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It all began with a discussion about joining an inmate from advrider.com in South America for a trip to Tierra del Fuego. His bike was already down there. Ultimately, his description of the trip and what he wanted to do were not too enticing – too much of bucket list cliché for me. Plus, I was not enamored of shipping my bike there and back, so I suggested to Darrel that we ride to Panama instead. Just sort of rolled off the tongue. Simple. All land. Six countries, including Mexico, where a couple of us had ridden several times previously. So it was no big deal - only 3,500 miles one way, give or take. Thus, The Three Amigos, Mike, Darrel, and Olie, said hasta la vista to friends and family and embarked on the Passage to Panama. Embark, Passage, and Panama (as in Canal) sound slightly nautical, but our chosen mode of transport was not a boat, rather six-wheeled transport. No, not a Unimog – three of the best big ***, wide load, shaft-driven, dual-sport, two-wheeled motorbikes that money can buy: A GSW, a GSAW, and a Super “Tinnerie”.
Darrel (aka Da’-Rell) had promptly broken in, then fully farkled and packed his new GSAW to the gills, including two weeks’ worth of clothes, tools, wing tank for extra fuel (I was hoping he was skilled and stable enough for mid-air refueling), oil, snacks, spare parts, and a toilet seat for those little “hole-in-the-wall” hotels along the road less traveled. Olie, aka El Portugeezer since he’s from Portugal, was operating his adventure-untested “Tenerife”…or “Tinnerie”…or something like that. Olie was also fully packed, but with only five days’ worth of clean clothes (we were already misaligned). Olie was of two minds: 1) They don’t have nothin’ where we’re going, so he threw in numerous contingencies, including toilet paper; 2) On the other hand, an occasional Walmart meant he could find spare parts for his bike. I’m not sure either of my compadres realized that the countries on our itinerary would have stores, supermarkets, restaurants, hotels, gas stations, bathrooms, banks, etc., just like (more or less) home.
I had a set of maps, so I usually led the charge each day on my ’14 GSW.
The plan was simple – meet in Presidio, TX, and then head south. Traverse Mexico “the long way”, followed by Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and end up in Panama at the Canal. In the best “European Vacation” mode, look, turn around, return. The round trip was likely to be about 7,000 miles, give or take. Divide that by a reasonable speed and hours in the saddle, and voila! – we had an estimate of the number of days. We thought we might even take every third off. Of course, like Mike Tyson said, “Everyone has a plan ‘til they get punched in the mouth!” But all three of us are more or less retired, so we’d be flexible if nothing else. In other words, no hard deadlines.
We secured our insurance and temporary vehicle import permits for Mexico on-line, so had only to obtain visitor’s permits when we entered Mexico at Ojinaga, just across the Rio Grande (that’s the norteamericano version of the river; from the other side, it’s the Rio Bravo) from Presidio. I’ve crossed from Presidio to Ojinaga several times (even one summer during college, when it was the Wild West, but that’s another story), and it’s an easy border station because of its low traffic volume. In fairly short order, we were on the long, deserted road southwest, toward Camargo. Our target destination for the first night was the Gomez Palacio/Torreon area, which we made well before dark. We even located a Best Western motel, which (along with Walmart!) is Olie’s go-to brand. Good motel, good restaurant, great first day!
The next day we continued our journey south in beautiful weather, and stopped in San Luis Potosi for the night, where we found a nice little downtown motel with protected parking for about $15US per room. The next day was a short and easy one, so after 2-1/2 days of great riding through north-central Mexico, we took a break in beautiful San Miguel de Allende. The sun and cool temps had been a constant. It was warm by noon the day we arrived, but we were still buttoned up due to the cold morning. We routed right through the city’s el centro: Three tall, loaded bikes; narrow, cobblestone streets; lots of pedestrians, cars, and buses. The drivers in Mexico and beyond all have a habit of stopping at the myriad topes (speed bumps), instead of just rolling over. Continual stop and go on cobblestones uphill and down was not fun – we almost overheated. By that I mean us, not the bikes.
We had considered taking a rest day San Miguel, but arriving by noon gave us an afternoon break instead. After a pleasant stay at a hotel that was reminiscent of the posadas in Portugal or paradors in Spain, we left on Friday morning (Feb 12th). Against my better judgment and instead of just using ‘pilotage’, I let Senorita Garmin plot our exit from town (by the way, her Spanish is horrendous). She chose what looked like (to her) the shortest distance, and routed us straight up the mountainside, through the old barrio, narrow, steep cobblestone streets and all. When I say steep, I mean stand up on the pegs, lean forward as far as you can, give it gas, don’t back off, and hope-no-one-gets-in-the-way steep. There were several sharp turns to negotiate, even a slow car or two to get around, but eventually I topped out at the main road. Olie showed up a few minutes later, but, unfortunately, no Darrel. After about an hour, I finally got phone service and had a text message; Darrel had lost us at one of the turns and returned to our hotel. No big deal – I rode back down (via the highway this time), fetched him at the hotel, then met with Olie at a Pemex station and set out for Cordoba.
As we continued south, the highways ranged from deserted two lanes, to fantastic sections of smooth-as-glass tollways, to pavement-sorely-needed, truck-rich, “five lanes”. It’s simple – only one stripe down the center (sometimes), but five lanes because you could get that much traffic on a two lane highway. The center section right down the middle was for passing, leaving two lanes as well as two shoulders. The shoulder would be where you go when a truck is passing another truck or bus. All swerve to miss the constant potholes, so when you’re passing you could easily get a surprise. But the drivers were not at all mean-spirited (ever drive in Houston?) and everyone seemed to know the rules of the road (I hate to be repetitious, but ever drive in Houston?).
