Athens Greece....people watching

Today we landed in Athens Greece. Since we have been here before we decided just to wander around old town. We went to the new Acropolis Museum....no not the strip club in Portland.  It explained a lot of what we toured on our last visit here in Athens. The museum was a great source of the ongoing excavation of the old city  surrounding monuments and and conservation of the Acropolis as it sits today.

The rest of the day we sat,  drank beer and watched people...just like you would do at the acropolis in Portland ...lol.

The weather is great. The food in the plaka was really good. Should have got out if the van last visit and walked around.

Turkey tomorrow.

A Day in Venice

Today we decided to tour the city of Venice by water. We rented a
little lovely gondola or gondole dpending on who you talk to. This
nice gentleman pushed us through the water streets of Venice pointing
out all of the popular buildings. After our 8 mile walk yesterday we
though we had seen all the back alleys and store fronts. On the water
we saw the city at its full pace moving building materials and laundry
from all the hotels to a local cleaner on the mainland. The boats were
loading and unloading many types of supplies. We floated past building
supply centers selling lumber and tiles. There were many houses and
back alleys on the water also. The buildings look really old with all
the layers of plaster in stages of falling off. The trafic jams are
just as fun with the horns beeping also having no brakes makes the
california stop look minor. Blind corners are huge here sitting at the
back of a loaded boat easing into the corners.
Oh Lisa and I both missed that perfect photo. We were watching a guy
motor down the main canal with his hands on the rudder. The rudder on
the working boats is off the back of the boat with a long pipe handle
coming forward to make it easier to control the boat. What he did next
was....think about steering your car with your knees so you can rest
your hands. Wait its coming. Most of the working boats if you look in our
photos have low cabins top just in front of the pilot. This pilot got
lazy and wanted to rest his arms. He head was in his hands and his
elbows were on the roof of the cabin and he was staring right out in
front of of the boat sorta like waiting for a prostate exam. And yes
you got the picture coming now the handle of the rudder was up his ass
and he was moving his hips and butt back and forth like a like game
with the doctor....try and get me now. We were laughing so hard we
forgot to snap a photo.
Well we are off to drag our luggage through the sidwalks and over the
bridges in town to find our ship.

A new trip planned Spain/France

We are heading to Spain and France to tour on a motorcycle after a short cruise through Europe.

I have attached a map of our route.

<http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&msid=203048988808215018318.00049cbaab8c503f31d04&ll=44.174325,2.312622&spn=3.214872,8.453979&t=h&z=8>

The Return trip from Panam 2011 (very interesting)

All the days in one email. Link to photos and maps at the bottom with some videos mixed in 

This is one large blog.....Sorry

Day 1 - 3

As Some of you might have heard we are not making good time on our return
trip. I started writing this email after spending the night between borders.
It seems odd but neither country wants us. Panama said don't come back after
our police escort to the border. Costa Rica said you can not bring one of
your bikes in. So we found a hotel in the free zone had a bunch of beer and
started making plans. You can read our plans below.

So lets start with day 1. We did the maintenance on the bikes and took off
about 11am  or so. We skipped lunch and set our sites on a nice little beach
resort about 85km from Costa Rica. We made it to about 3 miles before the
turn off. We stopped at a check point and showed our faces. Everything was
going great until they decided to ask us for the bike papers. Oops they are
expired and it is now 5pm and we are hungry and thirsty. We spent the next
few hours being told everything is fine not much longer. We begged for some
food and drink. We were eventually fed rice on tin plates feeling more like
we were in jail every minute. They dragged all this out until about 9pm and
finally we got someone on the phone to explain that there are 3 police
vehicles coming to impound the bikes and take us to a hotel. 12 guys loaded
our bikes in the three police trucks. The boss that showed up spoke pretty
good english and really took a liking to Scott. On the way to the impound
lot we stopped for food and beer. So after a few beers....ok 4 beers....we
even got more for the road.  Yes we were now drinking beer in the back
of police
cars with flashing lights. We were then told to throw the empties out the
window. Wow talk about doing all the wrong things.  So its now almost
midnight and we unload the bikes at the impound
lot and go find a hotel. We are promised everything will be fine in the
morning. A little penalty fine and we will be on our way. So at 9am we
are told 10am
and then so on and so on....at 2pm we are $350 poorer and escorted at 90
miles an hour out (not kidding) out of Panamá. They shook our hands
and told in nice terms not to come
back to soon. So we are now thinking great finally we can make up some time.
After waiting 4 hours in line to cross into Costa Rica we were told to go
find a lawyer and write up papers for Scotts new bike that allows Rich to
ride it.

