Santa Clara, Portobello, Panama Canal, Panama City, Panama

Santa Clara was a welcome relief after the creepy vibe at Las Lajas. It was a beautiful incredibly wealthy beachside town. We stayed in a wonderful hotel with a clear blue pool which we had to ourselves for our whole stay, the hotel was set in beautiful gardens and there were dozens of mango trees fromwhich we plucked fresh mangoes for breakfast to stop them from going to waste. The whole town had a slight smell of rotting mangoes which was oddly pleasant. It did feel a little like a disused hollywood movie set though, the houses were elaborate mansions, yet it was like a wealthy ghost town, there was hardly a soul around. To add to the feeling of solitude the beach was bay like with totally calm water and boats anchored not far from the shore.

After lulling about by the sea we headed in land for Portobello, a small town to the north on the carribean coast. The town was a very important sea port for the Spanish and was left in ruins by English pirates, the ancient seaside city gates are in ruins, which gives the town its charm. There is a beautiful church and a gorgeous town square with semi ruined ancient buildings. Far from being overrun by tourists the town has no hotel, you have to stay 2km outside town if you want to spend the night.

Next we made our way through hours of smoggy traffic to get to the famous panama canal we sat and watched the gigantic ships passing through the Gatun Locks, designed to adjust the sea level of the craft. Passing boats can pay up to one hundred thousand dollars to use the canal. It was exciting to see these enormous boats upon whom we rely on for so many things.

We then headed for the Mira Flores locks at the other end of the panama canal, there was a museum and we learnt a lot about how they actually raise and lower the level of the boats so they can enter and exit the canal. The history of the canal was more interesting than you would think, building it at the time was an incredible effort and twenty thousand people died from yellow fever and other tropical illnesses before it was done. Watching the boats go by was soothing.

We finally made it to Panama city and had a chance to see Casco Viejo, the 'old town'. It had such an easy warm rustic charm. It has been likened to Havana and it looked and felt like I imagine Havana would be. Gorgeous old buildings with a grand and imposing yet delapidated and effortless style. We could live there and never get tired of admiring the beauty of those streets.

Now Alex has spent the day crating up the bike and preparing her for her journey north to Vancouver, we will follow in just a day. Adios Central America!

Boquete, Las Lajas, Panama

We can´t believe we are down to our final two days in Central America, and it is with some sadness that we think about leaving behind all the life colour culture and humour we have grown accustomed to. We have absolutely loved Panama, considering we have already seen so much of central america it has almost been suprising to be so charmed. After beautiful Bocos del Torro we headed to the mountain village of Bouquete, the cool climate and mountinous landscape were a welcome change. It is so hard to describe the beauty of this area, the rides we took here were some of the most beautiful of the trip: mountains, waterfalls and river rapids. We lazed around while others did the strenuous hike up the local volcano. We enjoyed the temperature relief for a few days and had to wait out some rain, one of the few occasions we have had to so on the whole trip.

We moved on to Las Lajas an 'undiscovered' pacific coastal town. We were in high spirits when we arrived, the driving had been beautiful and traffic free and we slowly cruised through farm land on our way to town. We stopped at a great German restaurant when we arrived, it has to be said good food has been a rarity since leaving Mexico. While we were there a rather odd hunch backed gentleman in army pants that he was wearing too high was staring at us like he was trying to decide how to kill us for about a half an hour. It was a little unnerving, he then approached us and made arkward innappropriate conversation in a thick Russian accent, and if you grew up in the eighties like we did the baddies always have Russian accents. For some reason he had a boomerang with him and asked Alex for lessons in boomerang throwing, I had no idea he was such a good boomerang thrower!, it almost came full circle on the beach where Alex was demonstrating his skill to this odd gentelman. My admiration for Alex's skill distracted me from my fear about this man's sinister intentions for about thirty seconds. We had been planning to camp next door to the restaurant but after meeting this Russian guy that wouldn't leave us alone we decided to head a little further down the beach. Feeling unsettled and a little creeped out we found the most disgusting room we have stayed in thus far. We felt like we should have committed some kind of crime to be staying there. It was filfthy and furnished with a broom which we quickly discovered was there to sweep out the four inch crabs that were constantly crawling under the door up the walls, yep! they can climb. Another traveller told us she woke up with a crab biting her back, that was enough for us to pitch the tent and place it on top of the bed so at least we could sleep without fear of sharing our bed with the crabs. Feeling fairly miserable we watched a movie on our tiny iPod and that lifted our spirits enough to get us through the night.

Bocos Del Torro, Panama

The joy we felt at finally crossing the border into Panama was tremendous, from the time we set out in LA our primary goal was to get to Panama and then we would decided what our next move would be. To finally be here and to be safe and in good health is a huge relief. At the border an American came up to me and said`Can I ask you one question... Would you do it all again?´ I answered without hesitation `absolutely!´ He then said `you guys are real adventurers´ and I swelled with pride, finally Panama.