The ride to Cordoba was one to be remembered, as we had to compromise a lot: Lane splitting when we encountered several miles of stacked-up trucks prior to one of the many tollbooths, then, when we reached a tollway that was completely closed due to an accident or terrorism or something (?), lane splitting, shoulder riding, cutting through parking lots and gas stations, riding up the dirt “sidewalk” in town, etc., followed by riding after dark to get to our destination. All against our own rules. After several detours, we were finally making progress once again, and made our way to Cordoba. Riding through the mountains, we topped out in the clouds. There were many tunnels and switchbacks, including a spot where the highway doubled back on and crossed over itself, as well as bonfires where groups of truckers were stopped, and fields of burning rubble, which all added up to a dark and eerie ride. But the nice hotel and dinner between ten and eleven PM were a great relief.
From Cordoba, we headed southeast to Minatitlan, then a turn toward Tuxtlan Gutierrez. The calendar said it was Saturday, February 13th, when we stopped there for the night; excellent and reasonable high-rise hotel on the edge of the nice downtown. Along the way, the land had morphed from Chihuahuan desert and gradually-changing semi-arid landscapes, to suddenly mountainous and what felt like semi-tropical. The afternoon ride through the mountains from Minatitlan to Tuxtlan Gutierrez was glorious – two lane highway, not a lot of traffic, beautiful green, karst mountains.
On Sunday we headed for the Guatemalan border. Our timing was spot on - the Pope was due in Tuxtlan Guiterrez the next day, and it would have been a madhouse. Our route was east toward Guatemala, and we were met by a constant stream of Federales heading in the opposite direction toward Tuxtlan Gutiérrez, no doubt for duty while the Pope was in town. We had one military checkpoint before arriving at the Guatemalan border; they simply wanted to verify that we weren’t carrying contraband. We talked, Darrel gave them some of his candy stash, took a photo or two, then we were off. The border crossing itself took about ninety minutes – no lines, but los documentos tend to take a while (a recurring theme). After clearing the border, we rode to Huehuetenango, Guatemala, and found a great motel with Italian restaurant next door, continuing our string of good hotels and food. The dinner turned out to be more expensive than the lodging!
The next day’s ride in Guatemala was a long and exciting one. Constant mountains. Very difficult to identify roads, very hard to find the right one out of the larger towns: Suddenly we would find ourselves “downtown”, among the narrow, dead end, and one-way streets, and the “highway” out was not apparent. We took one-way streets the wrong way on a number of occasions – some might wave and point it out to us, but no one got excited. We also missed an unmarked, hidden turn in the mountains twice – both going and coming back after our turnaround, so took some time-consuming detours (the maps are not always spot on). Once on the right road, as we climbed into the mountains, the pavement disappeared. We then had a long, rough, ride of unknown length through the mountains, as we couldn’t discern how far it was to our destination or when (or if) pavement would reappear. It didn’t, at least not until we hit the edge of the city of Coban at almost dark. It took us a while to find a hotel, and we even had a policewoman who was directing traffic stop her work, help us park along the plaza, then direct us to a nearby hotel, all after dark.
We finally made it across Guatemala and entered Honduras. The border formalities took two hours. We always planned to arrive at border crossings with enough slack to allow a few hours to get it done, and still make our target destination and hotel before dark. It generally worked out, so there we were just inside Honduras at Copan Ruinas. We were going to visit the adjacent Mayan ruins the next day, but it was raining off and on. Instead, we geared up and negotiated the steep cobblestone streets until we were out of town. The rain didn’t last long.
We had hoped to make it across Honduras and near the Nicaraguan border in two days, but that turned out to be “a bridge too far”, because of continuous mountains, roads of varying quality, truck traffic, construction stoppages, etc. So our second night in Honduras was at Siguatepeque, north of Tegucigalpa. The next day we lost Olie in Tegucigalpa (read on), but just a delay of an hour or so. After he rejoined us, we headed for Nicaragua, and after yet another border crossing, entered and began another international transit. Our route took us on the north side of Lake Nicaragua, and the volcanoes in the lake were not quite in sight.
Compared to Guatemala and Honduras, we saw improved highways in Nicaragua and Costa Rica. Still very slow at times due to 18-wheelers, trucks and buses of every type, pick-ups, cars, small motorcycles, bicycles, carts, pedestrians, cattle, horses, dogs, chickens, etc.
After leaving Costa Rica, our destination was Santiago, Panama. We had spent the previous night on Costa Rica’s NE Caribbean coast, in the small beachfront town of Puerto Viejo (“old port”). It was about 50km from the border with Panama, so easy early morning ride for the border crossing. The formalities usually comprised export self, export bike, have bike fumigated (sprayed), import self, import bike, pay for insurance, pay municipal tax. After a couple of two-hour crossings, the next two were at least three hours. We didn’t wake up to just hiring a local muchacho to do the legwork for us. No doubt it would have saved time, but hey – this was a vacation, cultural immersion as it were, not a race!
Often the traffic on the highway would come to a complete stop at speed bumps, construction, bus stops, cattle crossing, people walking, etc. In other words, you have to pay attention. Reminded me of Ringo shouting on the White Album, “I’VE GOT BLISTERS ON MY FINGERS”. Not literally, but last summer’s calluses were certainly re-established on my clutch hand since we had been constantly up and down the gears, up and down in speed, up and down in position, and up and down the mountains. We became accustomed to using what we referred to as the “GS pass”: When cars and trucks come to a sudden stop at speed bumps or construction or traffic or any transition in the pavement, we (and locals on motorbikes) would zip around them, adjusting the speed to manage the obstacles. Speed bumps (known as topes or tumulos) came in all sizes, shapes, heights, and degrees of abruptness. There were even times we used the edge of the road or the shoulder/borrow ditch if there was any real estate there - we were on dual sports after all! No one minded or took offense.
