2-13-10 Darien, Panama

Stuart, some of his friends and I went to a little pub near our hostel where I noticed a Kawasaki KLR outside with California plates. Upon entering I asked the bouncer who owned it and soon met Torben, a guy my age from the Netherlands who was riding south as well.  Earlier that day I'd met Tom, a middle-aged guy from Ohio on a KLR as well who was staying at my hostel.  Tom, Torben and I decided to make a run to the end of the road in the Darien the next day.

Oddly enough, there is no road from North America to South America.  The road stops in the Darien Province of Panama before picking up again some 60 miles south in Colombia.  In between is nothing but jungle, guerillas, cocaine operations and spear-chucking natives, my favorites!

We left early in the morning and had been riding perhaps 45 minutes when we all came to a military checkpoint where I instantly realized that I didn't have my dirver's license or my vehicle import papers.  Tom had overstayed his visa as well and so we hoped for a quick wave-through but didn't get it.  They demanded all the formal paperwork and documentation.  I handed the guy my passport but it wasn't enough. He told me to push the bike to the side of the road and stated that I couldn't ride it until I provided a license and would have to get a wrecker truck in order to get the bike home which seemed like a pretty terrible option, though still an option.

I inquired if there were any places around where I could buy a driver's license, all but offering a bribe but he wasn't taking it yet.  Then Tom ushered over their head guy and said, "Maybe this will help..." He opened his wallet and presented a police badge.  After a brief interaction the officer came over to me and told me that I could go on but only if I bring him a 'cola' upon my return.  This at first comfused me as 'cola' means 'tail'
but he soon added 'a big bottle' which helped sort the homonym.

We cruised at around 60mph which was Torbens top speed. He was having some issues with his motor which was consuming oil at a rate of a quart every hundred miles. No, his bike is not a 2-stroke.  While in Mexico somebody had dropped a chunk of metal into his transmission which, though he got out, had caused some damage.  Later, in Guatemala, he rebuilt the engine (for different reasons) and it now smokes like a beast.

Since Torben couldn't go very fast we'd always cut him loose early after breaks as we'd catch up to him after maybe ten minutes.  After one break we caught up with him just a few hundred yards out from where we had stopped and could see his chain dragging from a ways away.  Hmmm. This isn't good.  The problem wasn't fixing the chain, the main problem was fixing it in time to ride to the coast the next day where we were all to catch a catamaran to Colombia.  If we didn't make our voyage we'd have to wait a while as the seas were getting rougher and very few boats were making the passage.

I took off to the nearest town in search of parts while Tom and Torben tried to fix it on the spot. The first little shade-tree mechanic I came to didn't have anything but knew of a shop that might be able to help. Another minute down the road and I'd found a brand new chain that would fit Torbens bike.  I rode back to Torben and Tom before buying the chain and was pleased to find that Tom had a master link in his tool kit that we were able to install after combining the forces of our tool kits.

We pushed on, a little apprehensive of our potential mechanical problems and legal issues and were still 120 miles of twisty roads away from the end of the road which still contained 3 military checkpoints.  Luckily we were only asked for our passports the rest of the day and got through unscathed. 

Information varied widely from checkpoint to checkpoint. One told us that we would have to stop at the next town and wouldn't be allowed through at is was too dangerous for gringos and that we would be 'found quickly'. But there was nobody at the next town to stop us so we kept going.

While cruising along in formation on a reasonably good dirt road I saw Torben's bike jump to the side and kick up a huge plume of dust, followed by Tom's bike doing the same thing, his bouncing diagonally, but he stayed on. I swerverd left and nicked the side of a huge pothole the size of a mattress that went straight through the asphault to the dirt beneath.  We all slowed down and stood up on the pegs as we'd entered an area with tons of random holes in the road.

We finally made it to the outskirts of the little town of Yavisa which was filled with lots of stilt houses, most of which were thatch-roofed and had bamboo walls.  The town had very narrow concrete streets what were well-above ground by about 18", not sure why.  We came upon a Carnival party going on where several hoses were spraying down the crowd in the street. 

We did a hard left down a street then doubled back on a road that ran perpendicular to a river where it stopped at a long, narrow susupension bridge. End of the road.  In the river were may locals in dug-out canoes, piled with fruit and other goods.

We took a few pictures before riding off to our hostel, trying to make as many miles as possible before dark.