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.