Da’-Rell had one flat that he had to repair, and a broken mudguard to remove (as I said, his GSAW was really loaded and the back end banged down hard a few times). Olie had a premature sole separation on one of his boots (immediate application of duct tape) and his topcase bracket broke (similar reason to Da’-Rell’s mudguard). But nothing serious. Olie tended to creep in speed when he was out front (not too often), and as he was opening up a gap on Da’-Rell and me, he was stopped by one of the many traffic police once we began to encounter in Panama. Luckily, one can occasionally “play dumb” (easy for us), so no ticket or he would have had to backtrack to town and find the magistrate for payment. We were also stopped to have our documentos examined several times in Panama, and there were many motorcycle officers stopped beside the highway with radar guns. That’s what got Olie.
We navigated with maps, since the GPS simply wouldn’t do the job in Central America. Its compass was useful, and it occasionally showed the highways and major intersections, but after Mexico not much more helpful than that despite my purchase of a Central America map download. At least 90% of the time there was just a motorbike icon in the middle of a blank screen…at least it knew we were somewhere. Even the best maps I could buy were sketchy in spots, as on the ground most highways were not marked, nor were intersections. So we navigated by maps as they were, compass, town names, and gut feel. An occasional turnaround resulted when the compass said we were not going the right direction. Added to the fun.
The ride from the Caribbean coast south across Panama was through mountains yet again, then after tuning east, about sixty miles of construction on the Panamerican Highway. We arrived at our destination, Panama City, around noon after 14-1/2 days of riding. At about 4,000 miles, it turned out to be a few hundred more than my original estimate. We were glad to stop there, park the bike for a while, wash the road-weary riding suit, and visit the canal. We took one full day off, found a very nice, economical hotel in a great location near numerous restaurants, and a coin op laundry nearby. We all did a little laundry, including, in my and Olie’s case, the riding suit. Darrel had vowed to not wash his suit until he was back home safely. It was light grey starting out…
The highlight of the stop was visiting the canal, of course – and seeing it up close and in action. Amazing that it’s over a century old, which says a lot about the vision and perseverance of those who conceived, designed, and constructed it. New parallel locks (wider and longer) should be complete this year and will allow more, larger ships to pass.
We left Panama City on Thursday, spending the first night in David, Panama, followed by Liberia, Costa Rica. They were long days with no stops except for gas. Our return route took us along the Pacific and the view was beautiful in spots. It was Panama all day Thursday, Costa Rica on Friday, Nicaragua on Saturday, and there we were Sunday evening, back in Siguatepeque, Honduras. The border crossings, although not particularly busy, were slow and laborious, and we averaged at least two hours per. The good news at this point was that we were back in the cool mountains. Since crossing the mountains in Panama earlier and spending time on the Pacific side, it had been hot. The wind along the Pacific side had also been howling down the slopes, making riding a struggle at times.
We lost Olie in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, again, meaning both going and coming. When going south, he got up beside me (maybe not the best way to follow?) and was boxed out when I took a quick exit to our highway south. Darrel was farther back (correct way to follow!) and made the turn, so he and I waited for an hour or so for Olie to realize the sins of his ways, go up the highway for several miles, find a turnaround spot that didn’t lead him astray, and return to us. This time, on the return trip, I pointed out a McDonalds as we passed, but missed the exit so took the next one, rode perpendicular to our route, turned around in a gas station, went back over the highway and directly to the McDonalds. Really odd that Olie had been in the middle, between Darrel and me, but somehow lost us and didn’t follow us out of the gas station. Nor did he come to the McDonalds, which we had talked about as a sort of meeting spot, using their WiFi and grabbing something to eat a couple of times. No Olie, no phone connection, the day was wearing on. Darrel and I took off for our destination city (Siguatepeque again), sans Olie. He finally called and made his way there after a couple of hours. I’m going to recommend he tether his bike to mine if we ever go through Tegucigalpa again. Note to travelers: Spring for full phone and data service. It pays off!
The next few days would see us head for the northern edge of Honduras, where we hoped to visit the Mayan ruins at Copan Ruinas, that we missed due to weather when we were traveling south. Then it was shoot across Guatemala again, but not too fast on account of the roads, their direction (they don’t necessarily go directly to where we want to go), the towns, one way streets, etc., etc. Maybe “shoot across” is not the right phrase…
I have to admit that much of the time I didn’t know what day it was. When you’re free and on the bike for an extended period, it doesn’t make any difference anyway. We were nearing re-entry into Mexico from Guatemala. We had finally identified an uncrowded, out of the way, efficient, quick border crossing. The formalities of exiting Guatemala and entering Mexico were conducted quickly and effortlessly by the two very pleasant immigration officials, maybe five minutes each. The only problem was that the two countries’ border stations were separated by about three hours, miles of rough, rocky, hilly, two-track dirt road, and a wide, croc-infested, swift-moving river called the Rio Usumacinta. But no bridge. The “ferry” noted on one of our maps turned out to be a bunch of long, narrow launches the locals use to go back and forth between the two countries. People movers that is, not built for vehicles, especially the big ***, wide load, heavy dual sport bikes that we know and love…
To digress once again, we had spent our last night in Honduras in Copan Ruinas, at the same small hotel we used going south. Nice people, nice little town, good restaurant nearby, a coffee shop for a quick morning espresso, and Mayan ruins to visit. The ruins at Copan were near the southeastern edge of the Mayan empire and were interesting to see, as were the colorful macaws flying around and squawking. So in addition to our constant cultural education, we had a rare afternoon off for a history lesson.