The hotel in the border was not horrible. Three cute little beds no sheets
or covers no hot water and the shower head was about 4' off the ground,
great for Scott but sucked for Rich and I.

We woke up early and tried the border again with brand new people. We were
told the same thing. So sitting at breakfast we find a lawyer right next to
us. $100 more we are going to try it again. After Scott paid the $100 he was
told this will only get you to Nicaragua. Great! We are never going to make
it home at this rate.

So plan three if this does not work. We have a lighter. We will tie all of
Rich's gear on our bikes set the problem bike on fire and drive away with
the two bikes that have the correct paperwork....sorry Eric but we want to
get home and there is no way we are leaving someone a perfectly good bike.
We will be sure to get video for everyone.

So day three is in progress and will let you know the outcome later.

Well i thought we would be on the road by now. The $100 piece of paper did
not work. Now we have talked the lawyer into walking to the border
with us. This only takes another 3 hours and results in nothing. They
insist in seeing Eric in person. We even tried the lie Erics dead
Scott
has the title in Scotts name with a bill of sale. We are dumbfounded, so
much for drinking lots of beer and making plans last night. I think we are
going to skip to sneaking across the border and burning the bike at the
first check point we can not get by.

So....end of day three. We made it to Jaco, Costa Rica, finally.. Rich
was escorted illegally through the border. Picture to be included
later. We spent 24 hours and money to do it all properly but no such
luck. We had such a long day with the helpers we jumped at the
opportunity for a Police truck to load the bike and drive us around
all the issues. He did not speak english but Rich said that he would
ride with him and we would meet in a town about 50 miles north. Scott
and I took off hoping we would see Rich again today. The Police
officer showed up with the bike and Rich....wow now what are we going
to do. We gave him money and unloaded the bike and left on our own.
This guy was so nice. Rich said he stopped several times and he was a
little nervous because he stopped at a motorcycle graveyard. Scott and
I flew through the check points  and the guys never checked our
papers. Rich said his guy stopped and was asked about bike papers and
the police offers said he had none. We hope things are getting better.

Tomorrow Nicaragua another test of our patience.

I will catch up on photos later. We have lots to upload. There are a
few in the links below. Hopefully all the crap above makes sense, we
have been through a lot these last few days.

Keith, Rich and of course Scott

Day 4, 5, and 6

Running out of time in the evenings to write about our days so this is day 4-6

So things are getting a little better. We had to lie a little to get out of Costa Rica. They really wanted the papers on the KLX and We had none so we just said we lost them and smiled really big. Rich was a big help...how can you detain him yet again. The lady helping us was very concerned and called the big boss and argued our case. A little while later we received two exit papers for 3 bikes and 3 little stamped papers (I think they were special). She said under no circumstances are we to show the exit papers just hand the border guard the 3 stamped little papers and leave. Ok are we now we are feeling better about successfully smuggling a bike all the way through Costa Rica. So now we are between countries. We started the entry papers into Nicaragua. Yes once again they had issues.....but this time Scott was not allowed to have his name on two bikes. So thinking we are prepared we hand them our new $100 piece of paper from a certified lawyer...that we thought could interpret names on passports....because the lawyer sold the bike from Reynolds P... Not Reynolds S....This became a big issue....oops must have missed that in the beer made plans. Now we have a worthless piece of paper, great. The helper pulled us aside and said you need to fill out the back of the title properly selling it to Rich...but not now.... after i figure out how to get you through into Nicaragua.  The bottom line. Rich  now owns a nice KLX and it cost him nothing. Nice job Rich.

Needless to say we did make it into Nicaragrua a little more than 4 1/2 hours later and yep $100 more we were able to drive out of customes into Nicaragau.

