Wandering with Tedder and Tamara

5/28: Colon to Portobelo

We took our trip out to the Colon Free Zone (zona libre) first thing in the morning. It's a city-in-a-city, walled off and secured from the rest of the city. That's because of the lack of tariffs and such. It was kind of a weird place- not really set up for retail. Basically it was probably 60% clothing, 20% electronics (most was the really cheap Asian stuff), and the rest was a mix of various things- small motorbikes, jewelry, etc. We probably spent about 90 minutes in there, just wandering around.

Next, we went back, packed up, then went to an Internet cafe for a while. We then called Captain Steve and headed out to Portobelo. I'm tired of that trip- it's twisty and scenic, but too much risk to have a lot of fun, and it was really warm. There was too much wind to take the sailboat in to the dock, so we figured we'd wait until the next day and load it on a panga.

There's really only one place to stay in Portobelo, a very run-down hospitaje. Real small rooms, bugs and such everywhere. Thankfully they had one room with air conditioning- that made things a little easier to handle.

5/29: Portobelo bike loading

After a quick breakfast, we rounded up some workers and loaded the bike onto the sailboat. It was much sketchier than I'd initially imagined.

I rode the bike out onto the concrete dock, then basically off the dock into a small panga (about 4 feet below the dock). From there, we motored out to the sailboat, then used the main line on the mast to raise it up onto the sailboat. Again, that meant lifting the bike maybe 8 feet, up and over the edge of the sailboat. We then flopped the bike on its side and secured it onto the deck. It was relatively straightforward to set down.

The workers are used to hauling material across the bay- there is an island or peninsula on the far side, and all the building materials come from this side. The workers were putting wheelbarrows of sand and aggregate in the pangas, loading them until the boat was barely above water. They'd ride across the bay and then unload it again. Seems like a lot of work.

We leave very early in the morning, so we'll spend the night on the sailboat so we don't have to wake up when it's time to leave.

Saturday (the 26^th) was a slow day for us, because we were both quite sick. The only things of note were chatting with some riders, and calling Captain Steve. We were supposed to call him anyhow- he said he couldn't get his boat to the dock, and the bike is too heavy to risk loading by lancha. We pretty much agreed, and asked him to return our deposit. He said he'd return the bike portion, but not the portion for the passengers. We completely disagreed with this theory- it was a package deal, after all. We agreed to meet him, in person, to discuss it.

Cue Sunday. We FINALLY packed and left our hotel in PC. It was nice, especially for the price ($20). But it is nice to be moving on. We dropped a borrowed book off, got some gas, and used the toll road to head for Colon.

The toll road was much nicer- remember it was the free road that caused us so much trouble with our rim, bearings, and suspension. Unfortunately, it (currently) only goes about a third of the way across the peninsula. Still, it probably saved us 30 minutes or more.

The trip out to Portobelo was more pleasant than the previous day- no rain, no broken bike bits, and no threat of darkness. It was still too warm for us- we just don't care for the high humidity and temperatures. We met with Captain Steve, who was able to figure out how the navigation channel to the dock works. We went over the sailing plan with him and rebuilt a level of trust.

So here's the plan- keep in mind this is being written on Sunday. We'll load the bike during Monday's high tide (about 3pm). Tuesday morning the three of us will go get food for the trip. We'll board the boat Tuesday evening, and set sail early Wednesday morning. I'm trying to encourage Steve to leave early Tuesday morning, since we don't need an entire day for grocery shopping. We'll see how that pans out.

Next, we backtracked to Colon. The city of Colon is notorious as an incredibly dangerous place to be- many people recommend never going into the city, or not without an escort. I think it is very economically depressed, too many people and not enough jobs.

Whatever the deal is, we looked around for a specific hotel for a little bit, then settled on our second choice- the Hotel International. It's an old hotel, not far from the bus station, built in the grand old style (which is a little tragic now). $25 for air conditioning and a guarded parking area seemed worth it to us.

The town is actually kind of neat, in a depressing sort of way. The buildings are almost all three stories, probably built in the 20s to 40s, but in very terrible condition now. The alleys are a gutter for water and presumably sewage. A lot of the pools of water have green algae in it- a sign the water stagnates. The people seem quite friendly- a lot of West Indies, with a real nice mix of other races.

We'll probably visit the Colon Free Zone in the morning- it is only open on business days. It's basically a wholesale-only market that tolerates some level of retail activity. We don't know how much retail, and we don't know if we can get any goods out- people who visit usually have their purchases 'forwarded' to the airport so they can pick it up on their way out. We don't have that option.

Around noon we'll head back out to Portobelo to load the bike.

Tamara's short post about the last few days has been updated, it is now longer, but it may not show up in your RSS reader and definitely wasn't emailed out.

Here it is:
http://perljam.net/wandering/2007/05/522-523-panama-city.html

This is a bit of a metapost, it'll cover the bike problems we've had over the past few days. The normal story continues in blog posts by Tamara. Just keep in mind we had gone on a quick trip across the isthmus to talk to a boat captain. It's only about 30-40 miles, but I was horribly sick and we had some mishaps. Keep reading.

The real event was hitting a pothole on the transisthmian highway. It had a sharp lip and was effectively bottomless- I tried to avoid it, but there were too many.

The jar from the pothole was massive. I was pretty sure something was damaged, so I slowed down and inspected it. Yep, it flattened the rear tire. It didn't take too long to find the cause- the rim was dented inwards- about 3/4 inch on one side, maybe half that on the other. There's no way the tire would inflate, because the rim couldn't seat on that.

We were in the middle of the jungle. There was a fair amount of traffic coming by, but hardly anyone would stop. We decided the best thing to do would be to take the bike to a repair shop, so we tried to flag down any pickup truck that would stop for us.

That ended up being next to impossible- we waited for over an hour, in the pouring tropical rain. A car or two stopped, but we didn't know what good it would do to go with them- do we leave the bike? How do we find a truck in another location?

Finally a fellow in a large SUV with a trailer stopped. It was a tiny utility trailer, but we managed to drag the bike up onto it. That was quite difficult- we set one of the cases down as a ramp, then Tamara and our friend lifted the bike while I gave it some power. Once we got it into the trailer, we had to rotate it diagonally across the trailer, then lay it down, because the trailer was too short otherwise.

He took us about 20 miles to a tire repair shop. We passed quite a few, so I was confused why he kept going. Finally we got to the shop he wanted to stop at. I understood later, when he loaded a huge tractor tire into the trailer. Makes sense!

Anyhow, at the tire shop, we quickly pulled the cases, then put one underneath the bike so the rear tire was off the ground. We then pulled the axle and removed the rear tire. The guy at the tire shop set the rim on the ground, then grabbed his large, homemade, sledgehammer.

Now, I wouldn't normally beat on a cast rim with a sledgehammer. It just isn't a bright idea. However, what are the other options? Weld a fillet across the dent? Not really.

So, three of us held the rim down, and Mr. Tire Guy pounded the massive dents out of the rim. I was glad the ground was dirt/gravel, because it absorbed the hard hits that came through the rim.

After about 30 minutes, we were done, the tire was mounted, and we were ready to go. Our trailer friend wouldn't accept money, so we paid the tire guy his $2 (yes, two dollars), plus a $1 tip, then Tamara snuck a $20 on the dashboard of our friend's SUV.

We finished getting suited up, then hopped on the bike and were about to leave (we had forgotten to connect the chain, so it took an extra minute). In the meantime our SUV friend came back and wouldn't accept the money. I argued that it was for his family, but he wouldn't accept it. So, we gave him a handshake and gratitude and went on our way.

You can read the rest of the non-moto story in Tamara's blog. At this point we headed out to Colon to talk to the boat captain, then came back to Panama City (in the dark, with poor illumination, and a very sick Ted).

