Journey To The Centre Of The Earth

Days 103-105

We decided to spend an extra day in Cartegena on account of it being so lovely! This allowed us to bump into Thom et Flo again – a French couple travelling (honeymooning, in fact) on the Adventure (slightly bigger) version of Ric's bike. We first met them while cruising the San Blas Islands on our way from Panama, when they saw the bikes on our boat and swam over for a better look and a chat. We'd already hooked up with them once in Cartegena but the chance meeting at the city fort allowed us to further discuss our plans with them. They suggested we might ride together for a bit, but weren't leaving Cartegena for another day so we decided to go on ahead, reckoning we'd bump into them further down the road.

So on we went to Medellin, the second biggest city in Columbia after the capital Bogata. The ride there took in some fantastic mountain scenery and we managed to find a cheap trucker stop with beautiful views to break for the night as it became clear we weren't going to make it in one day before dark. Medellin itself grew on us. It was a bad start as within 10 minutes of entering the crazy traffic-strewn city Emily's bike was hit... she felt the back of the bike jerk sideways throwing her off balance, and briefly thought she might find herself skidding flat onto the road in front of the oncoming trucks, 4WDs and endless mopeds, but luckily managed to get a good solid foot down on the ground and just hold the bike up. “Someone just hit me!” she called down the radio (indignantly) so Ric shook his fist and shouted at the car behind a bit, who we discovered on further inspection of the damage to the bike and panniers probably had nothing to do with the incident. Actually the damage was minimal – the main casualty was the Costa Rica butterfly sticker (a favourite!) which got scratched up a bit as (we think) one of the many mopeds glanced off it. So a bit of a drama over not much but a shock nonetheless, and our first collision of the trip.

Even upright on the bikes we still had no idea where we were going, and ended up looking for the BMW shop (our first destination that day, to sort out new tyres) in an obviously residential neighbourhood due to a lack of directions and Medellin's crazy street numbering system. Thankfully the Colombian people our a very helpful bunch, though. We asked a guy parking up his motorbike if he knew where the garage might be, and he took Ric round the corner to a small scooter workshop. Ric tried to protest “Ah no, we need the BMW garage” but the owner of the garage was more than happy to help – he shut up shop and led us on the fastest scooter we've ever seen, high speed pursuit style, to the other end of town where the BMW shop was! Our hero then totally refused to accept even a little beer money for his trouble and left with just a beaming smile. After that Medellin riding adventure we were a little relieved to leave our bikes at the shop overnight and get a taxi to our hostel.

The centre of Medellin also turned out to be quite nice, once we found the main hub where a pedestrian area hosts a number of quirky Botero scultpures and we had a wander round an art gallery with a number of his works and various other pieces donated from his private collection. On the way back to the hostel we discovered a bar doing 3 for 1 cocktails so the day turned out pretty well in the end!

Days 106-107

The guys at the BMW shop were incredibly helpful and as well as new tyres, we came away with some great tips on the next few days riding and some must-see places in Ecuador and Peru (they also run biking tours round South America, so really knew their stuff). From Medellin we decided to head to Solento, in the coffee growing region of Colombia, for the next two nights. Here we learnt about coffee growing of course, and went on a hike in the cloud forests of the Cocora Valley to see Columbia's national tree, the wax palm. Unfortunately the cloud forest lived up to its name again, and just as we reached the top of our hike where we were promised spectacular views of the valley we were engulfed in thick cloud and couldn't see a thing!

Days 108-111

From Solento we were heading pretty much South to Ecuador, stopping in the pretty (and conveniently located for our root) colonial town of Popoyan. We rounded the corner of our chosen hostel and who should we see outside – but Thom et Flo! This was quite a surprise as we thought they wouldn't catch us up until Quito – it was also a surprise for them, as they were at that moment telling some bikers they'd just met (Daniel and Jackie) about us! So for the last few days we've been a happy gang... three BMWs and Daniel and Jackie on their Harley (the fact that they are English and rather lovely makes up for their choice of bike).We quickly found the right pace for everyone and have enjoyed the change to group riding – more stopping, more banter and more action photos!

Our last night in Colombia was at the very impressive Santuario De Las Lajas, where there is a cathedral spanning a dramatic gorge, built on the site of a vision of the Virgin Mary in the cliffs. From here we crossed into Ecuador which was a rather tedious process thanks to a very unhelpful and slightly crazy customs officer, and made it to Otavalo before dark, fitting in a visit to the elaborate but peaceful cemetery in Tulcan on the way. Otavalo has the most fantastic crafts market, with loads of local goods and friendly, non-hassley indigenous vendors in their traditional attire.