While in line we were told to try a smaller border going in to Honduras and exiting Nicaragau. There are supposed to be very few people at the crossing. Great idea! So we stopped made new maps in Grenada, Nicaragua uploaded them into the phone and headed up into the mountains. Not much out there on the way to the border. About dusk we realize that hotels are just as few also. We kept going and it got darker and darker and started raining...did i mention people don't use there lights on the roads even at night to save on fuel. There were several OMG's what was that we almost hit. We stopped at a little town asking for a hotel.  A very nice man helped us out. He took us to a $5 a night room. After walking through the place I just had to send Rich and Scott in to view the facilities also. I told them that if we stayed here we have to get photos of the place. The guy asked me how many hours I needed the rooms. It looked very much like a house of illrepute. The shower facilities looked like they came out of the flintstones locker room. So we all agree it looked like a place Jesus would have stayed in back in his 40's

The nice man took us about 3 more kilometers to another hotel. We follow him and his wife and little kid on the same  bike to a resort he said. We saw a beer sign way ahead and figured we were on to something here. Remember it is now pitch black. We see three swimming pools and and nice little outdoor entertaining area. We ask how much and find it it is $33 usd, ok can we see the room? We walk about 400yds out into the trees and he unlocks a little house. Goes in and tries to turn on the lights. We used the cell phones and looked around a little and decided if they put in another bed we could handle this for a night. We look up and the room was missing a light bulb....no big deal.. There was water running in the shower and the guys said they would take care of the light and we should go have some beers. Our nice man said his good byes and left us to fend for ourselves.  You will see photos of our room that we woke up to. THere are also some photos of the outside which were not what we saw in the dark. Also our bill ended at $82 and we had a ton of bug bites to show for the room. Oh I forgot we had no running water, in the sink or toilet and the toilet lid fell off the toilet. We should have picked the $5 a room hotel I bet the story would have been just as good. We were up at 5am and just walked around until the sun came up. Grabbed some food paid and left for the border. It was a nice ride during the day. Lots of pretty scenery small towns along the way. Rich was led into the fine are of nice corners and speed along the way.

We hit the border about 9am and found very litte people there at all. This is going to go smooth we hoped. We got out of Nicaragua really fast and started entering Honduras for our simple 80 mile ride to El Salvador. The line inside the Iduana (customs) to get permissions for the bikes to enter. A helper tells us for $10 he will bypass the whole line and get us right out. He went right to the back office and picked up blank papers had the agents stamp and sign them and then he went into a back room with 2 other people and filled out all the paperwork. About an hour and a half later he comes out and say just one more moment. 1/2 hours later he is instructing the customs workers how to fill out the stamps in our passports. We could not figure out why the customs agents in uniforms are listening to a grubby little kid (border swindler, called a helper). So we finally get our papers and someone notices that Scott has a red KLX on his passport and paperwork and Rich has the same bike in his passport and paperwork. Where is the BMW. The helper in his broken english says no problem, no problem I fix for you. Goes in the back room and tries to write BMW over KLX and brings back the passport. There is no way this is going to fly since the same paperwork is used through many of the next countries. So back in the office he re does Scotts paperwork, not properly since we still fighting the mistake at every border. He comes back out and they still have the wrong vin number on the paperwork. They swore they changed the computer so that it will show the correct vin for us. Hand scribbled a note on the paperwork re stamped his passport we finally get out of our small simple little border crossing.

We drive like hell though Honduras and arive at our second border in one day. It had to be the fastest one yet. We almost made it right through until we noticed they put the wrong vin number on Scotts paperwork. Easily corrected once they saw the note at the bottom of his papwerwork. We go to El Salvador to get permission to bring the bikes in. They asked if we will be out in less that 24 hours......sure we can do that. Ok we will type up some special paperwork and get you on your way. We were out of there in less than 2 hours with paperwork we had to sign that said if we stay past the 24 hours we agree to pay $1200 each bike.

We get up early and take off on our journey. We left La Union about 7am after 4 nice showers...each We head up the coast and stop in a nice little beach town before the curvey section. We end up meeting a guy that speaks really good  english and he invites us back to his place. He is building a small RV park along a little river that leads to the ocean maybe 100 yds before the breakers. He said we could catch red snapper right there. We looked at his cashew trees and tasted the fruit. We told him we would come back and visit some time.

So we are heading to the border enjoying the curves and the great sunsine when we hit tunnel number one. Wow talkabout turning off the lights. Our tinted shields and tunel number one felt like space mountain with sunglasses on. But let me tell you Tunnel number 2 will scare the crap out of you. It is much longer and much darker and very scarry. Turn your lights at night and drive for a half a mile and see how you like it.