Things started to go downhill as we got into Panama. I couldn't tell what was happening, but I was glad to be close to the hotel. We pulled into the hotel and I tried to put the bike on the sidestand. Things seemed really weird. Finally I figured out why- the bike was sitting about 1.5 inches lower than it should, so the sidestand was levering the bike over! In other words, the sidestand was far too long for the bike, since it was squatting so much.

A quick inspection revealed a buggered suspension link. It had actually made the hole in the link into an oval, then finally a U shape as it pushed out the end. The other side wasn't as bad- which is odd, since they are paired and even one should hold the bike.

We put the bike on a scrap of wood (so the sidestand would work), then went to bed. There wasn't much we could do, it was late, and I was feeling worse from the 'adventure' that our 'quick errand' had turned into.

The following morning, Tamara took the bike to the local bike shop. They couldn't even remove the bolt through the suspension link- it had galled the threads and was a bit bent. So late in the day Tamara brought the bike back to the hotel. In the meantime she had met a guy who is doing the same trip as us. He needed some repairs done on his KLR, so he found a machine shop across town. That would be our next destination.

I wasn't feeling well, but since Tamara took the bike to the moto shop and really wasn't comfortable riding a broken bike very far, I took the pilot seat and she hopped onto the passenger seat. Even though the shop couldn't fix it, they were at least able to get it (temporarily) raised back up, so we weren't pretending to be a lowrider.

We finally found the machine shop on the far side of the international airport. It was about the size of a two-car garage, but twice as deep. They had a great selection of metalworking tools- several lathes, a couple of mills, and everything else that you'd hope for.

The first step was to remove the bolts and suspension links. That went okay, actually. That's the difference that the right tools can make. It was quickly apparent that the bearings were shot. The sledgehammer came out, but we had to drop the bike onto its side to make things easier.

The outer bearing race was stuck in the frame, so our new friend (Jaime) pulled out a Dremel type grinder and carefully cut through the race so he could get it out. Once he did, he gave it to us and said that we needed to find four replacement bearings. The shell would help us get the right size, as would the extra sleeve that I had sitting aside. It was nearly 5pm, so we'd probably be out of luck until the following morning.

We hailed a taxi, and Jaime explained where we needed to go. The taxi driver knew where to go, and he knew English too! It turns out his (step)grandfather was American, and our taxi driver also worked as a procurement agent for the local airline (which meant he spoke English in his job, while talking to American parts suppliers).

His knowledge of technical English came in handy when we got to the bearing store. He was able to explain what we needed, the application, and what the parts were to the supply guy. He pondered, found some alternatives, and finally gave us the four bearings and two sleeves (he only had two sleeves). Of course, we wanted to use our sleeves since they fit the bolt, but the bearings wouldn't fit our sleeves.

We took the bearings, hoping to figure out how to cobble it all together, then went to the hotel for the evening. The next morning our English-speaking taxi driver picked us up at the arranged time and took us to a second bearing store. They stocked a real selection of tools and goodies, so I stocked up on some corrosion protection stuff (to cover the bike while on the sailboat), a little tube of Loctite, and a second (and different) set of bearings to try.

On to the machine shop. We showed him our two bearing alternatives- but neither would work. The outer diameters were wrong- one was off by 2mm, and the other was SAE, not metric. We couldn't really tell since the bearing shell had been cut and would flex a bit. So we took the correct measurements and headed for a THIRD bearing store- which was the central branch of the first store.

I have to interrupt a little at this point. The taxi rides were about $20 each, which wasn't bad for almost an hour of his time. But Jaime told us to take the bus back to town, since it was cheap (25 cents) and the buses in front of the machine shop would turn and go exactly where we needed to go. We love these buses anyhow- I might post a single entry about them and the business model, but for now just know we used the buses. We stopped three different places, so we took four different buses, and it cost a total of $2.

Okay, back to the story. We took the bus back to the first bearing shop to return our incorrect bearings and get a refund, then we took another bus to go to the third bearing shop. It took a little bit to find it, but we almost had it right on our first try. We had two of the dimensions (ID and OD) but the third wasn't on our slip of paper. We made gestures and got the bearing shop to call the machine shop to get it figured out- after that it was easy.

Some quick food and back to the machine shop. Jaime knew the ID of the bearings was wrong for the sleeve that came with the DL650, so he used it as spec to create two new sleeves on the lathe. They were (and are) beautiful pieces of work.

Once that was done, Jaime removed the rest of the damaged bearings, installed the new ones, greased everything, then we put it back together. I suspect the lowest part of the suspension has been banged around a little, so nothing is quite straight- it took a little bit of jostling to make the new links fit. Not bad, though.

In the meantime I worked on putting Loc-Tite on an important subframe bolt that was coming loose, and helped Jaime do a little bit of work on the skid plate (it is so bashed and mangled that it was in the way). We replaced a bolt and used Loc-Tite, so hopefully the skidplate will survive the trip. I'll still have to remove it when I get home, it is far too damaged to leave on.

We were finally done. The cost was $150, plus I gave Jaime a tip for his work. That was basically two days of his time, plus the time of other workers, plus the equipment and such. It was a reasonable price for the amount of labor and such.

So, the bike is back together and mostly okay. I'm a little worried about other bearings on the bike, but it's nice to have a whole bike again. We rode it back to the hotel, after it spent the night in the machine shop. (From the bike's perspective, is a machine shop like a nursery, a doctor's office, detention, or a graveyard?)

Here's my description of the pictures that accompany the post.

The first photo shows the bike, tipped on its side, while several of us figure out how to remove the links and damaged bearings.

The second photo shows the destroyed bearings.

The third photo shows Jaime making the sleeves on his metal lathe. He wore the safety glasses while using the lathe, don't worry.

Finally, the fourth one shows all of the parts. From left to right: damaged suspension link (dogbone), replacement dogbones, replacement bearings, replacement sleeves, original sleeves and bolts, destroyed dogbone.

Tuesday, 5/22:

Ted is sick with a cold. We are still trying to find a boat to Cartagena for ourselves and the bike, so I headed over to Hostel Mamallena's to talk to the owner about a potential boat. He had a couple backpackers take the trip with this captain and run into a few problems. According to the captain's side of the story, things should be ok, but we thought it would be a good idea to meet with him and get a feel for it ourselves.

We got on our way to Portobelo, where the captain & boat were, and didn't make it far before the rain started. We had gotten a lot of hard hits with the potholes and generally rough road, but I still wasn't sure if we were stopping because of the rain or because the bike had a problem.

Unfortunately it was for the latter. Ted's 'metapost' has the details, so I'll continue the story from after the tire repair.

5/23: Boat, bike problems, etc.

After the wheel was repaired we were back on the road. After a little confusion about what road to take from Sabanita, we wound along the scenic coastline to Portobelo. We found the boat captain, Steve, in a little restaurant and spent about an hour talking with him and making the arrangements to set sail for Cartagena on Saturday morning. The bike will be loaded onto the boat with a sling, then wrapped up and put on deck. We will spend a couple days in the San Blas Islands on our way to Colombia, so the voyage will take 5 days.

When we were done in Portobelo it was starting to get dark. The ride back to Panama City was dark, wet, and altogether rather unpleasant. We made it though, and Ted was able to lie down and rest after the strenuous day while sick. (Ted's post covers the newest problem with the bike discovered at that point) I went out to find him some medicine, get us dinner and stuff for breakfast, which ended up taking over 2.5 hours because of the late hour and the closest pharmacy and grocery store were closed. I was really tired when I got back, and because I had been gone so long Ted had been looking for me, so we were both miserable from being sick and tired.

5/24: Bike repairs

Ted wasn't feeling up to riding the bike to the local bike shop, so we stripped off the luggage and I rode it over there. I was worried about the crazy traffic and finding the store, but the GPS helped, and I made it without any problems. The store owner, Fabio, was very helpful and they set to work right away to try and get the bolt out to get the links out to be reproduced. The bolt was mashed enough that they couldn't get it out, but were able to get things moved around enough that the bike was high enough to be able to use the sidestand again. Their recommendation was to take the bike as is to Cartagena, where we could find a good machine stop to make the replacement parts. According to them, Colombia has the best machine shops.