Upon leaving Copan Ruinas, we had crossed from Honduras back to Guatemala. Leaving Honduras wasn’t too bad, but getting back into Guatemala was another slow-moving bureaucratic maze, meaning 2-3 hours in the hot sun. Nice officials, but officials and official documents, and getting said documents signed and checked and stamped, and having them copied, takes time. Perfectly understandable…you can never be too careful with gringos and motorcycles and immigration and customs and fees and taxes. No telling what kind of nefarious schemes we might have up our hot, sweaty, dirty sleeves…
Once in Guatemala, we had ridden northward to Flores, where we stopped for the night. It was our “least comfortable” (read worst) hotel of the trip (I recall that Da’-Rell had selected it!). The A/C didn’t cool all night, there were swarms of mosquitos outside (dare I mention the word “Zika”??), and bugs in the bathroom. But we survived and headed across Guatemala the following morning. As I had mentioned, we cleverly settled on a small, out of the way border crossing. Our maps showed it to be a proper highway, with a ferry across the river…
I may have mentioned that not only is the GPS useless beyond Mexico, the maps obviously leave a certain amount of information to your imagination. Our “highway” (shown like most real highways, a solid line on Olie’s map, as on mine) to the border turned into wide, packed dirt. Despite our hopes, not a construction zone since it never turned back into pavement. It just got narrower and rougher. In other words, the pavement ended well before the border - over forty miles according to Olie’s odometer. We never saw the Guatemala immigration office set back from the road, but thank goodness they were alert and yelled and whistled at Darrel and Olie after I blew by. Once in the office, we learned that they were immigration officers, not customs, so couldn’t properly export our bikes there. They would look the other way if we took them out of the country, but there’d be the devil to pay if we ever returned to Guatemala. Somehow we decided that was OK (surprise!) and had our passports stamped anyway. After cooling off for a while, back to the bikes and the dirt road. No man’s land between countries wouldn’t be an issue, since Mexico was just a few miles and minutes away. Or so we thought.
After winding and climbing up and down a two-track dirt road for an hour and half or so, we arrived at a small village on the riverside. The only concrete in town was a street/ramp leading down to one of the main rivers in Central America. The ramp looked promising until we walked out to the end – steep concrete steps that ended well above the rough bank of the river, and the lapping water. No way any bike was going down that, and to what, anyway? No dock or ferry in sight. A couple of locals led us farther down river to a steep bulldozed road that ended on the same rocky beach. Then up pulled the “ferry”, which was, in our parlance, a launch. A boat. A big canoe. A long discussion ensued. The launch was about 30’ long, 6’ wide in the center, pointed at both ends, and had 18-24” gunwales (sides). Despite the assurances of the locals, we thought, “How the heck are you going to get a big motorcycle on that?”.
After returning to the village, cooling down, sitting on the steps on the concrete ramp, and carefully considering our status and alternatives – officially out of one country, no bike export stamp, not yet into the other country - we decided the boat was a perfectly rational choice. No, the bikes were not insured in that particular country (or any country beyond Mexico, for that matter). But I volunteered to go first, so back down the road and onto the rocky beach. The process was to remove the panniers and top case to lighten the bike; get everyone psyched up; put a short, steep ramp alongside the bow of the boat; about five of us rolled the front wheel up, then alternately lifted and moved the front and rear wheels to turn the bike; rolled it down another steep ramp into the boat; tied it down; crossed the river after a couple of swimmers navigated us through the shallows; beached the boat on the other side; pushed the bike up the ramp onto the prow; lifted it off. Voila - I was dry and in Mexico! Olie and the boat departed for the Guatemala side to get his bike, along with Darrel and his bike. After a couple of hours, they returned with two bikes on two boats (Olie’s boat had no thatched cover, so it obviously was a freighter). The only place for him was astride his bike and he’d vowed to “go down with the bike” if anything happened. It didn’t.
As I was waiting in Mexico for the others, a great song from the film The Motorcycle Diaries sprang to mind - “Al Otro Lado del Rio” (the other side of the river). In the movie, a young Che swam it; thankfully, we didn’t have to.
After clearing the river and finding the Mexican immigration office, we mounted up and rode the hundred miles to Palenque, Mexico (site of another Mayan ruin), where we took only our second day of the trip off (and in another Best Western!).
The objective the next day was to relax, wash clothes again, repair Olie’s top case mount and boots that were coming apart, generally catch up on the world. One of the numerous vulcanizadores who repair tires fixed Olie’s boot in no time. Then it was north through Mexico again, at least as far as Matamoros, and cross back into the USA. We routed through Cordoba, around Mexico City, NE toward the famous port cities of Veracruz and Tampico, and along the Gulf Coast on a great deserted highway to Brownsville, TX. Nice ride back to Texas and home.
Our hotels on the trip ranged from acceptable to very, very good, as did food. Finding gas was never a problem. At most military or police checkpoints, they just waved us through, although a couple of times they wanted to visit, ask about the bikes and our trip, and once or twice wanted to see import documents for the bikes.
