily in order)

1. There are no "fat" dogs here. Sadly most doggies are quite undernourished and unattended. 

2. In all the heat, no one wears "shorts". Except a few "swimsuits" close to Costa Rica beaches the hot weather didn't seem to bring out the shorts like at home.

3. Speed bumps can help a poor economy. I'll bet the number of tourist and other dummies that try going over the "topes" faster than 2 mph, keep muffler and tailpipe businesses going. And of course your shocks which also take a beating on the pot-holes. The best use of business regarding topes was the vendors that position themselves right at roadside by the bumps.

4. Mountains. Wow!

5. Pick-up trucks are for carrying people. Regardless of the laws for safety at home, everywhere here you will see from 1-12 people in the back of a pick-up. My guess is that its cheaper that taking the "chicken buses". Probably safer too. It was nothing to see people standing in the back of a fast moving truck going around a mountain.6. Food here is much better than at home. Contrary to what I've been lead to believe the food south of the border is not "burn your mouth off" hot. Fried bananas are wonderful and huevos (eggs) are much more creative than up north. Simply put most meals we had would beat the restaurants in Columbia. 

7. Do your own laundry when possible. Because our Panama hotel was close to the airport a laundromat was an unlikely find. We decided to use the hotel service. Between us we had 7 pair of socks and undies, 3 pair of jeans, 9 t-shirts and two hankerchiefs. How expensive could that be. $53.83!!!8. 

8.  No one here speaks English unless you are lost. We experienced several times that when we stopped to look at a map or just confer on which way to go, someone would walk up and offer to help. . . in English.

9. Latin women are very beautiful. 

10. There are only two kinds of vehicles. Slow and fast. Slow ones are old cars and pick-ups and huge trucks belching black smoke. Fast ones are newer model Nissans, chicken buses and any "semi" coming down a mountain.