Destroyed or Lost

okay, Chris and Lori have been having this discussion for awhile now, so time to tally who has lost or destroyed more things on this trip.... here is the list

Lori

set of keys for the bike (but she thinks Chris actually lost them)

one digital camera (destroyed)

MP3 player

2 computer hard drives

Chris

camera and lens (dropped into a mangrove swamp in Honduras)

1 pair of reading glasses

1 walkie talkie

one pair of sunglasses

one digital camera

(all above destroyed when truck runs over his jacket)

one small padlock and keys

riding jacket

3 1/2 pairs of riding gloves

tripod

daypack

1 set of moto keys

to be continued.....

Costa Rica Costa Rica

A backroad to Costa Rica's Volcan Arenal provided great views and a great ride!

Lori and sunset on Playa Tamarindo, one very busy tourist beach along Costa Rica's pacific coast

One tree contains an entire ecosystem in the Monteverde cloud forest reserve!

Lori and the Hondogs on the Caribbean Coast of Costa Rica...great fun for sure!

Caribbean Coast...this says it all!!!

New wiring..new sprockets (for you Felix!)=New Hondog!!!

From Panama into Costa Rica...see that semi in the background (followed by about 2o more!) According to the Costa Rican officials the one way bridge blocked by Costa Rican semis is Panama's problem, which in turn was our problem when we tried to cross this border!

Blue Jean Rana (frog), one of the poisonous dart frogs in Costa Rica

I hate spiders, but don't consider tarantulas spiders! But I have to admit I picked up this 5 inch orange-kneed tarantula only after Peter (who has owned tarantulas) picked it up!

After our nice relaxing stay at Boca del Toro it time to hit the road norte to Costa Rica. Today (Oct 19th) we are crossing at the remote village of Chanquinola..but first we have to traverse a series of single lane, rotten wood bridges over several rivers that cause Lori more than a little stress (and for good reason as a slip means a 20 m plus drop into a raging river. One has to be a magician to figure out how to get to this border crossing and when we do we are in for a surprise! A single lane ramp leads to yet another ancient single lane bridge. First we need to park in the doorway of the immigration office (literally) so that the semi’s from the Costa Rica side can pass into Panama. After getting stamped out we face the challenge of crossing this bridge. A line up of Costa Rican semis stretches on forever and they will not give me even a minute to cross (only one vehicle on the bridge at a time)...finally I ask Lori to run across to the Costa Rican side to block truck traffic by standing in the middle of the bridge approach. When she tried this the semi drivers hit their horns and the Costa Rican police came out and forced Lori off the road. When she explained the situation (we only needed a couple of minutes to pass) they said “This is Panama’s problem..not Costa Rica’s”. However her blockage gave me enough time to get my bike on the bridge and by blocking pedestrian traffic and various other methods we are across and into Costa Rica in just over 2 hrs.
Our first stop is Puerto Viejo..a tranquille village on the Caribbean Coast...a nice hostal with a pool and some nice beach scenery and a very laid back lifestyle sure felt great. We spent some time exploring various beaches up and down the coast and then headed inland to Fortuna.
We had already visited Fortuna (and Volcan Arenal) in March but this time we were rewarded with some nice clear views of the Volcano (which is strange considering that we are in the middle of rainy season!) Rainy season or not we have lots of tourists and the usual high prices for food (lodging isn’t to bad). Just to clarify..when we say high prices we are comparing prices to other Central and South American countries...in terms of cost Costa Rica is still as cheap or cheaper than Canada.
Leaving Fortuna we took a series of dirt roads around the shore of Lago Arenal..some beautiful views of the volcano and we also saw our first white-lipped Peccary. It is a beautiful ride with little traffic (actually most of the roads in Costa Rica are in good shape and very nice to ride as traffic is generally light with very nice scenery) as we make our way to the mountain village of Taliran where we holed up while a rain storm raged for most of the evening.
The next day we completed the ride to the pretty mountain village of Santa Ellena (Monteverde). There is lots to do here as Monteverde is supposed to be the most popular protected are in Costa Rica. What is strange about most of these villages is that the 20 or 30 km directly before the villages are still dirt road and in the case of Santa Elena (Monteverde) the road is pretty rocky but we can run it a lot faster than the trucks and bus. In Santa Elena we spent a day hiking in the cloud forest reserve (our hi-light was finding a orange kneed tarantula) that contains some spectacular cloud forest ecosystems...a single tree contains a entire living ecosystem! We also checked out the orchid gardens, the frog (rana) pond and literally walked the entire town.

As we drop out of the mountains we kiss the nice cool air goodbye and trade it for the humidly of the Pacific Coast as we spent several days at both Playa Tamarindo and Hermosa. This area of Costa Rica has been devastated by floods and judging by the absolute torrential rains that hit us the flooding is not yet finished!
Playa Tamarindo is one of the more expensive places to live and stay in Costa Rica and the amount of construction is progress is impressive. Here you find 200 dollar per night hotels but main streets full of mud and holes, no sidewalks, polluted beaches. While we were there we had a huge rainstorm and water was over 2 feet deep on mainstreet and flooding into fancy stores! This is supposed to be a surfers paradise but its definitely “yuppie” surfers compared to the dredlocked laid back surf scene in Puerto Viejo! (Because it is rainy season there are virtually no waves!) The road into Tamarindo is a mess..all that rain and semi-trucks running over a mud road makes for a big mess!
Playa Hermosa is more our style...laid back and we stayed at the Hostal Iguana which is owned by a Canadian that bought the place when he was 20 and smoked way to much dope to ever leave! Just kidding (well actually not!)...Ken is a really nice guy with the usual wife that is at least 20 years his Junior!
Its getting to late October and time to head north! So what did we think of Costa Rica? The people are really friendly! We think that the tourist industry tends to lean to the high-end tourist..not the cheap backpacker type. One needs to pay fees (fairly steep fees) to do just about everything. Costa Ricans take good care of their country...little garbage and their parks are well run. Lots, lots lots of tourists...numbers of tourists have risen 12% in the last year alone!!!