We took off and really broke Rich in on corners and speed now. We had non stop corners for the next 35 miles running along the ocean. Then we turned and headed up to Ahachpan in the mountains for another small border. Lots of fun windy roads and school kids everywhere. We drove through two small little towns with very rough cobble stone streets. We stopped at a place next to a church with a view of the mountains. We had a good lunch and headed to the border with about 2 1/2 hours to spare. Nice litte border but they would not let us pass. He said we could pay $1200 each bike and he would let us pass. We could see Guatamala and the nice little bridge....cant we just go over there please... I guess our special paperwork said we could only go through the big border we wanted to avoid. Now we have 1 1/2 hours to save $3600 and only 70 miles of very curvy mountain roads with school kids and trucks to avoid. We made it in 1 hour and 5 minutes and got our exit papers stamped about 10 minutes before they expired. Rich stayed right by us the whole way. I think he is ready for Mexico. We did not slow down for anything. He even tried to push a delivery truck out of the way a little ditch running and he was back on track. We passed police officers...military personal at twice the speed and they just waved us on. We really love this country.

We are now sitting in the Guatamalan entry with yet another possible problem. They have this new rule that all bikes have to remain out of the country for 90 days if they exit. We are sitting at 80 days. Oboy I hope this is not what kills the trips. We might be burning all the bikes


Things are looking good though they just took some money from us to renew the permisions. Said they will look the other way this time.

It is really hard to explain what it is like standing around for 3-4 hours (a good border crossing) in the hot sun with all your gear on. Nothing to do but look at trucks and people and garbage. Just wondering when do we get to leave.

Tonight we left at dusk once again. I have to tell you the cars and trucks are a real treat when you are passing and they have no lights. Both Rich and I met a on coming car on a corner tonight. It is a real treat, but we ended the evening in a really nice hotel with some one singing in the back ground.

One more day and we will be through with all the borders and finally get to ride and just have fun heading north.

Favorite photos:  Not sure what day is what but we went the wrong way down a street and ran in to a funeral in progress.....I know we should have respected the dead but the hearse was so old and very cool we had to get a photo. There was a horse that went right throug the border with out having to stop for permission. Thats it our bike need to be 1hp and we should be fine. Oh almost forgot. There was a casket on a truck.......wondering what kind of permission is needed for that. Surely a passport for the dead sole is required. We tried to get a photo but we missed the opportunity. It was sitting not just in the back of a truck but sideways up on the ladder rack. The stuff you see in the borders.......

Day 7

Day 7.  We are in Mexico. We left early in the morning heading to a city where I could get my tire changed. It took about 2 hours to get it changed and find local money to pay for it. All the bank machines seemed to be out of money. Scott changed his oil and we set off for a small border up in the mountains. 300 miles later we found it. We passed 10,000 feet in elevation to get there and lots of curvy roads. The views were really spectacular. Rich and Scott almost got blown off their bikes it was a fun site to watch. The both in front of me and went around a corner and the wind was so strong it really almost took them off their bikes. Rich did awesome on a full day of corners. I think he is a little tired though. Check out the photos and the track.....links below.   Oh the border only took us 20 minutes. We skipped checking the bikes into Mexico....ooops

 

Day 8.....Smiling Big

 

We are now making really good time. We did 450 miles today. We started in Comitan....what a great place to stay and travel from. There are so many points of interest from this city, including waterfalls, lakes and mountain hikes. Too bad we did not have time on this trip. 

Today we traveled up to 8000 feet twice and 39 degrees in tempature. The mountains reminded us of traveling over some of our Oregon Passes back in the 1800's. Tons of pine trees and little wooden cabins all burning wood to stay warm. The views were so spectacular and the roads were so curvy we just smiled and rode on. Sorry not many photos from the ride today. It was hard enough to hold onto the handle bars today. We pushed all the limits with both the roads and other drivers. We won most of the battles and had such a good time laughing and counting our blessings, well most of them. Coming back here would be a blast. We drove over 250 miles of curves and ended down at the coast and a cool 80 degrees.  We hit a high of 100 degrees today from the 39 degrees it was very welcoming.

We are currently sitting in Puerto Angel on the beach, with a great view. Fishing boats and friendly people all around. What a nice ending for the day. We even had 30 miles of curves to finish off the day. I think Rich is hooked on our riding style or at least he is holding on to keep up....lol

Well more tomorrow.