The standard question from John Q. Public goes something like, “Is Mexico (or fill in the country of your choice) safe?” I’d sum it up scorecard-style:
Our version of the “end of the line” this time was the Panama Canal. But there’s always more out there -
The song and a couple of others accompany a short video of the trip:
https://vimeo.com/160844261
Darrel (aka Da’-Rell) had promptly broken in, then fully farkled and packed his new GSAW to the gills, including two weeks’ worth of clothes, tools, wing tank for extra fuel (I was hoping he was skilled and stable enough for mid-air refueling), oil, snacks, spare parts, and a toilet seat for those little “hole-in-the-wall” hotels along the road less traveled. Olie, aka El Portugeezer since he’s from Portugal, was operating his adventure-untested “Tenerife”…or “Tinnerie”…or something like that. Olie was also fully packed, but with only five days’ worth of clean clothes (we were already misaligned). Olie was of two minds: 1) They don’t have nothin’ where we’re going, so he threw in numerous contingencies, including toilet paper; 2) On the other hand, an occasional Walmart meant he could find spare parts for his bike. I’m not sure either of my compadres realized that the countries on our itinerary would have stores, supermarkets, restaurants, hotels, gas stations, bathrooms, banks, etc., just like (more or less) home.
I had a set of maps, so I usually led the charge each day on my ’14 GSW.
The plan was simple – meet in Presidio, TX, and then head south. Traverse Mexico “the long way”, followed by Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and end up in Panama at the Canal. In the best “European Vacation” mode, look, turn around, return. The round trip was likely to be about 7,000 miles, give or take. Divide that by a reasonable speed and hours in the saddle, and voila! – we had an estimate of the number of days. We thought we might even take every third off. Of course, like Mike Tyson said, “Everyone has a plan ‘til they get punched in the mouth!” But all three of us are more or less retired, so we’d be flexible if nothing else. In other words, no hard deadlines.
We secured our insurance and temporary vehicle import permits for Mexico on-line, so had only to obtain visitor’s permits when we entered Mexico at Ojinaga, just across the Rio Grande (that’s the norteamericano version of the river; from the other side, it’s the Rio Bravo) from Presidio. I’ve crossed from Presidio to Ojinaga several times (even one summer during college, when it was the Wild West, but that’s another story), and it’s an easy border station because of its low traffic volume. In fairly short order, we were on the long, deserted road southwest, toward Camargo. Our target destination for the first night was the Gomez Palacio/Torreon area, which we made well before dark. We even located a Best Western motel, which (along with Walmart!) is Olie’s go-to brand. Good motel, good restaurant, great first day!
The next day we continued our journey south in beautiful weather, and stopped in San Luis Potosi for the night, where we found a nice little downtown motel with protected parking for about $15US per room. The next day was a short and easy one, so after 2-1/2 days of great riding through north-central Mexico, we took a break in beautiful San Miguel de Allende. The sun and cool temps had been a constant. It was warm by noon the day we arrived, but we were still buttoned up due to the cold morning. We routed right through the city’s el centro: Three tall, loaded bikes; narrow, cobblestone streets; lots of pedestrians, cars, and buses. The drivers in Mexico and beyond all have a habit of stopping at the myriad topes (speed bumps), instead of just rolling over. Continual stop and go on cobblestones uphill and down was not fun – we almost overheated. By that I mean us, not the bikes.
We had considered taking a rest day San Miguel, but arriving by noon gave us an afternoon break instead. After a pleasant stay at a hotel that was reminiscent of the posadas in Portugal or paradors in Spain, we left on Friday morning (Feb 12th). Against my better judgment and instead of just using ‘pilotage’, I let Senorita Garmin plot our exit from town (by the way, her Spanish is horrendous). She chose what looked like (to her) the shortest distance, and routed us straight up the mountainside, through the old barrio, narrow, steep cobblestone streets and all. When I say steep, I mean stand up on the pegs, lean forward as far as you can, give it gas, don’t back off, and hope-no-one-gets-in-the-way steep. There were several sharp turns to negotiate, even a slow car or two to get around, but eventually I topped out at the main road. Olie showed up a few minutes later, but, unfortunately, no Darrel. After about an hour, I finally got phone service and had a text message; Darrel had lost us at one of the turns and returned to our hotel. No big deal – I rode back down (via the highway this time), fetched him at the hotel, then met with Olie at a Pemex station and set out for Cordoba.
As we continued south, the highways ranged from deserted two lanes, to fantastic sections of smooth-as-glass tollways, to pavement-sorely-needed, truck-rich, “five lanes”. It’s simple – only one stripe down the center (sometimes), but five lanes because you could get that much traffic on a two lane highway. The center section right down the middle was for passing, leaving two lanes as well as two shoulders. The shoulder would be where you go when a truck is passing another truck or bus. All swerve to miss the constant potholes, so when you’re passing you could easily get a surprise. But the drivers were not at all mean-spirited (ever drive in Houston?) and everyone seemed to know the rules of the road (I hate to be repetitious, but ever drive in Houston?).
The ride to Cordoba was one to be remembered, as we had to compromise a lot: Lane splitting when we encountered several miles of stacked-up trucks prior to one of the many tollbooths, then, when we reached a tollway that was completely closed due to an accident or terrorism or something (?), lane splitting, shoulder riding, cutting through parking lots and gas stations, riding up the dirt “sidewalk” in town, etc., followed by riding after dark to get to our destination. All against our own rules. After several detours, we were finally making progress once again, and made our way to Cordoba. Riding through the mountains, we topped out in the clouds. There were many tunnels and switchbacks, including a spot where the highway doubled back on and crossed over itself, as well as bonfires where groups of truckers were stopped, and fields of burning rubble, which all added up to a dark and eerie ride. But the nice hotel and dinner between ten and eleven PM were a great relief.
From Cordoba, we headed southeast to Minatitlan, then a turn toward Tuxtlan Gutierrez. The calendar said it was Saturday, February 13th, when we stopped there for the night; excellent and reasonable high-rise hotel on the edge of the nice downtown. Along the way, the land had morphed from Chihuahuan desert and gradually-changing semi-arid landscapes, to suddenly mountainous and what felt like semi-tropical. The afternoon ride through the mountains from Minatitlan to Tuxtlan Gutierrez was glorious – two lane highway, not a lot of traffic, beautiful green, karst mountains.