I went to an internet cafe and discussed things with Ted, while the shop changed the bike's oil. Luckily, when I got back I met Josh, a fellow motorcycle adventurer who gave me the name of a great machine shop up by the main airport. So, I rode the bike back to get Ted and have lunch, and I called the boat captain to explain our circumstances. He has no other passengers at the moment, so he said he was willing to wait for us to get the bike repaired. That is a big relief. Next, we headed out to the machine shop, and Ted's post has the details on that.

We got up early again this morning to beat the rain and a little bit of the heat. We started off running a couple of errands- pay for another night at the hotel, drop off our laundry, and then headed over to Mamallenas, the cool hostel we started at. They organize sailboats to Colombia, so we thought we'd get them started on finding one for us.

Unfortunately, the receptionist wasn't the right person to handle that. She said the boss (el jefe) would be coming in around 10 or 11. That was fine- it just meant we would have to drop by later. From there we headed to a motorcycle shop that a HU member recommended to us. It took a while for us to find- signs are often absent, it's hard to tell if we are in the right direction because the streets aren't straight, and in the few times when there are signs, they are 'spun'- in other words, implying that the cross-street is the one we actually want.

Part of the wild goose chase ended up with us on the freeway that runs between the waterfront and the financial district. In fact, at points there is water on both sides. It was weird to see tall bank buildings in a few blocks, with the waterfront crowded with fisherman's shacks and boats. Definitely a case of the third world meeting the first world. This highway was in the wrong direction for us, so I turned around at the first chance I had- just before a tollbooth.

Finally we found the correct street and MPH, a really great moto shop. He had great selection of things- it reminded me of the independent shops in Seattle, especially the old Moto Works of Renton. The owner, Fabio, was very friendly and wanted to show off his great repair shop, show us the used motocross bikes they have for sale (since the racers have bought the new models), and tell us about the different bikers he's seen pass through. We heard from our friend that the entire second floor is full of stock, but didn't see it.

We were opportunistic because of the nice selection. We bought a gallon of good synthetic oil, a second set of mesh gloves for me, and some replacement mirrors. Our mirrors don't hold their position- one has been nonfunctional since Baja, the other is only mildly helpful. He didn't have an oil filter for my bike- I have one left. I'm trying to decide if I should save it for my next oil change or use it now and go without on the next change. (Jim? You always have good advice..)

Next we tried heading to the airport to see about a sightseeing flight. I had trouble finding the right turnoff, so I ended up taking a circuitous route. I knew roughly where I was, and eventually got there- after turning around at a tollbooth. Again.

At the airport, I first went to the FBO. A guard was in front of the hangar, he made a call, consulted with a pilot who happened to be walking through, and then sent us to the aeroclub, a flight school at the other end of the airport. Once we got there, we talked to a nice instructor (mechanic/engineer) who went into his office and spent a couple minutes on the phone. He then sent us back to the FBO.

At the FBO we went in, past the nice planes and jets in the hangar, and to the posh pilot's lounge. The VP there said their smallest plane was a 5-seater (and I think a twin-engine). It would be $500 per hour. I asked her if they had anyone, or knew anyone, with a 172 or similar. She made a couple of calls for us, then waited for someone to call us back.

She was a very nice lady- she compared life in Panama to life in Miami. The latter is flat and has hurricanes, which surprised her. Finally she heard back from a pilot who had a 182 for $300/hr. We set up a time later in the day with him.

That gave us some time to kill, so we headed towards the Miraflores locks. Those are the first set of locks on the Pacific side of the canal, and were only about 5 miles from the airport. We toured the exhibits and watched their short movie (10 minutes). The exhibits were a very short version of what we had seen at the Canal Museum in the old town (San Felipe). So they weren't terribly fascinating.

The movie was a very quick overview on the canal and the immediate future. Panama voted 'yes' to upgrade the canal with a new set of locks at each end. That will allow ships larger than 110ft to use the canal system. I was a little disappointed that none of this was in the video- it was polished and had the pro-canal spin one might expect. At least they talked about the problems of the Canal Zone and the US occupation.

We went out onto the 4th floor observation deck, but the ships don't run in the middle of the day. Basically, they go into the canal system in the morning (from both ends), transit the lake and center of the system, then exit the system in the evening.

Finally we went back to the coffeeshop where we were supposed to meet our pilot. We waited for an hour and he didn't show up. So we tried calling him, then went across to the FBO where the nice lady tried too. I guess that was a bust.

It was starting to sprinkle, so we figured we would head to Mamallena, then back to the hotel. The charming Aussie at the hostel was nice, told us some information about the upcoming boats, and said he'd be in touch. Since he didn't have much confidence in getting motorbikes on board, we went around the corner to Zuly's, a German-run hostel. We missed Richard, the guy who knew the goings-on, but his girlfriend sent us around the corner to find him. He had more information on the boats, and also promised to call us.

From there it was back to the hotel to cool off and dry out. I headed across to a local internet cafe that was only $1 for three hours, and it was air-conditioned. Better yet, they had a very fast connection. I enjoyed the connection for three hours, uploading most of our pictures from Mexico, then went to get a bite to eat and back to the hotel.

Amusingly, I had missed Tamara, who was trying to find me in that same time period. She caught up to me right near the hotel, where she said our HU friend Steven invited us to dinner that evening. We quickly cleaned up, got a taxi, and went to his 27th floor condo. It is 3000 square feet, half of the tower. It was a wonderful space with a great breeze, plus the views you'd expect from living on the waterfront and being 300 feet in the air.

We had a good evening with them, eating salmon with mango-pineapple chutney, rice, and asparagus. The salmon and asparagus are difficult to find in a place like this, and they were real treats.

We talked about real estate, Seattle (where they lived), bikes, travel, and our plans for crossing into Colombia. Steven recommended that we not take the sailboat route, but take Girag's cargo transport instead. I had looked into it earlier in the day, while reading HU and looking for transport options (so we don't have to wait a week or more for a boat).

Finally we headed back to our hotel for the evening, watching the thunder and lightning.

You know the drill by now..

Campeche: Architecture


Campeche: Fortifications and Museum


Campeche: Roadside Pics


Campeche: Other


Chichen Itza


Bike repairs (have you ever seen a countershaft sprocket that looked this bad? Good story too.)

Mexico: Central Mainland #3: Oaxaca

Oaxaca


Oaxaca to Villahermosa (interesting story, few photos)


Palenque: City and surroundings


Palenque: Ruins (our favorite Central/North American ruins)


Palenque: Misol-Ha Waterfall

* Tamara posting *

Today we wanted to keep it low-key and just have a down day. We found a hotel yesterday and moved over there this morning after dropping off our laundry on the way. We are happy because the room has A/C and a private bath with hot water (and not even a suicide heater) for just $4 more than the hostel.

While enjoying the A/C, we planned out the things we want to see in Panama City and the rest of Panama (Canal area) before leaving on a boat for Colombia. We need to do our sight-seeing in the mornings due to the rain in the afternoons/evenings. It is hot all the time here (only about 5 degrees difference between high & low temps) so it's not really a huge advantage temperature-wise.

We also spent some time planning our first little bit of South America - trying to identify the places we want to go - Colombia, Ecuador, and we'll probably skip Venezuela. Venezuela is out of our way and looks to be a pain to get through the border crossing. It's too bad because we were interested in going there partly due to the political situation.

5/20: Panama City (Tamara posting)

We got up early today and took a bus down to the old city center area, San Felipe. The buses here are individually owned and the routes aren't published. The bus will list a few places it is going, but they are just main streets or neighborhoods. So we just had to look for one that listed the right destinations and hope that it went near where we needed to be. We got lucky and the first one we picked took us very close so we could walk the rest of the way. These buses are very recognizable because they are old U.S. schoolbuses which are painted brightly and play loud salsa, marimbe, etc. The rides are cheap - only $0.25, and most have a hawker in addition to the driver (he yells out the destinations and tries to round up more passengers).