Day 9  Making good progress now

 

Ok, I forgot some good stuff on the last couple of days. Coming across the Guatemalan border was a casket on top of a Ladder rack of a pickup.  We missed the photo but we are still wondering, Passport, paperwork, permission to travel into Mexico in a casket. There has to be a window for that? 

Within a few miles we ran into another funeral going down the middle of the street. It looked to be a very traditional funeral. Everyone was in purple outfits head to toe. We had to stop and watch and try to keep our bikes quiet for a little time while they passed. We were at about 6000 feet in elevation when we came upon this event. We would have taken photos but we really felt guilty for doing it at the last funeral that we passed. 

 

Once we hit the Mexican we also started hitting our favorite "tope's" (speed bumps) Poor rich was a little surprised. They do hurt quite a bit on the ole bottom especially after a 12 hour ride.  So you understand these tope's very in width and height and we hit them at full speed. We like them because we can pass more cars at one tope then you can imagine. The only issue is all the cars are randomly moving from side to side to find the best spot to cross with out ripping off their suspension. At the same time the on coming traffic is doing the same thing. So having a skinny motorcycle we have lots of options if you are quick and brave. Scott has a little more difficulty since he has very wide bags on the back......come on scott catch up...Now for the rest of the story. Topes not only very is size they very in quantity meaning anyone and everyone makes one out of what ever materials they have and put them where ever they feel. So now you are following a group of cars and out of nowhere a tope appears. Brakes and weaving cars it is our now our move. We end up off to the sides down the middle and come out the other end with  lots of comments in our helmets. This happens every 5-10 minutes and usually about 3-10 topes in a row.  We get lots of stares as we roar over the bumps and check our luggage to make sure it is still attached.  I should video the ballet sometime ... if only I had enough hands. I will try and get one for you.

So now we are caught up to day 9.....We lost Scotts luggage and Rich dumped his bike in the middle of Acapulco. There was so much construction and mud and gravel he just went down. I felt for him I did the same thing in the middle of Hanoi.  A few honks and beeps we were on the way with just a little pride hurt.  We all pretty much hated that city and just kept fighting our way through the traffic....and I mean fighting. Scott complaining again about how wide he is.

So now lets talk about Scotts luggage. It has taken a beating after hitting I bet over a thousand topes. We leave the city and hit this toll road. Great more money. Only 24 peso's about $2 usd. The road looks pretty good for about 2 miles then all goes wrong. We are taken off the nice road and down to mud, dirt and rocks, down hills, up hills huge pot holes. I just took off passing everyone, thats what these bikes are made for. I hear Scott through the headset. I almost lost the bike in a big pot hole. After all those topes I guess a hole is different. I looked in my mirror and see a big black box go flying off behind him. To more sections later I asked him have you check your luggage...is it still there?  O crap he says I have to go back. A nice guy in a Toyota pick up grabbed the bag and gave it back to him....nice guy after we blew them all off the piece of crap toll road. 

So we are driving along on this so called new road at 75 miles an hour and with out warning the road just ends. No signs no flags just houses and trees at the end. We quickly jumped left on to the old road and kept on riding. Boy how to people do this in a car. Slower is my best guess.  But you have to love the Topes the are our best friends even though our butts get really sore at the end of the day.

Day 10.... Enjoying the Sun and Fun

Running stats to this day.

1-tire  (keith)

2-Off bike experiences (Rich) Great dismounts

3-Should be 3 but he saved the last one

4-Lost luggage (scott) Twice it hit the ground, once Rich and I had to play dodgeball with it. Yes the topes are winning this battle...lol

5-The amount of times Rich has run out of gas in the same day.

We had a great day riding up to Puerto Vallarta. Just under 500 miles for today. Started off really cool at only 59 degrees Rich and I decided on just tee shirts, boy that was a wrong move. 59 degreed and a wind chill factor of 70 mph is really cold. We left the hotel at 6am and froze utill about 9am. We will have coats on in the morning this time. Really good curves and views today. You must be tired of hearing this but we are having a blast riding in all this warm weather. We flew by great little palapas along the ocean and sea side restaurants. We stopped by one this morning and had coffee, eggs and Sausage with freshly made tortillas. The food has been really good. We ended the day north of Puerto Vallarta in a little off the beaten path place. 

We will need to explore this area again south of Puerto Vallarta and see what else we can find.

Hopefull we will hit the ferry in time tomorrow and make it over to the Baja.