After crossing two frightening wooden bridges with huge motorcycle sized holes we made it through and headed for Bocos Del Torro an incredible island area in the north of Panama. Today we took a boat ride around the islands, we snorkeled on the reefs with tropical fish and spectacular coloured coral, we saw dozens of dolphins leaping out of the water with their shiny grey fins and swam in the clearest blue water that was warm and absolutely irresistable.


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Next stop: Panama city, then we take a flight up to Vancouver, Canada and make our way down to LA.

Volcan Arenal & Cahuita, Costa Rica

Leaving Nicaragua, the people we had met and all the good times we had was sad and we were really pretty iritable heading into Costa Rica. The border crossing was the usual drag of unmarked buildings, absolutely no direction or guidance, mysterious forms and stamps and hours of waiting around in 30 degree heat. We struggled through it, on our first night in Costa Rica Alex had his gloves stolen and that didn´t help our mood too much. The incredible beauty of the region was distracting us a little from our iritability and it was starting to slowly win us over, as so many people had promised that it would. We headed for Volcan Arenal, a famously active volcano that can only be viewed from a distance, sadly the few days we spent in the area were cloudy and we didn´t see the night time glowing red lava and explosions that you can see.

We moved on to San Jose BMW to get our bike some care and attention. The service was fantastic, they treat their motorcycle travellers like royalty. The manager was so helpful, attentive and welcoming and had such an obvious passion for motorcylces. We had been driving around for hours lost, in nightmarish traffic and going from highway to highway searching for the place so we were feeling too great when finally we found it after asking another BMW motorcyclist where it was. The bike was restored to its former glory and we were on our way after only a couple of days. San Jose like a lot of central american cities was not too thriling so we made tracks as soon as we could.

Our next stop in Costa rica was Cahuita a beautiful Carriean town with a gorgeous beach and beautiful rainforest right by the sea. We had a lovely waterfront apartment which included a kitchen and we were itching to do some cooking after months of being at the mercy of the local food. We saw white faced monkeys, spider monkeys, sloths, tree lizards, giant blue butterflies (not their official name!), a tiny yellow snake, a small baby python, a racoon and another type of ant eater. The forest was teeming with wildlife, we didn´t have to search too hard to find these animals. We watched one white faced monkey steal a coconut from another group of monkeys and then climb the tree next to us and bury his whole head in the coconut, the other monkeys were looking on as he licked his tiny monkey fingers clean, they looked on open mouthed and furious as he polished off the whole coconut. We sat delighted and enthralled.

Ometepe, Nicaragua

After taking it easy in the comforts of the gracious colonial town of Granada, we finally were able to move on. We spent days feeling too bored to stay but too comfortable to leave eventually the boredom won out and we got moving. We made our way to Ometepe a small island created by two volcanoes in the enormous lake Nicaragua. We put the bike on a car ferry without too much fuss and took the hour trip to the tiny island. We spent one night in the port town of Moyogalpa, I (M) had a slight cold and wanted to sleep it off before we set out exploring the island. We then went to Charca Verde a beautiful peaceful spot with horseriding, kayaking and hiking. We took a long hike around a peninsula of the island and sat gazing at a family of monkeys going about their daily business of hanging upside down and munching on fruit. The trees were pale green and had thick knotted roots you felt like you were walking in the setting of a children´s fairytale. We even took a gentle paddle on a couple of kayaks out onto the lake and watched the sunlight fade. We were lucky enough to see some local dances and celebrations at the one restaurant in our town, if our spanish was better we would have known what the celebrations were about, still the costumes were colourful and it was beautiful to watch the teenagers performing the traditional dances step nervously onto the stage.

After Charca Verde we decided to head to Santo Domingo a point between the two volcanoes. We had the good fortune to meet another couple travelling on a motorbike similar to our own, Emma and Hamish. We met them quite literally on the road and we decided to head to Santo Domingo together. It was fantastic to meet other motorcycle travellers, they understood so many aspects of our trip in a way that only other motorcycle travellers can. For me (M) it was fantastic to meet another woman on a motorbike journey, the struggles and joys are so unique. Emma and Hamish really understood the challenges a trip like this poses and it was inspiring to hear their stories. They were on a two year epic voyage and had spent five months travelling around Australia their understanding of our home country was humbling and also inspired us to look closer to home for our next adventure. We spent a couple of days together and enjoyed their company before sadly we had to part ways. They were making their way north while we were about to head sout from Nicaragua into Costa Rica. I know we will see them again either in the UK or in Australia sometime.