It was about 7am when we got there, and the place was fairly deserted. San Felipe and the neighboring areas are pretty rough - lots of trash, abandoned and run-down buildings, “professional” women (although I think one might have been a man). It also had some really nice restored buildings, old churches, and San Felipe proper has a lot of museums.

We walked around the area to see the old city buildings and found a few gems of restored buildings. The Golden Altar, built in 1671 and hidden from a major pirate attack by painting it or covering it with mud, is at the San José Church, so we stopped in to see it. Unfortunately they were holding a Mass at the time, so we didn't get any pictures.

We found a park on the water with a great view of the Panama Bay, the causeway connecting the mainland west of the canal to some islands in the bay, and some freighters lining up to enter the canal. It was also a good spot to see the modern downtown with all the big skyscrapers - they house a lot of banking businesses, as the banking laws in Panama allow for a bit of secrecy.

Finally, the Canal Museum opened and we got in free due to some special museum day. Also, after we had been there for a little while a group of kids, about 4-8 years old and all dressed up in costumes, came in. We assumed they were there on a field trip of some sort, but noticed that they split up and were each giving little speeches about the displays when the people would come around. It was really cute. We got offered one of these speeches by one girl, but had to explain that we didn't understand Spanish enough.

The last room we visited was manned by a little boy dressed up as a Toucan, who was very eager to practice his English on us. He showed us the “telephone with no numbers,” “music player” and “photos from the past” (early telephone, phonograph, and of course, old pictures). He either didn't understand my Spanish questions (age, what country is this person from, etc), or didn't know how to answer in English so didn't want to ruin it. I thought he was really cute, especially because his costume consisted of the toucan beak on top of his head. Deciphering the answer one girl gave to my trying to ask why they were dressed up, it had something to do with a tour of the flora & fauna, which explains why they were all costumes of flowers, butterflies, bees, trees, monkeys, etc. We weren't allowed to take pictures - we really wished we could have taken some of these kids.

The museum was interesting, with a lot of pictures and items from the pre-canal railway, the French attempt at building the canal and the American time in Panama. We were amazed by the detailed and beautifully-drawn maps of the area. There were also a lot of plans and research from long before the canal was started to see where would be a good place to build a canal. There were a lot of options - Panama, Nicaragua, Colombia, and even through part of Mexico. We hadn't realized there had been such interest for so long in that kind of project before the French started the canal.

Also, some of the original French plans show quite a bit of optimism. They planned to build a giant city in the middle of the isthmus, with the canal running through it. The canal would be at least 250 meters wide (the canal is currently around 110 feet at the narrowest).

We grabbed a taxi to take us to the anthropological museum because we wanted to go to the artisan market next door. We realized when we got there, however, that the museum had changed locations and we were taken to the “new” museum. Since it was free admission, we went in and took a look around. There wasn't much to see - some pottery, earrings, and stone work. Overall, it was not very interesting - partly because it was a very small museum, so we were glad we didn't have to pay to get in.

We took another taxi back to the 'old' museum and found the artisan market, albeit fairly boarded up for the day. We did wander around and found some interesting handicrafts. The specialty seems to be a lot of embroidery and stitchery crafts made by the local indigenous groups.

After the artisan market we headed for the air-conditioned comfort of the big, modern shopping mall. It was a busy place, but we got a lot of errands done - contact lens solution, shorts for Ted, shirt for me, etc. We did enjoy watching the kids on the carousel while we had ice cream, and there were a lot of cute kids in the mall in general.

Wow. We are actually at the end of the road, so to speak. More on that later.

We got up early again, setting the alarm around 6:30. That was slightly more painful because we “lost” an hour due to a time zone difference between Costa Rica and Panama yesterday. Still, we got dressed and on the road fairly efficiently. Leaving town was a little complicated, but still easier than getting into town.

We intended to ride directly to Panama, both because we weren't interested in anything in between and also because of the constant threat of afternoon rain. We stopped for gas and breakfast in Santiago. The locals were friendly and curious, though our limited Spanish was a big barrier.

Prices are in US dollars, and measurements are gallons, so it's the easiest math of the whole trip: Gas is about $3.30 per gallon. Diesel is significantly less. Breakfast was at a little bakery. We probably had cupcakes and cookies, not muffins and pastries, but who cares? Prices are very cheap- each pastry was about 5 cents.

The scenery was quite beautiful, probably because we had to go over two small mountain passes (maybe 3000 feet, then 1500 feet). The views are beautiful, and the farmland and jungle looks quite peaceful.

We were about 40 miles outside of Panama City when the rain began. That was unfortunate because it was still before noon- some days it doesn't start raining until 2 or 3 in the afternoon. We stopped and discussed strategy a couple of times, and eventually decided to just keep riding. It was too warm anyhow, and our weather protection is less than perfect- so we might as well just be wet, considering the short distance.

Right before Panama City is Balboa (city). They sprawl into each other, but the demarcation of “nothing” to Balboa is quite amazing- the bridge over the Canal. It is large and very tall- sort of like the big bridge in Longview, but on a much larger scale. As we were crossing the apex I was overwhelmed with the moment- I have taken this bike from the far north end of North America to the far south end of North America, in less than a year.

Looking down on the canal provoked a surge of satisfaction that I hadn't expected. I slowed down and asked Tamara what she thought- she was thinking nearly the same thing. We set off on this trip without a solid goal or destination, but crossing the Canal was a very triumphant moment for us.

We knew navigating Panama City would be difficult, and it was. The rain was steady, though not horrible, and the maze of streets were one-way- which our map hadn't indicated. While I knew approximately where our hostel was, the one-way streets and non-orthogonal streets got the best of me.

Traffic in the City is crazy. It reminds me a little bit of Planet of the Apes where technology exists and locals aren't quite sure what to do with it. Intersections look like the video of intersections in places like India- clusters of motos, cars, and pedestrians going through, seemingly at random. The transit buses (school buses painted very creatively) are banged up and charge through the heavy traffic with little regard for motos or cars. There is no such thing as lanes.

We stopped, Tamara hailed a cab, and then rode in it while I followed. We've used that tactic before. It works very well when there are two people on one bike, because the statement of a rider hopping into the cab works better than broken Spanish where we attempt to say “we will follow”. The taxi driver took us in a figure-8, then stopped at a large hotel to ask for directions. Keep in mind we were headed somewhere that was less than a mile away, and we had a map! It made me feel much better about my inability to find it.

While the taxi driver was getting directions, the bellboy at the hotel motioned for me to move so traffic could go by. Keep in mind it was very wet out, but we were underneath the covered entrance of this hotel. The paving was some sort of stone that looked a bit like travertine. It was dry, my tires were wet.

I gave the bike a little too much gas and suddenly I was supermotoing the bike. The rear tire went left, while the bike was going straight and leaned to the right. Thankfully I have great tires and was able to save it. I know I would have dropped it if Tamara was on the back- still not quite sure how I saved it with the weight of the luggage.

The rest of the taxi trip was uneventful. The taxi didn't know exactly where the hostel was, but at least we were on the correct street. We went up to Mamallenas, but they didn't have any private rooms, and their bunked rooms had 12 bunks! It looked like a barracks- I've never seen more than 6-8 in a room, and 4-6 is much more common.

The fellow in charge was quite nice, friendly, and helpful. I wish their private rooms were available, because it would obviously be a nice place to be. Instead, we went next door (literally) to the Voyager.

They had a private for a decent price, though no air conditioning. We took it for a night, not willing to find an alternative. They also don't have wifi, but at least I have an Ethernet cable (thanks for sending it Mom!) so I could patch into their router. Compared to the friendliness of Mamallenas or Kabata, this is a disappointment. The other hostelers are quite friendly and varied- I love talking to people from other countries.

