2-14-10 Carti, Panama

After two hours of sleep I got up at 4:45 am, and started dragging my gear down to the front of the hostel where we had parked our bikes the night before.  We had to be packed up and ready by 5am in order to follow a Jeep full with other future sea-goers that knew the way to the small port where we would be catching our catamaran to Colombia.  We couldn't have cut it much closer. I put on my last glove and was throwing my leg over the bike as the Jeep disappeared around the corner in front of us. We gave chase and caught it quickly though the driver seemed to want to give us a bit of a challenge for most of the trip darting through the city.
We took and unmarked road which we were told would lead us to the coast and then passed the Jeep as it was going too slow for our taste.  The road varied widely, part of it was great dirt, well compacted with no loose gravel, but part of it was the complete opposite as well.   The worst sections were steep with deep pockets of 1" rocks covering the road. 

We could see the coast at times which was a ways off with lots of ridges and valleys in between.  These turned out to be a lot of fun as I would creep down the hills slowly engine braking in first gear until close to the bottom where I'd upshift and accelerate to around 40mph just before hitting the bottom which would then carry me up to the top of the hill where I'd repeat the process again.

On one series of hills we were riding up a hill which had a blind right-hand turn to it and lots of loose rocks.  I swung wide to keep up my speed but as I rounded the corner I saw a car that was stuck in front of me spinning his tires and going nowhere.  He was directly in my line so I tracked further to the outside into the deeper gravel which prompted the rear of the bike to start fishtailing.  I rode out perhaps three series of good tail-swings before getting next to the car when the rear of the bike came about 45 degrees to my left, my slick rear tire spinning freely and launching rocks behind me.  I corrected the wide left swing, or rather, that's what the bike did then the rear swung even harder to the right until I felt it get impossibly low and I lost it.  I came off the bike to the right and impacted on my side before rolling, catching glimpses of the bike as it spun counterclockwise, ending up pointing down hill.  My left pannier had broken loose as had my headlight guard and winshield which was still spinning in the dirt as was an engine guard.

Tom was about a second behind me and couldn't stop. He dodged me and the bike but caught my windshield squarely with his front tire, sending Lexan shrapnel  flying but he maintained control and rode it out to the top of the hill where he came down to check on me.

After a few entertaining pictures we stood the bike up and I hopped on and skidded down, narrowly dodging the car that was still stuck on the hill before crashing again which sent me rolling backwards downhill until coming to rest on my back with my knees next to my ears.

We righted the bike again and I rode down without a problem.  I did a U-turn and gunned the bike, picking up a good amount of speed, more than the last time, and blew past the stuck car. I got a few wobbles going uphill but nothing unmanageable and made it to the top.

After 15 minutes the next obstacle was a river crossing about 30 yards across.  I walked it first and found the best path to be a 'J' shape where we had to track down the right side of the current then hook across to the far bank before popping out of the water.  We both made it without incident.

Just after the river we hit a semi-paved runway with lots of weeds on it running directly at the Caribbean. I wondered how many kilos of cocaine had crossed the strip over the years.