On Sunday we headed for the Guatemalan border. Our timing was spot on - the Pope was due in Tuxtlan Guiterrez the next day, and it would have been a madhouse. Our route was east toward Guatemala, and we were met by a constant stream of Federales heading in the opposite direction toward Tuxtlan Gutiérrez, no doubt for duty while the Pope was in town. We had one military checkpoint before arriving at the Guatemalan border; they simply wanted to verify that we weren’t carrying contraband. We talked, Darrel gave them some of his candy stash, took a photo or two, then we were off. The border crossing itself took about ninety minutes – no lines, but los documentos tend to take a while (a recurring theme). After clearing the border, we rode to Huehuetenango, Guatemala, and found a great motel with Italian restaurant next door, continuing our string of good hotels and food. The dinner turned out to be more expensive than the lodging!
The next day’s ride in Guatemala was a long and exciting one. Constant mountains. Very difficult to identify roads, very hard to find the right one out of the larger towns: Suddenly we would find ourselves “downtown”, among the narrow, dead end, and one-way streets, and the “highway” out was not apparent. We took one-way streets the wrong way on a number of occasions – some might wave and point it out to us, but no one got excited. We also missed an unmarked, hidden turn in the mountains twice – both going and coming back after our turnaround, so took some time-consuming detours (the maps are not always spot on). Once on the right road, as we climbed into the mountains, the pavement disappeared. We then had a long, rough, ride of unknown length through the mountains, as we couldn’t discern how far it was to our destination or when (or if) pavement would reappear. It didn’t, at least not until we hit the edge of the city of Coban at almost dark. It took us a while to find a hotel, and we even had a policewoman who was directing traffic stop her work, help us park along the plaza, then direct us to a nearby hotel, all after dark.
We finally made it across Guatemala and entered Honduras. The border formalities took two hours. We always planned to arrive at border crossings with enough slack to allow a few hours to get it done, and still make our target destination and hotel before dark. It generally worked out, so there we were just inside Honduras at Copan Ruinas. We were going to visit the adjacent Mayan ruins the next day, but it was raining off and on. Instead, we geared up and negotiated the steep cobblestone streets until we were out of town. The rain didn’t last long.
We had hoped to make it across Honduras and near the Nicaraguan border in two days, but that turned out to be “a bridge too far”, because of continuous mountains, roads of varying quality, truck traffic, construction stoppages, etc. So our second night in Honduras was at Siguatepeque, north of Tegucigalpa. The next day we lost Olie in Tegucigalpa (read on), but just a delay of an hour or so. After he rejoined us, we headed for Nicaragua, and after yet another border crossing, entered and began another international transit. Our route took us on the north side of Lake Nicaragua, and the volcanoes in the lake were not quite in sight.
Compared to Guatemala and Honduras, we saw improved highways in Nicaragua and Costa Rica. Still very slow at times due to 18-wheelers, trucks and buses of every type, pick-ups, cars, small motorcycles, bicycles, carts, pedestrians, cattle, horses, dogs, chickens, etc.
After leaving Costa Rica, our destination was Santiago, Panama. We had spent the previous night on Costa Rica’s NE Caribbean coast, in the small beachfront town of Puerto Viejo (“old port”). It was about 50km from the border with Panama, so easy early morning ride for the border crossing. The formalities usually comprised export self, export bike, have bike fumigated (sprayed), import self, import bike, pay for insurance, pay municipal tax. After a couple of two-hour crossings, the next two were at least three hours. We didn’t wake up to just hiring a local muchacho to do the legwork for us. No doubt it would have saved time, but hey – this was a vacation, cultural immersion as it were, not a race!
Often the traffic on the highway would come to a complete stop at speed bumps, construction, bus stops, cattle crossing, people walking, etc. In other words, you have to pay attention. Reminded me of Ringo shouting on the White Album, “I’VE GOT BLISTERS ON MY FINGERS”. Not literally, but last summer’s calluses were certainly re-established on my clutch hand since we had been constantly up and down the gears, up and down in speed, up and down in position, and up and down the mountains. We became accustomed to using what we referred to as the “GS pass”: When cars and trucks come to a sudden stop at speed bumps or construction or traffic or any transition in the pavement, we (and locals on motorbikes) would zip around them, adjusting the speed to manage the obstacles. Speed bumps (known as topes or tumulos) came in all sizes, shapes, heights, and degrees of abruptness. There were even times we used the edge of the road or the shoulder/borrow ditch if there was any real estate there - we were on dual sports after all! No one minded or took offense.
Da’-Rell had one flat that he had to repair, and a broken mudguard to remove (as I said, his GSAW was really loaded and the back end banged down hard a few times). Olie had a premature sole separation on one of his boots (immediate application of duct tape) and his topcase bracket broke (similar reason to Da’-Rell’s mudguard). But nothing serious. Olie tended to creep in speed when he was out front (not too often), and as he was opening up a gap on Da’-Rell and me, he was stopped by one of the many traffic police once we began to encounter in Panama. Luckily, one can occasionally “play dumb” (easy for us), so no ticket or he would have had to backtrack to town and find the magistrate for payment. We were also stopped to have our documentos examined several times in Panama, and there were many motorcycle officers stopped beside the highway with radar guns. That’s what got Olie.
We navigated with maps, since the GPS simply wouldn’t do the job in Central America. Its compass was useful, and it occasionally showed the highways and major intersections, but after Mexico not much more helpful than that despite my purchase of a Central America map download. At least 90% of the time there was just a motorbike icon in the middle of a blank screen…at least it knew we were somewhere. Even the best maps I could buy were sketchy in spots, as on the ground most highways were not marked, nor were intersections. So we navigated by maps as they were, compass, town names, and gut feel. An occasional turnaround resulted when the compass said we were not going the right direction. Added to the fun.