The room is the width of a full bed, with about 10 inches on one side. At least we have a fan- I'm surprised they aren't common in all hostels. We set out our gear to dry, though we have been wearing our last pair of semi-damp clothes for a few days now.

We then set out to eat and scout out a suitable hotel for a few more nights. We certainly found variation- $25-75 among places that should have been on the lower to middle range of things. The $75 option would have been nice, it was an “aparthotel”, basically mini-apartments for rent. A little steep for what we wanted to spend, and the rate varied by the day of week too.

We'll stay at the $25 place, which is well-priced for what it offers. The room is relatively large and clean, has AC, TV and phone, plus a private bathroom- we haven't had that in a while. There's a laundry around the corner, so we'll finally be able to clean up and perhaps smell and look more presentable.

There's no internet access in the room, though. We'll survive.

The plan from here is to take a couple of rest/slack days, then see some of the sights in the City area. We'll try to see the locks from the ground and perhaps by going through them, and we'll also start figuring out how we want to get to Colombia. There are boats on the Pacific and Atlantic sides, mainly we need to find one and find a decent price for the pair of us and the bike.

That means we will probably be in Panama for a week or more, then on the sea (!) for 3-6 days, then in Colombia. Perhaps this isn't the best time to be reading News of a Kidnapping. Too late.

(why do I say 'end of the road'? The highway ends past Panama City, due to the Darien Gap. The only way to Colombia is via boat or plane)

We started our day early- well, at least on time. We were up before 7, on the road by 8 or so. I really enjoyed the time at Kabata, but it was definitely time to move on.

After a couple of quick maneuvers to get on the correct highway, we left San Jose. The highway runs through the valley for a while, then starts climbing into the mountains. It's a very steep, twisty climb, and I enjoyed it.

We were in mesh gear, knowing it was going to get warm as the day progressed, but at over 10,000 feet things get cold. We actually hovered on the line of being hypothermic- but we knew when the mountains would end, so it was okay.

There were quite a few construction zones- either our lane or the opposing lane would be closed, so there were flaggers and the inevitable lineups of cars. I would skip the queue and go to the front- with no noticeable objection from drivers. There was an Audi A4 in the lineup (very new, no plates) though- he was going quite fast- enough that I let him pass me and didn't have the nerve to keep up with him. Impressive.

The mountains ended, we dropped down to near sea level, and stopped for lunch. It was miserably hot, which was amusing in an ironic way. The food wasn't anything special, but it was a nice break.

From there it was on to the border, about 50 miles down the road. We were headed towards some very menacing clouds- I asked Tamara if we should stop, she said 'not yet'. So we went another few minutes. The clouds didn't look darker, but the rain was starting, so we put on some rain gear. I put on overpants and my jacket liner, but kept my mesh gloves. Tamara put on her jacket liner, and kept her mesh gloves and mesh pants.

The light rain quickly became heavy rain. The wiper on my gloves was completely useless. It's so humid and *wet* that my helmet started fogging. I had to quickly raise it, wipe the inside with my glove, then close it before getting completely drenched.. and that meant only the bottom half of my visor was fog-free. Still, it was enough.

After at least an hour in the rain, we got to the border crossing. Getting stamped out of Costa Rica was easy until the official saw that the bike's paperwork expired a week ago- oops. We had been traveling at a fast enough pace that it wasn't a problem. Our options appeared to be a $500 fine, or impounding the bike and possibly us too. Pretty soon another option came available- $200 to our helpful official and we'd be fine.

There aren't many choices in a situation like that. Perhaps we could have gone 150 miles back to San Jose and worked out an extension. $200 is very expensive, but we kept moving. I tend to agree with Jim Rogers' advice about border crossings- which is, above all else, to KEEP MOVING. Don't give them reasons to impound you or your bike. Don't give them reasons to inspect your luggage. Just move along.

I was delighted to see a couple dozen stickers on the Customs window. Three of them were quite recognizable to me- Horizons Unlimited, Adventure MotoStuff, and Edelweiss. Cool!

Coming in to Panama was easier. It cost about $15 total, with about $3 of that being for bribes. That makes Panama one of the cheapest border crossings to date. Our only difficulty was something we had in Belize- the title for the bike says “Ted Timmons”, while my passport says “Theodore Timmons”. I showed that Ted is on my credit cards, and that they are “mismo” (same), but she wouldn't accept it. Thankfully, the bike is titled in Tamara's name too, so that worked. We don't usually title things in both names. I'm glad we had done so on this bike.

While we were at the border (under a roof, thank the hammer of thor) the rain increased. I didn't think that was possible! By the time we left the clouds were just dumping water. There was no chance of it letting up, so we gingerly moved on our way.

The highway is obviously US-spec (or at least Mil-Spec). Costa Rica was a nice two-lane road, mostly striped, with the sides cleared back. Panama was four lanes, some distance in the median, with spiffy bridges and gutters and everything.

Still, with the amount of rain, we had to deal with hydroplaning on several occasions. The first took us by surprise- it was on a sloped bridge. It blew Tamara's feet off the passenger pegs, and the deceleration of that much water caused her to launch forwards a bit. We watched a little more carefully after that, but there was one more that blew my feet off the pegs.

Our destination city, David, was only 35 miles from the border, but it probably took us a solid hour, plus 15 minutes trying to find the hostel. The city is a simple grid, and streets are numbered sequentially, but there aren't any street signs! To further complicate things, we occasionally pulled out our guidebook, which had a map of the city. I would look at it quickly, make a guess on where we were at, then move on. After doing that a few times, I realized the map wasn't oriented “north up”. Once we discovered that it was relatively easy to find.

There's nothing special about David, except it's *here*. We are staying at the Purple House, which is indeed purple. Everything is purple- walls, cabinets, beds, toilet plunger, you name it. It's easy to find, at least. They have enough covered parking for the bike, which is quite nice considering the volume of rain- I'm writing this at 9, and it's still raining quite hard.

Tomorrow we'll move on, hopefully to Panama City. You can bet we'll leave early to beat the heat and the afternoon rain.

Not much of note happened on Tuesday (the 15th), except that our package of parts came! The package of parts from Eugene came! Our friends at Cycle Parts Eugene have treated us very kindly on this trip. The parts were small, but they will help us quit worrying about premature wear on the rear bearings.

I slept in quite late because I didn't go to bed until the sun was coming up. I've been having such a tough time sleeping.

We had a good time in the evening with the other guests of the hostel- especially Scott (from NYC) and Eva (from Germany).

The only other thing of note was Tamara did a bunch of research for school. In some ways it is kinda nice to be making “post-trip” plans, even if we don't have them nailed down.

5/16

Well, today was the second of our major Repair Days for the bike. I was somewhat dragging my feet, not wanting to do it, but I'm glad to have it all done.

First, Katia, one of the hostel owners, drove us across town (well, she drove, we followed one the bike) to a machine shop. She stayed and explained that we needed holes tapped. It's tough because it involves words that don't fit into our travel-oriented Spanish vocabulary. The older guy who was doing the work (and presumably owned the very nicely appointed machine shop) spent about 10 minutes on the bike, found a handful of 8mm bolts, and sent us on our way without letting us pay for it. I gave him a handshake and left with a very warm feeling. We've found that Ticos (Costa Ricans) are very nice, generous people.

Once we got back, we grabbed the two-part epoxy that we recently purchased, and then repaired the throttle lock, hole in the side case, and my shoes (the tread was coming off). It was quick stuff- I mixed one batch, and it was setting by the time I started working on my shoes.

Next we installed the parts that came yesterday. That meant dropping the wheel, replacing a spacer and a bearing seal, then putting it back together. It's so much easier with my trick lock nut and wrench- no pins, no crescent wrench, just like using a normal bolt.