Salud....

By the way I included some of the mild ballet dancing we do in busy towns. I tried a really difficult dance but I could not even hold the camera all the way through one of the easy ones. You will see because I dropped the camera in a realivity easy dance. Enjoy try and keep your eyes open there is alot going on.

Day 11....Missed the Ferry.....On Purpose

Ok I guess the movies did not work so well. I moved them to Youtube. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RtFc9IL5how

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUHFF7xnAH4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4rDdieNFkg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u0NKbVbFgYY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6eTGewvIbT8

We started the day out like usual left the hotel at 6:15 am. It was still dark because we are so close to a time zone change. We decided we would just take it slow and keep on movin. That lasted about 5 minutes when a guy from Texas in a nice chevy pickup passed us doing 95......off we went. It was kind of a cool morning 56 degrees and foggy. We had our jackets on this morning and headed up into the hills. The texan did not slow down a bit for for the topes so we just kept up with him. Scott took him on a straight and Rich and I stayed right behind him. About and hour later we were following him through the corners and he was just fast enough to keep us behind him so not to make a risky pass on the dew ridden roads. Scott came up with a plan.....I will slow him down and then you guys pass on the corner which he would know is clear. All we heard from Scott was oh crap stop stop....he came around a sharp corner to a couple of cars who hit each other. He went left and barely made it by. Rich and I went right and skirted the edge and made it by....the texan was stopped dead in his tracks with a near headon with a little yellow car. There was so much traffic coming both ways we really don't know if he ever made his way out of that mess. You have to love motorcycles with radios.

So we continued on enjoying the cool brisk morning with out a race. We ended up on a couple toll roads and were bored beyond belief. Rich needed fuel as usual so we hopped off on to the Libre (free) road and started looking for fuel and food. We found both. The breakfast we found was the usual roadside grill we stopped at the last three days. We were flying by and saw a few tables out front. We did a quick uturn and went back to see if they had coffee. Then asked for comida (food)  we understood eggs and sausage.....great give us 3.....  This is when the commotion always starts. A younger male gets up and starts a fire a little diesel some wood and the metal plate starts getting hot. There is a pile of tortilla dough sitting right there with a cover over it. They ball up a little bit and this time squished it with two heavy blocks of old wood with a couple of hinges. 30 minutes later fresh hot tortillas coming rolling off the grill. The water is hot for our fresh instant hot coffee and the eggs and chorizo (sausage) is being served on the finest plastic plates. Wait thats not all...the Spanish cartoons are shut off while a blender is pugged in to blend some really small red peppers and other ingredients for the best bowl of hot and spicy salsa...what a great way to start out the day. Hour and a half later we were full and trying to leave....but not until after Rich was drug out back to view the mans goat...Don't know why but he insisted on show Rich his prized goat. It really feels like you are pulling over to a neighbors house you don't really know and asking them to fix you breakfast.

They are so excited for the customers they go out of the way to make sure you are fully satisfied.

We get on the bikes and head up to our destination of Mazatlan to catch the ferry over to Baja California. Scott hit a bird and feathers are everywhere, but we must trudge on. We arrived a little early for the ferry. The military searched us for drugs in all our luggage by hand and then by a dog. Other than Scotts baby powder nothing was found. We parked and started talking to the guy parking us and asked if we could check out the ferry. We then found out it was going to be $200 per bike for a 14-16 hour ferry ride with no wifi....and no beds to sleep....the wifi was the deal breaker so we hopped on our bikes and continued north. Big mistake we hit a toll road that cost us $20 each and we were once again bored and just sitting on our bikes falling asleep. 

Tomorrow we are going to look for roads that are FREE (libre) and much funner. Toll roads (except for one so far) don't have pot holes, traffic or pedestrians to avoid. With out these things we get bored tired and stupid. Anyone can hold the throttle wide open and stare off to the sunset. We need challenges to keep us occupied.  BTW rich ran out of gas again today. We will get him trained soon I hope. He said his butt is killing him and needs a butt massage. 

New stats: Keith broke his rack again..Scott broke his own GPS this time (actually last week)....maybe last time too. Not my fault.

2 days before we hit the USA border..Can't wait to come back and explore some more.

The missing breakfast video.

http://www.yo5D2xyB14qSIutube.com/watch?v=

This is part of one of our typical morning breakfast traditions on the road.

