Osorno, Chile

Dec 30, 2004

Chile is chilly, unless you are in Santiago. I am about 600 miles south, and it is raining, and the forecast is more rain, then a little bit of rain, with scattered showers on and off between the
spells of rain.

The road down was straight and quick, through vineyards that resemble the Napa valley, then alpine forests and little tin roof villages tucked into the hillsides.

Off to the left the mountain range was covered with snow.

I spent a lot longer than planned in Santiago, and just found out I am about 3000 miles north of my goal of Tierra Del Fuego, which tells me that I really do need to get and occasionally refer to a good map. I was under the impression that I am about 1800 miles away.

The map I got for $2 at the gas station doesn't have Argentina on it, so I am pretty much winging it until I get to an Argentinian gas station and can get a map there with fill up, if they run the same deal on that side of the border.

Panama City, Panama

Dec 2, 2004

I will be here for three days, arranging the shipment of the bikes to Quito, Ecuador. We are staying at the Hotel Montreal. The ride down was eventful, as we got pulled over for crossing the double yellow line to pass several long lines of cars in a construction zone. The first officer who pulled us over wanted our licenses, then began writing in a pad of some sort. He went on for a while and then told us the fine was $40 each. We said we didn�t have that much money, so he said it could be $40 for both of us. I had just bought gas and only had $7. Mark had $3, so the fine for both of us was $10. In the next town, the officer pulled us over and told us we were committing the same offense. He found a brochure of some sort in the back of his car and pretended to be writing a ticket too.

There is no way he could have seen us, so we told him we had just paid another officer for the same offense. He wrote the information down, then got on the radio and tried to find out who had the fine in his pocket. Because it was such a small amount, I'm pretty sure none of the officers wanted to split it, so he came back to us and asked if we remembered the name of the officer who we paid. We described him, the officer gave us back our licenses, then went off
in search of his cut of the fine. Because they wear bright orange vests, the officers were pretty easy to spot hiding under trees, so I went off pretty fast while Mark rode more conservatively. I didn't get pulled over again, but he did, for exceeding the speed limit by a cop who had followed him for more than 35 minutes. He used his GPS to show the officer that he wasn�t speeding, told him he wouldn't show him the license, and wasn't going to pay, and that he had six
months to spend in Panama if the officer wanted to take him to the station. Mark said he was interested in seeing the jail. The officer told him that wasn't necessary and let him go.

If I got pulled over in the US for crossing the double yellow line to pass traffic in a construction zone at 80 MPH, I would be overjoyed to pay the officer $40 and be on my way.

The road was great once you get halfway toward the capital, two lanes in either direction, with few potholes and excellent drainage. The landscape is rolling hills, lush green plains, and waterfalls cascading down the side of distant mountains. The Bridge of the Americas is spectacular at night over the canal, and Panama City is clean, well laid out, and well constructed. The cash machines dispense dollars.

I wonder who built it all...

At the hotel, we met up with some of the guys Mark had met at the Horizons Unlimited meeting in Mexico. They were for the most part a borish lot of penny pinchers hanging around together because none of them spoke Spanish. One of them, also Mark, was writing a book about his experiences on the trip. Though unasked, he said his trip through Mexico could be described in one word, Intensity. So he is now Intensity Mark. They took us to a whorehouse where Intensity Mark impressed us both by paying a fat hooker three times the going rate for fat hookers and going off for fifteen minutes with her, then coming out of the room in the back zipping up his pants like he had accomplished something intense. Another one was BMW Bill, who is just lonely and wants a woman to ride on the back of his motorcycle with him. He used to be a drug addict and alcoholic, and now doesn't do anything except tell people how miserable his life was. Why can't he have found religion instead of motorcycle travel? Then there was the Swede, a tall, thin man in his early 20s with long blonde hair and piercing blue eyes. He was in the right place to meet a woman, was what the women in this part of the world fantasize about, wanted to meet one, but couldn't. Was it because he hasn't had a shower since starting the trip, has one set of clothes that he hasn't washed except by riding in the rain, or a combination of the two? You can smell him around the corner. He used to have a coke problem, and is on his way to Colombia. Of course he has no jacket, and his plan for riding in the Andes is to buy a native poncho. This could get intense.

By far this is the easiest of all the Central American countries for an American to feel at home in.

David, Panama

Nov 30, 2004

David is the second largest city in Panama. After a long day of travel and adventure, and a bit of anxiety crossing out of Costa Rica, constantly looking over our shoulders and expecting the worse at police checkpoints, we rode through David in darkness, looking for a hotel.

The Panamerican Highway from San Jose, Costa Rica was extremely poor and full of potholes that make you wonder if you broke a rim every time you hit one. The Highway went up to about 14,000 feet, through a forest that was covered in mist. It was freezing. Turns were extremely tight, and because it is the only road that traverses the country, it was full of trucks and tour buses, repairs and missing lanes. There are several very dramatic valleys with little towns nestled between the mountains. the potholes are enormous, and often full of water.

I went to buy gas and found out someone had given me a counterfeit 5000 Costa Rica shekel note. I thought about trying to exchange it with one of the backpackers on the border but decided to keep it as a souvenir instead. So I am out $11.

In Buenos Aires, Costa Rica, we stopped for lunch and my motorcycle, for no reason I can think of, picked itself straight off the kickstand and fell over to the right against a car and broke the mirror, not to mention scraping the side of the car. Of course I didn't see it happen, and have no idea how it could have. Previously, the bike has never shown an inclination to  lift itself up off the kickstand and fall in the oposite direction.