The ride from the Caribbean coast south across Panama was through mountains yet again, then after tuning east, about sixty miles of construction on the Panamerican Highway. We arrived at our destination, Panama City, around noon after 14-1/2 days of riding. At about 4,000 miles, it turned out to be a few hundred more than my original estimate. We were glad to stop there, park the bike for a while, wash the road-weary riding suit, and visit the canal. We took one full day off, found a very nice, economical hotel in a great location near numerous restaurants, and a coin op laundry nearby. We all did a little laundry, including, in my and Olie’s case, the riding suit. Darrel had vowed to not wash his suit until he was back home safely. It was light grey starting out…
The highlight of the stop was visiting the canal, of course – and seeing it up close and in action. Amazing that it’s over a century old, which says a lot about the vision and perseverance of those who conceived, designed, and constructed it. New parallel locks (wider and longer) should be complete this year and will allow more, larger ships to pass.
We left Panama City on Thursday, spending the first night in David, Panama, followed by Liberia, Costa Rica. They were long days with no stops except for gas. Our return route took us along the Pacific and the view was beautiful in spots. It was Panama all day Thursday, Costa Rica on Friday, Nicaragua on Saturday, and there we were Sunday evening, back in Siguatepeque, Honduras. The border crossings, although not particularly busy, were slow and laborious, and we averaged at least two hours per. The good news at this point was that we were back in the cool mountains. Since crossing the mountains in Panama earlier and spending time on the Pacific side, it had been hot. The wind along the Pacific side had also been howling down the slopes, making riding a struggle at times.
We lost Olie in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, again, meaning both going and coming. When going south, he got up beside me (maybe not the best way to follow?) and was boxed out when I took a quick exit to our highway south. Darrel was farther back (correct way to follow!) and made the turn, so he and I waited for an hour or so for Olie to realize the sins of his ways, go up the highway for several miles, find a turnaround spot that didn’t lead him astray, and return to us. This time, on the return trip, I pointed out a McDonalds as we passed, but missed the exit so took the next one, rode perpendicular to our route, turned around in a gas station, went back over the highway and directly to the McDonalds. Really odd that Olie had been in the middle, between Darrel and me, but somehow lost us and didn’t follow us out of the gas station. Nor did he come to the McDonalds, which we had talked about as a sort of meeting spot, using their WiFi and grabbing something to eat a couple of times. No Olie, no phone connection, the day was wearing on. Darrel and I took off for our destination city (Siguatepeque again), sans Olie. He finally called and made his way there after a couple of hours. I’m going to recommend he tether his bike to mine if we ever go through Tegucigalpa again. Note to travelers: Spring for full phone and data service. It pays off!
The next few days would see us head for the northern edge of Honduras, where we hoped to visit the Mayan ruins at Copan Ruinas, that we missed due to weather when we were traveling south. Then it was shoot across Guatemala again, but not too fast on account of the roads, their direction (they don’t necessarily go directly to where we want to go), the towns, one way streets, etc., etc. Maybe “shoot across” is not the right phrase…
I have to admit that much of the time I didn’t know what day it was. When you’re free and on the bike for an extended period, it doesn’t make any difference anyway. We were nearing re-entry into Mexico from Guatemala. We had finally identified an uncrowded, out of the way, efficient, quick border crossing. The formalities of exiting Guatemala and entering Mexico were conducted quickly and effortlessly by the two very pleasant immigration officials, maybe five minutes each. The only problem was that the two countries’ border stations were separated by about three hours, miles of rough, rocky, hilly, two-track dirt road, and a wide, croc-infested, swift-moving river called the Rio Usumacinta. But no bridge. The “ferry” noted on one of our maps turned out to be a bunch of long, narrow launches the locals use to go back and forth between the two countries. People movers that is, not built for vehicles, especially the big ***, wide load, heavy dual sport bikes that we know and love…
To digress once again, we had spent our last night in Honduras in Copan Ruinas, at the same small hotel we used going south. Nice people, nice little town, good restaurant nearby, a coffee shop for a quick morning espresso, and Mayan ruins to visit. The ruins at Copan were near the southeastern edge of the Mayan empire and were interesting to see, as were the colorful macaws flying around and squawking. So in addition to our constant cultural education, we had a rare afternoon off for a history lesson.
Upon leaving Copan Ruinas, we had crossed from Honduras back to Guatemala. Leaving Honduras wasn’t too bad, but getting back into Guatemala was another slow-moving bureaucratic maze, meaning 2-3 hours in the hot sun. Nice officials, but officials and official documents, and getting said documents signed and checked and stamped, and having them copied, takes time. Perfectly understandable…you can never be too careful with gringos and motorcycles and immigration and customs and fees and taxes. No telling what kind of nefarious schemes we might have up our hot, sweaty, dirty sleeves…
Once in Guatemala, we had ridden northward to Flores, where we stopped for the night. It was our “least comfortable” (read worst) hotel of the trip (I recall that Da’-Rell had selected it!). The A/C didn’t cool all night, there were swarms of mosquitos outside (dare I mention the word “Zika”??), and bugs in the bathroom. But we survived and headed across Guatemala the following morning. As I had mentioned, we cleverly settled on a small, out of the way border crossing. Our maps showed it to be a proper highway, with a ferry across the river…
I may have mentioned that not only is the GPS useless beyond Mexico, the maps obviously leave a certain amount of information to your imagination. Our “highway” (shown like most real highways, a solid line on Olie’s map, as on mine) to the border turned into wide, packed dirt. Despite our hopes, not a construction zone since it never turned back into pavement. It just got narrower and rougher. In other words, the pavement ended well before the border - over forty miles according to Olie’s odometer. We never saw the Guatemala immigration office set back from the road, but thank goodness they were alert and yelled and whistled at Darrel and Olie after I blew by. Once in the office, we learned that they were immigration officers, not customs, so couldn’t properly export our bikes there. They would look the other way if we took them out of the country, but there’d be the devil to pay if we ever returned to Guatemala. Somehow we decided that was OK (surprise!) and had our passports stamped anyway. After cooling off for a while, back to the bikes and the dirt road. No man’s land between countries wouldn’t be an issue, since Mexico was just a few miles and minutes away. Or so we thought.