The scenery in the last few days has been so impressive in both Colombia and Ecuador, but what has been most different since crossing the border is the indigenous people – they are tiny. We mean tiny. But riding through small settlements around Otavalo (on the way to and from the fantastic local bird rescue park where we saw condors up close!), we found everyone to be as welcoming and friendly as anywhere we've been.

Day 112

Today, we passed a very exciting landmark on our way to Quito: the “middle of the world”! Finally the water will go down the plughole clockwise (or is it anticlockwise – the other way to how it did anyway). Oh, and here we apparently weigh less than back home due to the centripetal force of the earth's rotation, so pass the scales please (and the nachos!).

Plain Sailing Round The Darien

Days 96-100

Who knew that getting motorbikes on a 47 foot sailing boat could be so much fun? Not Ric judging by the look on his face as we wheeled the bikes onto a small launch (yes, both of them in one tiny boat), took them across the marina and then winched them one by precarious one up onto the yacht. We managed to make the bikes very secure, strapping them down to compress the suspension so they held themselves firmly onto the deck, so at least we didn't need to worry about them much on the journey.

The voyage itself was as good as promised! We visited a number of the San Blas islands, part of an autonomous region of Panama, owned and governed by their biggest indigenous group, the Cuna. The islands are all pretty much on the same lines: white sand, palm trees, wooden houses and bright blue sea, but some entirely covered in housing while others just had a couple of families living there. Our captain is friends with a few families who made us feel very welcome in their villages and homes.

Unlike most people who make this crossing, we also broke the journey by landing in the Colombian towns of Sapzurro and Capurgana on the way. These are right next to each other on the edge of the infamous Darien jungle, in a remote area right on the border of Panama, not reachable by road (and where the captain and the owner of the boat are setting up a new hostel and turtle sanctuary).

Time on the boat was also good fun, though – as well as watching multiple movies on the big flat screen (yes this boat was nice!) we did quite a bit of fishing and ate some of the catch. The final scores weren't so good though: we lost 7 -3. Seven fish caught the lure but got away whilst being reeled in, including a small shark when it was just feet away from the boat. We managed to catch three: a red snapper (much bigger than the ones we're used to – it was big enough to feed 6 with plenty left over); a wahoo (fastest fish in the ocean apparently); and a tuna (which came on board with a cleaner fish attached, but we didn't think that would taste quite as good in the sushi!).

We were ready to get off the boat by the time we got to Cartegena after 4 days at sea, thanking our lucky stars that we'd managed to avoid sea sickness up to that point, and enjoyed a bit of Saturday night fun on the town.

Days 101-102

Cartegena is one of the nicest cities we've ever been to. The old town is all restored and full of beautiful buildings and plazas, but it's not just a tourist destination, it's an active working town. Our captain was kind enough to introduce us to a few people here, including a lovely oldish gentleman who owns a fantastic bar clad with bits salvaged from shipwrecks (who exclaimed with a sparkle in his eye “when I grow up I hope to be like you”), and a man who used to run motorbike tours in Colombia and took the time to give us some great tips on the interesting places to see and the best routes to take.

Colombia is also emerald central, and although this isn't the biggest emerald selling city it's got it's fair share of jewellery stores. And so it was that here, at last, Ric bought Emily an engagement ring!

To The End Of The Road (Part 1)

Days 85-88

A few months ago we arranged to meet Emily's sister Alice and her boyfriend Mark in Panama, so we were on a tighter schedule than usual travelling through Central America to make sure we got there in time. Our timetable allowed us just one full day to spend somewhere along our route in beautiful and bountiful Costa Rica, and we chose a place up in the cloud forest: Monteverde. We arrived after a long day's ride from Nicaragua, culminating in a winding mountain road that, 20km from our destination, turned into a horrendous off-road track. It's not called cloud forest for nothing, and as the drizzle and rain came in and the realisation hit that we had another hour of driving on slippery and rocky surfaces rather than our supposed quarter of an hour on tarmac, we wondered if this had been the right choice! But it was. We had a fun packed day, starting with zipping through the forest on a “canopy tour”. As well as various standard zip lines there was a big Tarzan swing (on which we both screamed like girls) and a grand finale of a 1km long zip line which you could travel on Superman stylee. In the afternoon we learned about insects and butterflies, for which Costa Rica is famous, at the local butterfly farm. And in the evening we went on a guided night walk, spotting insects we'd just learned about in their natural habitats, but more importantly tracking two-toed sloths and other rarities! As we followed our guide through the forest, torches pointing in trees, another tracker put the call through on the radio – he'd seen one! We ran to find him and to see our first sloth, just briefly (he was moving a lot faster than typical sloth-speed). As it turned out, that was just the beginning, though: before the night was through we saw a total of six sloths (including one baby), a very rare endangered kinkywatsit, a porcupine (also in the tree tops!), and a rather large red kneed tarantula which was a little scary. The only thing that attacked us, though, was a legion of army ants; thankfully we realised in time and got them all off because if 1,000 of them bite you at once it's apparently pretty painful...