You have to love the rooster in the background.

Day 12.....BORING

We are in San Carlos, nice place but the ride here was so straight and boring.  Tomorrow we will cross back into the United States.

Day 13   just boring USA road time.

Day 14....

We ended up in Las Vegas today. Visited with Scotts Grandson and looked out houses here. What a fun interesting afternoon. 

So we landed in Las Vegas and spent the day with Scott's  Grandchild and looking at houses here...

OH! lets not forget Scott laid his bike down today......YEP! I am the only one one this trip that has kept my bike on at least 1 tire the whole time. 1 tire because I am always doing wheelies down the road. Both Rich and I had to go help the poor guy lift his bike up.

Scott gave me such a bad time for laying my bike over last time I had to mention this great accomplishment for myself.

No one took any photos of any of the bikes on the ground so you will have to use your imagination. It will probably never happen again but it was great to see once.

We are going to leave our bike here in Las Vegas for a couple of months while the weather warms a little to ride them back to Oregon, maybe in May. We are planning to switch to off road tires and ride home on the backroads.

So enjoy all the photos and videos until next time.

Photos

http://www.dropbox.com/gallery/7894535/1/Panama%202011%20%28the%20return%29?h=cc10e0

Track

http://www.everytrail.com/my_trips.php?user_id=167939&order=creation_date

YouTube - Videos from this email

Trip down to Panama

Hello everyone,

Here is a website that I will post our progress through Mexico on our
way down to Panama. We will see if this works correctly on our way to
Panama. We are leaving December 1st on our motorcycles and fly back
Dec 29th. Leaving our motorcycles down there to continue riding
further south later in April.

Feel free to pass along the website. I will continue to clean it up
and make it better.

www.vintagedirtbiker.com

I need to do some more testing. There are more maps and data under
RIDES on the left. I will need to write some more descriptions when I
figure out what they all do. Depending on what kind of connection my
phone will have will depend on where the map will be posted. So I
included all the spots to look just to be safe. On the top of the
rides page is a link to My Maps which includes the route we will be
taking. You can zoom in and see some of the great roads we picked just
because we are on our motorcycles.

We are crossing the boarder now. Tracking is on. Everything is great.

1st Day

First day is done and recorded. Sitting in the bar having a beer.

2nd Day

Ok we finished day two. Few more miles today. Everything good. New map being posted now.

3rd Day

Ok we finished about 250 miles of roads better than McKenzie pass hwy 242. Day 3 ended in Puebla at the foot hills of a smoking volcano. In a really fancy hotel. The day went smooth, bikes ran great the passing was insane. Views were outstanding. Hotel is outstanding spooning will be fun tonight.

Having trouble uploading maps at this really plush hotel. I guess I will do it the hard way and it should be up there tomorrow morning, I hope.

4th Day

4th day was even better than the 3rd day and the 3rd day was outstanding, we talked about it until late at night all snuggled in our two beds. Lol. We road some very cool roads today, the passing was off the wall. It was like being on a supermoto track that never ended. We had more than a hundred miles of nothing but curves and I mean curves after curves. We were laughing and chatting and admiring the roads the whole way. All the bikes are running great. We left the smog in Puebla early in the morning with frost on our bags. We were up to 80 degrees by mid afternoon and shedding our clothes. We are now  in Oaxaca a very nice tourist town. We took lots of photos of some really spectacular views. Had lunch for 4 for $5 not counting the beer. Our new hotel has indoor parking in the lobby. A great ending to a perfect day riding.

5th Day

Sorter day but made it to the coast. We rode 168 miles on some more really nice roads. Everyone was pretty beat today. Had a late lunch. We should make it to the boarder tomorrow. We will probably not try to cross until the next day. Weather was really good today. High of 86. This beach city was not what we expected but it was good to see the ocean. I did upload some more photos and I will probably catch up on everyone else's camera later.

We did have some fun chasing and leading the BMW club earlier in the day. We were keeping up with the Triumph and Ducati that finally got around us. I watched the Ducati drift almost right off in front of me. He was pushing
pretty hard to stay out front. There were about 15 of them total going down the road for a sunday breakfast. We stopped and chatted for quite awhile. Scott made a nice trade for a BMW club of Mexico shirt. Picture later.

Thanks for the medicine mom....everyone is taking it.