After winding and climbing up and down a two-track dirt road for an hour and half or so, we arrived at a small village on the riverside. The only concrete in town was a street/ramp leading down to one of the main rivers in Central America. The ramp looked promising until we walked out to the end – steep concrete steps that ended well above the rough bank of the river, and the lapping water. No way any bike was going down that, and to what, anyway? No dock or ferry in sight. A couple of locals led us farther down river to a steep bulldozed road that ended on the same rocky beach. Then up pulled the “ferry”, which was, in our parlance, a launch. A boat. A big canoe. A long discussion ensued. The launch was about 30’ long, 6’ wide in the center, pointed at both ends, and had 18-24” gunwales (sides). Despite the assurances of the locals, we thought, “How the heck are you going to get a big motorcycle on that?”.
After returning to the village, cooling down, sitting on the steps on the concrete ramp, and carefully considering our status and alternatives – officially out of one country, no bike export stamp, not yet into the other country - we decided the boat was a perfectly rational choice. No, the bikes were not insured in that particular country (or any country beyond Mexico, for that matter). But I volunteered to go first, so back down the road and onto the rocky beach. The process was to remove the panniers and top case to lighten the bike; get everyone psyched up; put a short, steep ramp alongside the bow of the boat; about five of us rolled the front wheel up, then alternately lifted and moved the front and rear wheels to turn the bike; rolled it down another steep ramp into the boat; tied it down; crossed the river after a couple of swimmers navigated us through the shallows; beached the boat on the other side; pushed the bike up the ramp onto the prow; lifted it off. Voila - I was dry and in Mexico! Olie and the boat departed for the Guatemala side to get his bike, along with Darrel and his bike. After a couple of hours, they returned with two bikes on two boats (Olie’s boat had no thatched cover, so it obviously was a freighter). The only place for him was astride his bike and he’d vowed to “go down with the bike” if anything happened. It didn’t.
As I was waiting in Mexico for the others, a great song from the film The Motorcycle Diaries sprang to mind - “Al Otro Lado del Rio” (the other side of the river). In the movie, a young Che swam it; thankfully, we didn’t have to.
After clearing the river and finding the Mexican immigration office, we mounted up and rode the hundred miles to Palenque, Mexico (site of another Mayan ruin), where we took only our second day of the trip off (and in another Best Western!).
The objective the next day was to relax, wash clothes again, repair Olie’s top case mount and boots that were coming apart, generally catch up on the world. One of the numerous vulcanizadores who repair tires fixed Olie’s boot in no time. Then it was north through Mexico again, at least as far as Matamoros, and cross back into the USA. We routed through Cordoba, around Mexico City, NE toward the famous port cities of Veracruz and Tampico, and along the Gulf Coast on a great deserted highway to Brownsville, TX. Nice ride back to Texas and home.
Our hotels on the trip ranged from acceptable to very, very good, as did food. Finding gas was never a problem. At most military or police checkpoints, they just waved us through, although a couple of times they wanted to visit, ask about the bikes and our trip, and once or twice wanted to see import documents for the bikes.
The standard question from John Q. Public goes something like, “Is Mexico (or fill in the country of your choice) safe?” I’d sum it up scorecard-style:
6,700 miles outside of the USA
6 countries
28 days
3 times one rider became separated from the other two (Olie tends to zone out occasionally)
2 cases of mild food poisoning (Da’-Rell’s an adventurous eater)
½ dozen times up or down a one-way street the wrong way (all on me)
1 real river crossing
2 small bike breakages due to rough roads (Da’-Rell and Olie)
1 day of rain
Lots of nice, normal, hard-working people – in fact, everyone we came across
0, ZILCH, NADA, NIL accidents, incidents, breakdowns, robberies, muggings, kidnappings, high crimes, or misdemeanors.
A few lines from “End of the Line” by the Traveling Wilburys offer a great take on the trip: 6 countries
28 days
3 times one rider became separated from the other two (Olie tends to zone out occasionally)
2 cases of mild food poisoning (Da’-Rell’s an adventurous eater)
½ dozen times up or down a one-way street the wrong way (all on me)
1 real river crossing
2 small bike breakages due to rough roads (Da’-Rell and Olie)
1 day of rain
Lots of nice, normal, hard-working people – in fact, everyone we came across
0, ZILCH, NADA, NIL accidents, incidents, breakdowns, robberies, muggings, kidnappings, high crimes, or misdemeanors.
“Well it's all right, riding around in the breeze
Well it's all right, if you live the life you please
Well it's all right, even if the sun don't shine
Well it's all right, we're going to the end of the line”
Well it's all right, if you live the life you please
Well it's all right, even if the sun don't shine
Well it's all right, we're going to the end of the line”
Our version of the “end of the line” this time was the Panama Canal. But there’s always more out there -
The song and a couple of others accompany a short video of the trip:
https://vimeo.com/160844261
Did I really say that? 