The way we came into Monteverde was unfortunately also the quickest way out, so soon after day broke we started back off down the dirt. Our route took us through the capital, so Ric was delighted to be able to ask the ubiquitous question “Do you know the way to San Jose?”. It was Sunday and we saw plenty of bike clubs out for Sunday rides – some groups of BMWs that gave us enthusiastic waves, and many roaring gatherings of Harleys, presumably imported by some of the numerous American ex-pats in Costa Rica.

We had unusually been given some pessimistic travel time estimations, and we reached the Carribean coast a few hours earlier than expected, so we decided to push on into Panama a day earlier than we'd planned. That border was really cool, though – not a description that usually applies to borders! The paperwork was really straightforward (and fairly cheap), but the most unique thing is that the border crossing is an old railway bridge with planks of wood laid across to span the gaps underneath (which also makes for some very tricky riding). We made it across unscathed, though, and fortunately only learnt about the horror stories of bike falls and hospitalisation once we were safe on the other side! That night disaster struck, however. We brought one series of TV programs with us on the trip and we were down to the last episode. The town where we were staying was pretty unremarkable (except for a four hour long parade of drums, bugels and dancers led by one hundred or so school kids) so we got some take-out, went back to our room and excitedly fired up the laptop... which promptly stopped working. Actually it appeared to be deteriorating before our very eyes, and when a third attempt to start it in any mode at all resulted in random symbols across the screen we ate our take-out in saddened silence. This is also our latest excuse for not writing a blog post sooner, in case you're wondering!

One more day riding from the beautiful Caribbean coast, into the jungley Panamanian interior, over the continental divide again and out to the Pacific Coast, and we arrived in Santa Catalina in good time to find the best value beach house going and meet Alice and Mark off the bus!


Days 89-93


Santa Catalina is mainly a surfing destination but was so quiet when we were there that we didn't see much of that. We had come there primarily to do some diving in the largely untouched waters of nearby Coiba Island (as well as some good old-fashioned chilling out). There's a prison on the island which means both the land and surrounding waters have been left almost entirely untouched by humans until relatively recently, giving them a Galapagos-like attraction. We had a lovely day for our trip over there and we were lucky enough to see a hump back whale on the way and a huge manta ray whilst diving, among loads of other fish and reef sharks!

From Santa Catalina we headed to Panama City, stopping for the night in El Valle, another cloud forest destination, for a bit of cooler weather, and so that Alice and Mark could do a canopy tour while we went on ahead and got the bikes and the laptop dropped off for servicing. It turns out that you can quickly get your bike serviced in Panama City for a fraction of the cost in the states, you can get your computer fixed by very competent engineers for next-to-nothing, but you can't get any motorcycle tyres for love nor money.

Panama City is quite incredible. The modern business district is full of sky scrapers, and the semi-restored old-town is both impressive in its grandeur and charming in its decay. We said a sad farewell to Ali and Mark the night before they left, with a good bottle (or two) of wine and a delicious fish supper. We were so pleased they decided to share their holiday with us – it's lovely to see a friendly face and to share our journey with people (if anyone fancies a trip to South America in the near future, let us know!).


Days 94-95

Now to plan our escape from Panama and into South America! For those that don't know, there's no road from Panama to Colombia – just a swampy and jungley void known as the Darien Gap, populated primarily by guerillas and drug runners. Crossing it by land is impossible by car, exceedingly difficult by motorcycle, and supremely dangerous by any means. So the options to us are either flying over it or taking a boat round it. We'd talked to some people and learned that taking a plane was about the same price as a boat but quicker and a lot easier, as taking a boat involves going to one of the ports and finding someone who'd have you on board (difficult with very little Spanish) whereas there are proper agents to deal with air freight. So we decided to fly, found a relatively cheap shipper, but couldn't find out when the planes were scheduled until Monday morning.


With little else to do but wait, we spent Sunday doing a bit more sightseeing, including the Miraflores locks on the Panama Canal - quite a sight once you manage to find the place! As we were parking up back at the hostel, an American guy approached to have a chat about the bikes. It turned out that this guy was none other than “Captain Jack”, was setting sail to Colombia on Tuesday and invited us and the bikes on board! For the same price as air freighting our bikes (not including our own airfare) we're now travelling full board to Colombia on what sounds like quite a nice boat! It will probably be a four day journey and apparently we'll enjoy every minute... except if we're sea-sick, which Emily most likely will be... We'll land in Cartagena, one of Colombia's loveliest cities and ride South from there.