I don't think we mentioned the tool tube repair from a few days ago. Dad (Fred) sent me a 4” ABS cap, pre-drilled with some light steel cable. I assembled the cable and installed the cap. Since we've lost three caps already this trip, I think the cable will keep us from losing yet another one. We weren't able to find an exact replacement anywhere in Central America, and the bodged caps that we used were fairly heavy, which made it easier for them to rattle off. We also drilled a small hole in the front of the tool tube to drain water. I need to make a rubber gasket/seal like Jim has done.

We also had kids and a cat hanging around while we were doing it. The owners' baby loved being lifted up onto the bike. I think the entertainment for her was being lifted- but she did like sitting on the seat. The cat, Gata (funny if you know spanish), likes us and is always hanging around. I lifted her up and into the topcase for the photo. She wasn't exactly thrilled, but was at least willing.

Our final big errand of the day was to get a box and mail a package of gunk home. It was right around $40, which we didn't think was very terrible. International postcard stamps are a bargain- about 27 cents.

We think this is our last night in San Jose. We've really enjoyed the hospitality of the Kabata Hostel, but it's time to move on towards Panama. Not sure if we'll make it to Panama City tomorrow or not- the border crossing is always an interesting variable- but in some ways it'll be nice to be on the road again.

Special note on the pictures: I hate it when someone posts pictures without at least some commentary on them. So, from top to bottom:

• Bike on our improvised centerstand/workstand. It's just one of the side cases.
• The owners' daughter.
• Rear wheel spacers: new and old. Note the wear and accumulated metal on the old one.
• Sidecase damage. This is the right case, the one that hit the huge boulder.
• Tool tube keeper. Small-gauge stainless steel wire.
• More damage to the right case. This is from the impact with the axle bolt. You can see a few tiny holes, which we covered with epoxy.
• Our feline friend, Gata.
  

* Tamara posting *

We went to the central market in downtown San Jose this morning. It wasn't anything too special, at least not compared to the good markets we've been spoiled with (Oaxaca, etc.). We did get some practical-type things, a backpack, DVD-DLs (hard to find), and a map of Ecuador. I noticed in the market there were backpacks with the classic JanSport label, but as "SamSport" - heh. There were plenty of both JanSport knock-offs using the regular name, but it was still funny to see an off-brand type.

We ate a late breakfast/early lunch at a small eatery in the market, but we ended up with food different than our expectations. I ordered a tostada, expecting the Mexican version of a fried tortilla covered with beans, cheese, lettuce, etc, instead I got toast. Ted ordered a torta, which we expected to be a thick bread sandwich, but ended up with basically a hamburger patty with toppings with a tortilla as the bun. Not terribly great food, and it just does something to my appetite when I get something other than what I expected to eat.

Back in the university area, San Pedro, where our hostel is, we ran more errands - getting epoxy to repair the small hole in one side case, pick up laundry, and get the luggage rack back from the welders. The rack looked great - they even painted it, all for under $10. While Ted was busy getting the rack, I got to answer a couple questions from a worker there practicing his English. He was wondering what the difference is between “seek” and “look” in terms of asking who we were looking for. I tried to explain, but it is a hard thing to really tell the difference. I told him that not many people use the word “seek” in normal conversation, but then he brought up a good point - the car radios all have “seek” for the channel finder. So, it was hard to explain that.

The rack bolted back onto the bike easier than when we put it on brand new. It is still bent from the crash, but should be sturdy again so we don't have to worry. The new problem is that 3 of the 4 bolt holes for the mounting bolts for the individual cases won't thread. We need to find someone with a tap & die set to reset the threads. That should be an interesting search.

As we were working on the bike, a guy walking down the street stopped to sell some baked goods. The owner of the hostel says he always buys from this guy - we got a couple treats, really good pastries with a cooked condensed milk filling, very yummy. It seems like a good side business if you have regular customers.

Calling all nerds! We stopped at a game shop in the local mall and got a Magic: TG beginner set. We played a couple games this evening - it's not my favorite, but it is something else to do in the evenings or if/when we get sick or bored.

So, we've been trying to avoid all chain restaurants, especially American ones, but we finally broke down and ate at Wendy's. There aren't a lot of great restaurants around here, just lots of pizza joints (university area), so we finally gave in. We figure that at least we know what we're getting. So I am happy because I got to have a Frosty! And a spicy chicken sandwich! And real American-style ketchup with my fries!

Short/random things today:

The resident cat's name is Gata - which means “cat” (feminine).

We saw Susan, a woman we met in Monteverde - she is staying here at the hostel for a night.

Started looking for a good place to volunteer in South America - probably for a month. I'm hoping to do something in a medical clinic, but that may not work out. If not, I will maybe do some work at an orphanage or with the street kids (any recommendations are appreciated!). I plan on taking more Spanish classes during that time as well.

Because of my ongoing sleep issues and depression, we didn't do much today. That's okay, because it was a rainy Sunday, so a lot of places are closed.

I have a zillion bug bites, and Tamara has quite a few too. We picked up more Benadryl, and we have some really good anti-itch cream. It doesn't help a lot when you have about 100 bites, head to toe.

In the evening the national football finals happened. For many hours all we could hear was honking, sirens, and cheering from fans of Saprissa.

* Tamara posting *

Today was set aside to run some errands and we are still taking it easy because Ted isn't feeling well due to his sleep issues. This morning's task was to take the luggage rack bracket off the bike and find a shop to weld some support plates on the back because it got cracked from the wreck. After some wandering trying to follow the directions from an employee here at the hostel, we were able to find a shop to work on it and it should be ready Monday afternoon.

After lunch and the typical afternoon rainstorm, I went out to try and get some prescriptions, more contact lenses, drop off laundry and get the cloth pannier mended - it got ripped from the crash. I was able to do most of these except all the prescription medicines, since in Costa Rica you actually need a prescription to get some medicines (Ambien).


The rain is definitely a daily thing now - the storm usually starts around 2:00, accompanied by thunder and sometimes visible lightning. It is not just a sprinkle, it really pours hard, for about 45 minutes or more. This will probably continue throughout the rest of Costa Rica, Panama, and Colombia. I'm not sure what the weather is expected to be like once we get to Ecuador and beyond.

For the rest of the day we just hung out. I watched some of American Idol subtitled in Spanish and broadcast at least 2 weeks after the American episode. I never watch it in the States, but it is interesting because I can try to match the English and Spanish words, plus the advertisements are always intriguing to try and see what they are selling.


Random cute stuff for the day:

We had the house cat sleep on our bed for a couple hours, just as content as could be. Of course, this was after it scared me by jumping on the neighboring roof and aloofly (but adeptly) slinking through the razor wire between roof sections. (Yes, we are in the city folks!)

There was a girl, 9, at the laundromat, whose mother got her to practice her English on me. I had her count for me. It was cute.

* Tamara posting *

It was a really lazy day today. Ted had a really hard time sleeping last night, which is starting to be an every night thing and is draining to him and very worrying to me. I am not sure if he is preoccupied thinking about the house, college plans, trip stuff, or what. He didn't actually come to bed until it was getting light. We need to be better about getting on a consistent schedule, but that is hard to do on a very unplanned trip.

So, we just hung out around the hostel and ran some errands. We stopped by an Office Max to try and get DVD-DLs, packing tape, a box to send stuff back in, and maybe a USB-powered mini-fan. We were only able to find the packing tape. Just as were were starting to check out a hard rainstorm came through, just pounding down. We waiting for 15 minutes or so, trying to wait it out, but with no luck. Finally we gave up and jogged a few blocks down to the local mall to dry out.

My big adventure here is to try and find a new bra. Mine has very rapidly and literally started to disintegrate. The first stores we tried had only size Bs or smaller - which surprised me because not all the women are small or average-chested, there are definitely some busty women out here. I ended up finding a high-end import store, which was like striking gold. I went ahead and bought a couple because I really like them and didn't want to try and find them anywhere else on our trip. They were relatively expensive, compared to the U.S., but not so bad that they were exorbitant.