6th Day

6th day is posted. Not much else to say. More photos too

7th Day

8th Day

Ok I have uploaded Day 8. There are some very interesting detours on this route. We definitely got lost in Chiquimulila we were supposed to go north and cross El Salavador on the northern border crossing. Looking at the map now it looks like we were really close but chose to go back and cross the southern border. We ended up in a really nice town and a nice hotel. Would recommend this city to anyone.

9th Day

Day 9 was very interesting. We stayed in the same town for one more day. Ahuachapan, El Salvador

We found some very interesting places. We found this really poor dirt road that lead to a nice hot springs. Just a little further up we found this wonderful little coffee plantation. It is out in the middle of the jungle and looks to be owned by someone with a lot of money. It had these really nice natural swimming pools heated by the hot volcanic water coming up out of the ground. THe house was large and very nice for entertaining Star Bucks guests or someone. It was way out of place for the rest of the area. The people around here are very nice and friendly. We wandered through a couple of towns on the bikes looking for the loop that we saw on our maps and only found really bad dirt, rocky roads out. If you look at our tracks you can see we did a lot of u turns. I drove down some of the roads hoping someone would follow but everyone voted to go back to the paved roads. But the coffee plantation was definitely a good find.

I uploaded a bunch of photos today. The link is down below I also organized the folder by days to make it easier to view.

We are off to see if we can find a boat to cross over to Nicaragua otherwise we will have to go through Honduras which we are told takes a long time to get in for the couple hour ride we have to cross the country. So we are going to La Union, El Salvador and find a captain that might have a boat we can talk into taking us across. Sounds like a challenge, and it was unanimous that we must try.

10th Day

Day 10. We had a very warm ride out of the high cold mountains. Lots of cows in the road today. Nobody hit them though. The photos today were pretty spectacular of the high volcanic peaks. We ended in a town called La Union with great view of the ocean and a Comfort Inn Hotel. They are hosting a wedding party tonight. I am sure we can pass on some advice.  This Comfort Inn is really fancy for only $29 a night. Wow.  Check out the view in the photos.

We are off to Honduras and Nicaragua all in one day....boy time is flying
by.

11th Day

Very long day not very many miles. Two borders in one day was pretty rough. The road through Honduras proved to be true. There were so many pot holes we had to dodge and cars dodging pots holes if that made sense at all. Basically it was a high speed free for all. You never knew who was moving where and when. On coming cars and cars in your lane are swaping sides to avoid pot holes all the meanwhile we are passing. Did I mention all the cows and the jumping goats in the road too. And our normal sneak pass on the right was blocked be people walking. What a mess. We made it out of Honduras and into Nicaragua all in one day, barely ....we had to do 3 miles at dusk with our tented lenses, we found a hotel fast. We don't have wifi here so I will have to upload the few photos we did take tomorrow.

12th Day

Day 12 is now done and uploaded. We made it down to a beach town in southern Nicaragua. The sunset was very nice. The map should tell the rest.

13th Day

Ok 13th map is uploaded. I am behind on the photos. We had a good ride today as the story I wrote with the map states.

14th Day

So day 14 was another great day. We left a very warm town called Jaco this morning and headed to a very busy city, San Jose. Once we got there we could not wait to get out. From there we climbed up to 11,000 feet in to the clouds, rain and cold weather. Once we got there we could not wait to get back down to the warm weather we left. Today we landed down near the Panama border. The roads today were remarkable to say the least, that was when there were roads left to drive on. I have added many more photos to all the folders. I finally grabbed the other cameras and started adding them. They will take all night to update at this hotel.

15th Day

Day 15. We are in Panama now. So far so good we landed at a great place. Photos going up now, map is already done.

16th Day

So we did about 180 miles before noon and got to our final destination. It was pretty boring road, straight and no fun traffic to dodge or pass. We had to run into Panama city to rent a car so we could do some grocery shopping. We had a little trouble driving a car again after 3000 miles on our bikes. The bumps are different and you have to be aware of more surface area on a car. On the bikes we just had to have enough room for our bags to squeeze up to the front of all the red lights and construction traffic. Some of us have
soft bags so if we guessed wrong we still made it. Poor Scott on his nice
BMW. But in a car we had to just wait like everyone else. I let scott drive
the car he was pretty nervous trying dodge all the pot holes and non
signaling cars.

The map to our final destination is up loaded. I will try and get some
photos of this place and other stuff we find up loaded later.