“But do you have time to spend all these extra days on the boat and travelling through Colombia?” we hear you cry. Probably not, but it sounds like an adventure, doesn't it?!

Bordering On Boredom

Days 82-84

We've been border hopping for the last few days, although that makes it sound like a quick and fun process which it certainly is not! We had managed up to Guatemala without needing a 'fixer' – basically someone to help you through the process when it's far too complicated to understand yourself. At the border to El Salvador we tried again to go it alone but someone forced his help upon us and actually turned out to be reasonably useful, but we then had an awkward moment at the end where we had no idea how much of a tip to give him. We decided at that point that we should agree a price with a fixer before starting on the (known to be difficult) Honduras border.

We'd been warned that El Salvador was really crowded, with a lot of poverty (it's about the same size as Belize but with 20 times the population!). We didn't really notice this, maybe because we didn't stop in any big cities (except while getting lost in the capital, San Salvador), and the scenery was similarly beautiful to Guatemala. However our one night in El Salvador wasn't one to remember, but this was more misfortune than anything. We were later than expected and it was getting dark and raining, so we stopped at a motel on the outskirts of the town we were aiming for. It wasn't until we'd paid and got into the room that we saw the red-lit mirror above the bed and realised what sort of motel this was... thankfully the décor was the only indication we had though!

We started bright and early the next day, as we needed to get through Honduras (a bid dodgy right now) and into Nicaragua before dark (around 6pm these days). We knew the border into Honduras would be difficult and lengthy, having heard stories of four hours or more waiting for documents to be processed. Indeed, this border was exceedingly hectic and impossible to navigate alone – spread out over many miles and with no official people at all to tell you where you needed to go. The fixer got us to the front of a few queues which was essential for our schedule, but then we started to need money, and more money – whilst the few previous borders had been practically free, everything here cost money! We started to get suspicious as the costs mounted up but there was nothing to do but to follow our fixer round paying whoever he told us to pay. One of the last costs (apart from a few straight-out bribes) was for 'fumigation and sending details electronically'. There was no fumigation station anywhere to be seen yet this was apparently another essential payment to make. The fixer is 'in' with so many people – officials and non – and the processes so confusing that we had no choice but to do as he said if we ever wanted to get out of there. Finally on the other side, within 50 metres, we were stopped by police who started asking about fumigation – they wanted to fine us $10 each. However Ric replied “We have had our bikes fumigated, here is the receipt” (yes, we made sure we had receipts!). They looked a bit surprised (remember there is no fumigation station) but had to concede. It was a small win for us – at least we didn't have to pay for fictitious fumigation twice – but it did very little to lighten our mood or change our opinion of Honduras. The next few police checks happened in quick succession. A few looked like they might want money but we “no comprendo” 'd sweetly enough to get away with it. We made one stop in Honduras, at a bank to get some more cash out since we'd been relieved of so much of it at the border, and then got out of there as fast as possible!

The next border, into Nicaragua, was comparative serenity. It took quite a long time, especially as they called a meeting and all stopped working just as Ric got to the customs window, but there were helpful and patient officials who made sure that we did everything in an orderly, bribe-free and con-free manner. Instantly we liked Nicaragua.

We didn't make it as far into the country as we'd originally hoped, so have had to spend an extra day here. That's no real burden, though – we've been driving on really good topes-free roads through beautiful countryside, the people are all polite and courteous (one exception noted below). We're currently at a lovely lakeside colonial town called Granada and will be heading to Costa Rica in the morning – more border fun!

Run-Ins With The Police (Part 1)

Now that we're around half way through our projected mileage, we thought we'd give a quick summary of our interactions with the local law enforcement along the way...

North America was pretty incident-free, thankfully. Our one substantial chat with a police officer was in Canada, when we were stopped in a lay-by studying the map. A patrol car pulled up and the cop who got out was eager to tell us all about the places along our route that we had to go to (and should have been to!), even saying about one road that “if you don't go there I'll have to put you in the back of the car and take you there myself”.

In Mexico we got pulled over by the police a couple of times (though not as often as by the army checkpoints). The police there had a few standard questions: “how fast does it go?”, “how much does it cost?” and “what is this?” (pointing to the GPS). Yes, they were just bored and curious. Jorge in Merida who rides a huge Victory cruiser has apparently been asked a few times “does it fly?”!

In Nicaragua we've suffered (remarkably for the first time) the major occupational hazard of long-distance motorcycling – getting stopped for speeding. The speed limits in Nicaragua are ridiculously slow, especially considering what lovely roads they have. Fairly predictably the fine started off as a very large official one ($65 each, to be paid at the bank), but with a bit of pleading in Spanglish and generally being awkward, Ric managed to negotiate a “pay now” fine (i.e. a bribe) instead, and got it down from $40 to $20 – result!