Fortunately, the owner of the car just happened to be standing beside the bike when I got there. He was very pleasant, and I offered him $40 for the damage, in order to maintain the sense of pleasantness that pervaded the scene. He suggested we go to a repair shop to see what it would cost, and so Mark and I followed him to the repair shop.

We passed five repair shops on the way to the special one, where he went inside and brought out the owner. After looking at the car, the owner of the bodyshop told me the door and fender of the car would have to be painted, because my bike had scratched a couple of places where the car had already been keyed by someone else. It was going to cost me a lot, and I could not tell if he intended to paint around or over the rust spots on the fender.

I offered the guy $50 and 5000 Costa Rica shekels. He held firm for $112, so he could get the side of his car painted, repeating over and over that it was not his fault that my bike fell against his car. I said "okay, I will go to the automatic teller," got on my bike and headed off in that direction, with Mark right behind me.

The ride to the border was fast and the falling rain made the potholes easier to see. 

I'm sure somewhere in Buenos Aires, Costa Rica a woman is telling her husband he is an idiot for not taking the $50.

On the border with Panama I had to pay $5 for a visa, because I'm from the USA, and Mark, being Dutch, didn't have to pay anything.

 

San Jose, Costa Rica

Tue Nov 30, 2004

Interesting and very crowded trip from Playa Tamarindo. Both Mark and I contracted some sort of stomache thing after eating at a place called Pedros, owned by an American, with awful service and evidently even worse food. San Jose is clean, the people are friendly, and it is a lot cooler than the oceanside. But there are still mosquitos. On the way here, we observed that on one long stretch of winding mountain road a bus had broken down. Instead of moving it off the road, the police blocked traffic in both directions and let someone try to fix it. From the looks of things, they had been trying to fix it for some time. Travelling by bike is very practical in a place like this, because we are able to go past all the cars and save an hour and a half over what the guidebook says it takes in the backpacker bus. The Panamerica Highway through Costa Rica is very rough, the potholes are occasionally repaired, and we have both wondered why the richest country here has the worst roads. Another 5 liter bottle of water fell off the back of my Quota. Hopefully it didn't hit anyone.

Watching the turtle lay eggs was a bit of a letdown. And it was Mark's idea. 

Mark and I met a couple of extremely attractive Scottish nurses, and were getting along with them nicely, while plying them with beers and describing our trip in heroic detail. About 11 PM we had to leave to watch the turtles lay their eggs. After a short boat ride across a creek, a tour guide took us down to the beach and made about thirty of us wait for about two hours, then dragged us all out to where there was one turtle, a big leatherback, over a hole with about six eggs in it.

The tour guide wouldn't shine his flashlight on the turtles head so we could see it,  and kept telling me to get back and stop bothering it when I was just trying to get a better look.  I told him I paid to see the f&$king turtle, and I was going to see the f$#king turtle or they were going to give me a refund.  As the turtle laid eggs, a young American woman was collecting them and putting them in a container. After about twenty minutes of this we were led back to the boat and taken back. I jumped off the boat before it docked and went wading ashore. But alas, the Scottish girls were nowhere to be found. Mark owes me. 

When we stopped for lunch there were turtle eggs on the menu. They are served raw in a jellied tomato sauce, and are quite good.



 

Playa Tamarindo, Costa Rica

I made it to Costa Rica. When I first thought about making this trip about three years ago, this was where I intended to end up. Mark and I spent last night in Liberia, Costa Rica, in the Hotel Liberia, where for $7 each we got to share a room with private bath and fan. In the morning, there was a breakfast of scrambled eggs, rice, beans and toast for another couple of bucks. The town is supposedly one of the rougher in Costa Rica, but by the time it gets going, I am usually exhausted and fast asleep. Crossing over from Nicaragua was a hassle. If you don't use one of the border guides to get you through, the officials start nickel and diming you before they will let you leave the country. We had to pay a mayors fee of $1, an after hours fee of $2, and three dollars for a passport stamp, which we got receipts for $2 for, so the government official got himself a couple of dollars for his efforts.

I haven't seen a lot of Costa Rica so far, but the infrustructure seems vastly improved over the other countries of South America. The people appear to take pride in their country, and the only unwashed masses I have seen are the hoards of backpackers that refuse to bathe or pay two dollars more for a room with a bathroom. And I stole their soap, so they can't bathe if they wanted to.

Tonight I'm going to watch endangered turtles lay eggs and afterward have a nice omelette and some soup made fresh on the beach. The beach towns are expensive, and full of surfers and more backpackers.

More Honduras Stuff

I almost forgot to mention the ferry ride from Roatan to La Cieba. First off, I ended up missing the early boat, which takes off at 7 sharp, and sharp means sharp here, which is a bit of a shock. So I took the 1 pm boat, and decided to spend the night at the same Posada (Bed and Breakfast) as I had my first night in La Cieba. In La Cieba, the boat and dock were about the same level, but in Roatan, the dock is about six feet below the boat. After riding 135 miles exploring Roatan from one end to the other, this on my day off from riding, a lot of it in the dirt, which translates to steep wet clay with rivulets and pools of water and packs of dogs that chase me at inoportune times, I got to the dock and watched the stovedores wheel my bike to the side of the boat, about two feet from the water, and then after everything else was loaded, ten of them picked it up overhead and stuck it on the boat, after laughing and pretending they were going to drop it in the water. Both of my Quotas have been on ferries.

At the police checkpoint, where the army officers look very sharp in their winter snow camo (blue and white, very effective in the tropical jungle), I was asked to show them my license and registration, then a police officer came over to talk to me. I was sure I was going to have one of those unpleasant and expensive experiences people talk about having in latin america, but he just wanted to talk about motorcycles, being a rider himself. As soon as you tell them you are riding to Argentina, most people here assume you are crazy and leave you alone.