Adios CAm

We left the bikes with the shipper (Girag) yesterday and they should be in Bogota; we fly there tomorrow afternoon.  The prices have gone up for shipping and airfare: $901/bike (paid in cash!) and $395/person for the 90 minute flight.  We’ve had several days in Panama City to recharge after the quick run through Central America.  A few thoughts about that…………..

Did you ever wonder where old schools buses go?  They are alive and well in Central America.  One bus we saw in Guatemala was from the Albuquerque school district (they didn’t even bother to remove or paint over the name). Paint a few flames of the hood and sides, add a couple of chrome air horns on the roof and you are in business.  The flashing red and yellow lights still function and gave us all a start when we first saw the buses stop to pick up and drop off passengers.

Potholes are dangerous.  I think we all hit a few of the smaller ones, but there were many that would have ended our trip.  This is where the communicators that we use (Cardo Scala Rider G4) have come in very useful--we can warn each other where the potholes are in the lane and the best way to get around them.  We keep the mikes open so don’t have to use the vox to activate them as the time lag is just too great. 

The road from San Jose to San Isidro would be beautiful on a sunny day,  but we had rain and periods of dense fog as we climbed to nearly 11000’!  It wasn’t just up and over--we ran along at 2500 meters for many miles before slowly climbing to 3000 meters and then “leveling off” again.  RA and I had “big white truck” behind us most of the way; his jake brake and headlights in our mirrors kept us on our toes.

So off to another continent tomorrow, but not before taking a tour of the canal this afternoon. One of my favorite palindromes:  “A man, a plan, a canal, Panama.”

For the BMW 650 thumper riders (Evie in particular) I am working on a post detailing what we did to our G650GSs for this trip--stay tuned.