Panama again

One of the large container ships pass through the Miraflores Locks on the Panama Canal. Thirty to forty ships cross the canal each day and pay 60 to 200 thousand dollars for the 40 hour passage. (About one tenth the cost of crossing around S America)

Close up of the beautiful Blue Morpho butterfly

Central American tarantula

Felix, Lori and I riding the dirt road from Carti on the Caribbean Coast to Panama City through the San Blas Cordillera mountains.

San Felipe is known as the dangerous part of Panama City but the old dilapidated buildings are gorgeous and are slowly being rebuilt in the old town which was designated a UNESCO World Heritage site due to the unique architecture of this old part of Panama City.

The 25 meter tall Cathedral is one of the few remaining structures on the old original site of Panama City. In 1568 pirate Henry Morgan (the Irish devil) destroyed Panama City (as well as the port cities of Portabelo and Lorenzo) The city was then moved to the San Felipe area.

Some pretty cool trees in the Panamanian jungle...don't want to think of the critters and varmints living in this tree!

Lori in the ruins of the old city of Panama (Viejo Panama)

Sailing Colombia to Panama via San Blas

October 5th - 9th We sailed from Cartagena, Colombia to Porvenir, Panama on the Stahlratte - a 100 ft sailing ship built in the early 1900's. We spent 4 days en route in the San Blas Island paradise. The San Blas archipelago are an autonomous region of Panama owned and governed by the Kuna people of Panama. So far they have resisted commercial tourism on the 350+ islands so there is very little tourist infrastructure making this area authentic and paradisaical. It`s 11 in the morning...October 5th and we are on board the Stahlratte, captained by none other than Captain Ludwig...one jovial fellow for sure! On board with us are the Hondogs, Felix and his BMW and about 15 other passengers. Today we leave for Panama via the San Blas Islands on the historic ship, the Stahlratte. Build in 1903 in Holland as a fishing vessel this ship is now owned by an association that leases and rents the boats out to pay for it maintenance costs.
Our cast-off is delayed somewhat by a visit from the Colombian Coast Guard...first a search of the ship that takes about 2 hrs after which one search crew leaves and returns with what we assume is a `drug sniffing mutt` (black lab). Some 2 hrs later we get the OK to leave but not before we have to sign a document that says that the coast guard completed the search without hassling people, treated us well, then we need to give finger prints!
For the next 24 hrs we sailed across the Caribbean Sea..the big blue! This ship is fantastic compared to the 41 foot sailboat we came over in...private rooms...and it sails so smooth that no one is sea-sick! Late afternoon finds us cruising into the San Blas islands under a gorgeous sunset and Captain Ludwig has us anchored in a idyllic spot...within swimming distance of three gorgeous coconut tree covered islands with white sand beaches! Man...this is heaven.
The next two days are spent eating, (we had cooking and clean up duties one day so got to spend time in the kitchen...oh boy!), drinking, swimming, swinging on ropes, exploring islands, having a great barbeque, reading, snorkeling and chilling with a fantastic group of people on the ship. Lori and I only spent the first night in our room and the next three nights out on the deck under a fantastic Caribbean sky...one of the few times we have seen the milky way in the tropics. The San Blas Island area has the second most number of lightning strikes of any place on earth and I can believe it...every night was a fantastic show of lightning..but no rain! Our time in the San Blas came to an end way too quickly...but the next portion of our trip begins when we hit shore in Panama. HOWEVER..to do this we must unload the motos into Kuna canoes...a somewhat nerve-racking operation as these are carved wood canoes, long in length but narrow in width. We may be nervous but the Kuna Indians figure no big problem and along with our three bikes toss in a full load of paying Kuna Indians! Once we hit the shore we continued up a narrow river for about 2km (here even the Kuna got a little nervous as the heavily laden canoe was barely able to make progress against the current ) after which we ended up unloading the motos in the river. Here we said goodbye to the friends we made on the Stahlratte (however we have continued to see some of them up to a month after leaving them on the banks of the Rio Carti) and started on the rough dirt track through the Cordillera San Blas (mountains) to the tarmac Darien Gap road which will lead us back to Panama City!

Stahlratte in the San Blas (constructed in Holland in 1903 as a fishing boat, the "Steel Rat" is a historic sailing vessel owned by a consortium of German folks that own the boat and rent it out to pay for upkeep and maintenance costs)

the Stahlratte gang

Kuna village in the San Blas Islands

off loading Lori's bike into a canoe on the Panama end......

3 motos in a Kuna canoe

We get boarded by the coast guard and the sniff dog before we leave Colombia - with cocaine selling for less than $5.00 a gram here, I wonder why?

relaxing on the boat

Kuna woman selling her molas

maybe we should stay....