One of them is a brand that I already have and like, and aren't even available in the US, and the other is also from Europe, so they are definitely not an easy find. It feels good to know that I don't have to worry about that anymore. One strange thing about it was that at the place I ended up buying the bras, the salesperson who helped me was a man. I don't necessarily have a problem with it, but it just seemed strange. He was very helpful though, and spoke English, which was actually very convenient as I don't know many words in Spanish that relate to bra shopping.

We saw a lot of cute clothes at the mall, but of course had to pass - I would much rather have necessities in that space, or gifts, etc to take back than the clothes :)

We had plans to go with Samuel and Aletea to the volcano very early, but I didn't sleep well and it was cloudy anyhow. Instead, we slept in until about 10, then started packing to leave town. We needed to do some errands first- mainly to fax back a counteroffer to buy our house. 16 pages, $1 USD per page. Ouch! Oh well, I guess $16 isn't bad for what the house might sell for.

Afterwards, we chatted with Samuel and Aletea a bit, comparing notes. I needed to give them information about Mexico and bike shops in Cancun, plus point out some things on Samuel's bike that he was worried about (stumbling on acceleration). He was glad, we said our goodbyes, then got on the road.

The road was fine at first, we were trying to take a slightly different route, so it took some consultations of the map. The GPS maps that I have list too many towns- it might list 100 different “San Jose” cities within 30 miles of a given location- and they aren't clustered together. So it can be a little hard to have confidence in the route.

In any case, we got past the flat stuff and up into the mountains. We went up about 5000 feet, on another super-twisty road. It started to get foggy and rain- and it kept getting worse. Pretty soon we could see about 30 yards in front of the bike, no further.

Then it got worse. We started to see a lineup of cars, completely stopped. I waited a bit, then started passing the cars and trucks. Some honked, but since there was no visibility they didn't see us coming. Occasionally we'd see a vehicle or two coming our way, so we'd have to duck in to the tiny gaps between vehicles.

Eventually, about 2 miles on, we came to a major block in the traffic. We studied the situation for a while, listened to a jabbering of Spanish (didn't really understand it), then figured out there was a mudslide across the road that was very recently cleared. Clumps of traffic, about 5 at a time, were now coming through. The road was very slippery from the clay that was everywhere- I was surprised that I kept the bike upright.

Finally we got our chance to go. No other vehicles were going our way, but we squeezed through. It was still pouring rain and foggy, so it was pretty miserable. There was another 2 miles of traffic coming towards us, occasionally one would be turning around in frustration.

Once we started getting off the top of the mountain, it cleared. We probably spent two hours in the fog and rain, and traveled maybe 50 miles. From there it was a fairly quick trip to San Jose, where we got a cab and went to our hostel. We've been looking forward to this hostel because they had a care package waiting for us with tools and books.

We'll stay here for at least a few days. Maybe longer, because it is almost the weekend. We need to weld up the rack on the bike, replace some parts, and run other errands.

* Tamara posting *

We had a relaxing day today, just mostly hanging out in town trying to let our sore muscles mend themselves. We got an offer on our house (finally!) so we have needed to stay close to an internet cafe to work things out with our real estate agent. Hopefully this is a good sign.

At the internet cafe we met two fellow traveling motorcyclists, Samuel and Aletea. Aletea has been on the road for about 17 months and Samuel for 5. They met in Peru and have been traveling together since. Samuel is from Germany, and Aletea's parents now live in Germany but she is from Brazil. Aletea is traveling with her big dog, she has a special wood carrier on the back of her bike to put him in - it looks very difficult to me, but she says she has no problem riding with him on the back. They are both riding Suzuki DR650s and hadn't seen a V-Strom before, but loved it.

We met later in the evening to ride up to a lookout point for the volcano, where you can (hopefully) see the lava flowing down the side. It is best at night because it is easier to see the red lava. It was fun to be with fellow motorcyclists and talk about where we have been and where we are planning to go. There were a lot of clouds over the volcano, but we were able to see some lava, which was really neat.

Afterwards we had dinner with them and looked at maps, etc. We have really enjoyed talking with them and sharing experiences.

I figured people would want to see a little bit of our crash. No pictures of the mangled box (yet). It's pretty obvious, and a little disappointing, to see how the rack welds failed.

Today was a transit day from Santa Elena to La Fortuna, which is in the shadow of Volcan Arenal. It's only about 16 miles away, but about 100 miles by (mostly) tame roads. Our hotel owner told us how to get there via gravel, but we elected to take the safer route.

First, we needed to pack and have some breakfast. The adorable little puppy from the restaurant next door wandered over, so Tamara spent some time playing with it. It's a little white fluffball, with a black patch over its eye. We think its name might be Macha. Not surprisingly, it is really cute and sweet, and was a little rowdier today than the last time we played with it. Tamara really wanted to bring it in our tankbag.

On to the transit section. We needed to come down off the mountain via a gravel road. It's pretty rough, due to the number of buses and tourist vans that go up and down it. I had to be careful picking my line, trying to find a smooth section, avoid the occasional oncoming vehicle, and such. Well, apparently I wasn't careful enough- I was on the outside during a left-hand turn, and couldn't turn hard enough to avoid a huge boulder on the edge of the road. The right case clipped it, which caused the bike to shift left, then we ended up in a little highside, falling to the right.

I came completely clear of the bike- landing about 8 feet away. I hit pretty hard on my right hip. I was okay, but stunned from the pain, so I yelled to see if Tamara was okay (I couldn't move, so I couldn't see her). She was- she would have been thrown clear, but her left boot caught on the bike. At least she wasn't trapped under the bike or anything.

We struggled, but managed to right the bike. Bike damage: case is mashed up from the hit and then the bike landing on it. Also it dug into the rear axle bolt, making an impressive little scar under the case with a small hole into the case. The Happy Trails racks are cracked in two places- not an immediate showstopper, but we'll have to get it repaired soon. The right-side Acerbis handguard squished in a little, trapping the front brake, but that was easily fixed. There's also a new scratch on the right cowling panel. Not bad, considering.

Tamara damage: bruise on left calf near boot line, scrape on elbow (jacket held up, but she got a little scrape).

Ted damage: hit hip very hard, might bruise. Temporarily stunned and unable to move.

The somewhat amusing thing is that we were both already sore from recent activities: the zipline and related adventures meant our stomach muscles are sore, riding the horses caused our butts and such to be sore, etc. So this is just another thing for the collection.

The bike was fine, so we continued on our way. The Pan-Am Highway section was busy- because it climbed up and over a ridge, there were plenty of trucks and buses going about 5mph, with a nice long line of cars behind them. I was able to dispatch most of them quite easily.

After turning off towards La Fortuna, there's a little ridge (about 3500 feet) that we needed to cross. The road was really fun, I scraped the boxes a little and generally enjoyed the curves. It was cool to look around and see the coffee plantations.

Tamara slept quite well last night- I didn't- I was listening to the disco in town and the dirt bikes that tear through town (not complaining). We are on a one-way downhill road, but they still go WFO for the fun of it. I like this area because the traffic is predominantly bikes, not cars. Tourists arrive on a bus a couple times per day, and there are tourist vans to get to the attractions- otherwise it is almost all bikes. Pretty cool.

We FINALLY got money. It may not seem like a big deal, but we were down to about $20, having used up all of our reserves and stashed money. The ATM in town is problematic- it'll take your card, you type in the amount of colones you want, and then it rejects the transaction. No error message. It's probably due to the card type- we tried three different cards, no luck. I know it is a major problem for everyone, because you can hear people talking about it everywhere.

The other nearby choice for money is about a half mile up the road, another bank branch. It is closed for a week. So we hopped on the bike to try finding an alternative. No luck at the one gas station, no luck at another bank branch we found. By chance we happened to see a sign for BCR down a long dirt road- it turned out to be the national bank branch, and it gave colones and dollars. Yay! So we stocked up on both forms of currency, getting a nice pile of each. After the second transaction the ATM displayed a message that it didn't have communication with the home office- I wonder if we would end up being the last people to use it until the weekend is over or what. In any case, it was a relief to have enough money to eat and sleep.

More on colones- they remind me of the lira in former days. The rate is about 500 colones per dollar. It takes a lot of brainpower to translate prices. I mean, we were trying to get 800,000 colones from the ATM. That means pressing the zero key 7 times! Then you have to do the math in your head, which isn't nearly as straightforward as the peso (about 10 to 1) or the Belizian dollar (2 to 1). On the bright side, it's really easy to tell if prices are quoted in colones or dollars.

We slept in a bit this morning, the first time in a few weeks. We then went to one of the local butterfly gardens (wait till you see the pictures!). They have lots of the famous blue morpho- which are difficult to photograph, because they hardly ever stop moving- and when they do, they close their wings, hiding the fantastic colors. They would occasionally land on our shoulder or head, which was fun. Their wings are about the size of your palm, so they were large enough you could feel their weight when they landed. The gardens were beautiful, with a nice variety of butterflies to look at. The gardens also had a classroom with other arthropods (spiders, roaches, beetles, millipedes, etc). That was interesting and gross, as you might image.

From there, we went over to the frog ponds and got a tour of the poisonous frogs, tree frogs, and toads. We learned about toad-licking, since their poison is hallucinogenic- heh. The frogs hide during the day, so I took very few pictures. They advise coming back at night, since frogs are primarily nocturnal.

We did so- and it was worthwhile. During the day it was very difficult to find the frogs. At night you could find them much more easily. They weren't as active as I imagined- they were just present. I hoped to see them eating things and such. Instead, they would move about occasionally, but mainly perch on a leaf or limb, hide under something, etc. There was a fairly large contingent of mating frogs, though.

In the evening we could see lots of lightning but it didn't rain. I assume it was raining at an elevation below us.

* Tamara posting *

Another late morning today, and Ted has been having trouble sleeping. Once we finally got up, we booked a three-hour horseback riding tour through the hotel.

After breakfast, we were met by our guide, who spoke only a little English. No matter, we were able to communicate with him just fine. We walked to the other side of town and met our horses, Princesa for Ted and Paloma for me. The horses were well-behaved and we rode past a lot of small farms/ranches (fincas) and a coffee farm. We stopped at the finca where the guide lived and took care of the animals to hike down to see some small waterfalls. We saw a lot of leaf-cutter ants and guava trees, and two separate little waterfalls that were really cute.

The leaf-cutter ants are very interesting - they have trails that are extremely long and clear their trail of any debris, so they are very well-defined. Ted put a couple leaves in the path as an experiment, and when we came back the ants were all jumbled up trying to get past the leaves. The ants don't eat the leaves, they actually cut them and take them to the nest, where a different kind of worker ant chews them up and deposits them in the food pile where a certain kind of fungus grows on them, and the ants eat the fungus.

Also at the finca were a bunch of animals - a goose, duck, some rabbits, hamsters with babies, cornish hens, and a white-faced monkey. The monkey, Tomás, made me sad because he was all caged alone and we were told that other monkeys would come in the night and try and get him out. He didn't have much in his cage to do, and I think something like a monkey would really need companionship. We did get to watch him eat two hen eggs though - he would crack the shell with his teeth, then pour the insides into his mouth.

From there we rode up to the top of a hill overlooking the Nicoya Gulf, with spectacular views all around. We could hear thunder from clouds in the distance, where it was raining. The hill made us think of The Sound of Music :) After that it was just a return trip back to town. We are both sore from the riding, but we had a good time.

We took it easy this afternoon, dropping off our laundry, reading, napping. We took a short trip to the local women's artist co-op and got some beautiful butterfly displays. There were some interesting mixed-media pieces of art done with natural materials to make landscapes or still-life art. Also the store had a lot of beautiful wood carvings, boxes, etc.

* Tamara posting *

(this is a repost with additional sections that were accidentally omitted)

We signed up for the first canopy tour in the morning, so needed to be up for our transportation at 7:30. At the appointed time we went out to wait in the little hotel parking lot, and got a strange look from the manager. He showed us that it was only 6:30, so we went back to sleep. We have been having a hard time knowing the right time because some countries follow daylight-savings and some don't. Usually it doesn't make a difference since we rarely have specific times for anything, but we were glad we didn't miss the bus by an hour the other way.

It was actually nice to have the extra time to sleep, since we had been woken up in the night by a car parked in the hotel lot (just outside our window) blaring some loud, old, American music. We waited a bit in the night, trying to figure out what was going on - it appeared they were making out. So, Ted & I got dressed and Ted went out and pounded on their windshield. We were both worried about what kind of response we would get, but they immediately turned down their music, and a few minutes later retired to a room down the hall. In the morning, we saw the guy getting some stuff from the car - and he was an older guy in his 50s, very odd.

For the canopy tour, we were happy to end up in the same group as Joanna, the gal from Finland we met last night, as well as with her sister and the sister's boyfriend. It was a nice small group, with a tour guide in English. This was a group of suspended bridges and lots of hiking through the forest, with the guide pointing out the different plants and animals. It was really nice to have a guide, and we saw a lot of birds - even a resplendent Quetzal, which is very rare. At the last bridge, we got to climb up to it through the inside of a Ficus tree. These trees grow on the outside of a host tree until they eventually take over its canopy and kill it. Once the dead host tree inside decays, the Ficus tree is basically a giant tube. There were a lot of foot and hand holds since the tree is very viney.

We had a little under an hour wait between the suspended bridges walk and our more adventurous section - zip-lines, rope bridges, etc. We had a small lunch at their cafeteria, entertaining ourselves with the two fur-ball kittens roaming around. They were fairly shy, and didn't want to be petted. They would run under the deck to get away from us, which was really cute. We also saw a cool little black gecko out on the street.

It was finally time to get harnessed up (by cute Ticos even!) and then we were put in part of a group with other English-speaking tourists. The other three people in our group were all female, and scared of heights - one of them had a really tough time with the whole thing and left as soon as there was a spot to go back to the office. On some of the scarier zip-lines, some people got rides with the workers - that way they didn't have to worry about staying facing forward or braking with their hand. Ted and I both did all of the zip-lines alone, though we each got stuck and had to be 'rescued'. That was on a particularly long line and a whole group of people got stranded - most likely because of the wind. That gave the workers a lot of exercise, needing to come out and pull us back to the platform. The zip-lines were fun, our favorites were the ones that went over the canopy of the forest. Some were up to 300 feet over the ground with a correspondingly amazing view.

I was amazed at how secure I felt. The zip-lines didn't bother me, and neither did the few rope bridges. A few of the higher lines over a valley of trees made me think about the fact that I was just suspended by a cable, with nothing else to protect me, but I just tried to enjoy the view - which worked with no problem.

The rope bridges were pretty fun - they have you roped in to a cable above, so there isn't any real danger of falling. On the first one, Ted was trying to swing the bridge and make it move as I was walking across - it didn't bother me at all. The others in our group said they would have killed him if he had done that to them. I guess maybe I'm getting over my fear of heights or just becoming more trusting in safety devices - not sure, but it was actually fun, not scary.

But there was one scary part - the Tarzan swing. The platform is up a few flights of stairs, then you get attached to a big rope and then step off the edge and do a free fall to the bottom of the rope, then a giant swing through the trees a few time before they catch you at the bottom. The swinging part was really awesome, but the free fall off the platform to the bottom of the arc of the rope was absolutely terrifying. I screamed really loud, but Ted managed to hold his fear in. I am really proud of myself for doing this, because it was really scary from the platform getting ready to go, but just did it. Even though the first step off is amazingly scary, I would do it again :)

We saw some lightning bugs for the first time - they are really cool. I can imagine before electricity being sure they were magical, they are just that bizarre and fascinating. It was neat because we got to see one really close up.