Panama

Biggest leaves we have ever seen!

Critter feet

Doesn't Lori look happy?  Torerential rain has pretty much defined our trip through Panama, especially now that we are in Panama City.  Between the daily afternoon rain, traffic gridlock and being constantly lost, we are not unhappy to be boarding the sailboat to Colombia.

Costa Rica

 In the cloud forest of Santa Elena sesrching for that elusive quetzal.

Turtles laying eggs at midnight on Playa Naranjo.

Nicaragua

Chris rides his moto through the restaurant and bar to the inner courtyard to park during our stay at Via Via in Leon, Nicaragua....don't try this at home folks!

Stories from the road

So, half an hour into Guatemala, the road is blocked by big trucks.  As per custom, we ride around them to the front of the line, about 2km. We get to the front and find a road block in place by the local village people protesting electricity rates.  It is high noon and hot! We talk to people and the road has been blocked for 3 hours already and who knows how much longer. So now we are at the front of the line and it is getting really crowded.  Tempers are starting to flare as some people are let through and others not.  Suddenly I got the feeling of what it could be like to be in the wrong at the wrong time.  If things turned bad, we were up front and centre in the middle of it with nowhere to go...... Thankfully it ended 1 hour later and we were at the front of a very long line of cars and trucks jostling for position.  Sometimes you can end up in the middle of something, even when it was not your intention.  My sweating was not due only to the heat!

Fixers and crossing the border....
I know lots of motorcyclers use fixers or helpers to assist them with the myriad of details in crossing borders.  Usually the 10dollars or so you give them is a good deal for you and for them.  So it was when we crossed from Guatemala to El Salvador.  Great guy helped us through and all went smoothly. We were accosted by a fixer at our next border....El Salvador to Honduras...actually, many people wanting to help us, so we went along.  Should have known, this guy was really pushy.  We ended up paying $45 for each moto at the Aduana which I am sure we did not need to.  No receipt, but I watched the fixer give the official the money and she took it so I assumed it was valid, but then after doing more photocopying, the fixers needed another $25 per bike to have all the details entered into the computer and another 12$ per bike for the fumigation fee.  This was just a bit too over the top and I said no and collected up all the paperwork and headed back to the bikes cursing away at him because by this time, I realized that we had probably been taken with the original 45 I gave him.  Him and his buddy were protesting the whole time that we would get arrested at the next checkpoint for not having all the paperwork in order and when I paid him $10 for his help he insisted that it wasn't enough.....why I paid him anything at all is beyond me...We left and crossed the border no problem so at least I had wisened up and saved us another 75$ in ripoff fees. Bad experience, but learned early in the trip...Next border Hondurous to Nicaragua we said a resounding NO to all the fixers and did it ourselves no problem.  So my advice to those of you using fixers, sure the 10$ you might pay them is worth it if they are honest, but not all of them are....these guys even had an official looking id card.  They try to make it appear more confusing than it is....if you do it yourself, it is much more tranquillo and the officials will tell you what you need to do.  Besides, aren't border crossings just part of the adventure????

El Salvador

Riding the highlands with volcanos on the horizon

Centro in Juayua

There's the corn for our tortillas drying on the side of the road...

Guatemala

Hi

Our bikes share the hostal I

in Antiqua, Guatemala

Hiking in the jungle near Panachajel, Lago Atitlan

in Halloween in Antigua having fun

Adventuras

New road being built into Batopilas...gone is the awesome old road Iinto the Canyon..apparently the road into Uriche is still good

Jungle trails Near Panachajel, Guatemala

MEXICO

11 days riding in Mexico and we haintoe experienced:
~near end of rainy season so really lush and green..jungle like in the south
~camping in the dry desert like north in Chihuahua, Sonora and Durango is great compared to the wet south
~putting in long days 8.6 hours max so far and sometimes not so many km's
~up early and riding is heaven while it is still cool
~topes,trucks,and road construction keep it slow.
~amazing curving roads through the mountains...wonderful
~OXXO everywhere so brewed coffee there if no too hot

Lori's front tire..finally getting changed!

Many rockslides on the new road Into thr Copper Canyon..maybe should have left well enough alone

2014 South America on Motos

Hola!  Here we are 12 days into this adventure and it is already amazing.  Rode quickly through Canada and the USA as only have 6 months this time so want to spend as much of it in Mexico and south as possible.  Have already booked the Stahlratte for Dec 8th for the crossing to Colombia, so pressure on to get to Panama City by then.
Crossing into Mexico at Ajo was uneventful except now they take a 400USD deposit for any
vehicle as well as the 58.12USD import fee!!!! Really making sure you take those motos out of theirs country with you! Other than that, really professional ...impressive.
Rode Hwy 16 from Hermosillo to Creel in the Copper Canyon...wonderful two days of curves and amazing mountain scenery.  Haved camped every night so far and one night out of Hermosillo a rancher insisted we camp at his place and it turned out to be a really great experience..the family was so giving and had so little...a humbling experience.
Now down in Batopilas in the Copper Canyon.  The road in was a terrible disappointment when compared to our last trip.  The old amazing dirt steep switchbacking road has been replaced with 2 lane pavement that is still in the works and the road is an incredible mess and even the two lane is down to single lane due to rockfall.  The road grade is insane. Chris lost the rear brakes completely using first gear, and she is going to be a mess for years to come.

Cambodia

Greetings everyone from Kuala Lumpar, Malaysia.  It is time for us to reflect back on the month we spent in Cambodia.  (We also visited Cambodia back in October (rainy season) 2006)  So we left Vancouver on January 2nd bound for Shanghai (some 18 hrs distant) where we held over for 5 hrs. before completing the final 5hr. flight to good old Thailand.  This was one brutally uncomfortable flight aboard a Airbus 700...and the strange thing is that the China East Airlines staff did not allow anyone to open any side window shades the entire trip...a cave would have been more friendly!

So 'Blingkok' was the same old same old...good food and cheap beer which makes it a great place to base from.  (We also lost the 3rd somewhere over the top of the world and landed on the 4th)  A few days later we hit the road NW for Cambodia arriving in Siem Reap the same day... a bit different from 06 when it took over 10 hrs from the Cambodia border to reach Siem Reap via a horrific pot-holed dusty one lane road!  This place is tourist central and I doubt it there is any single feature in the world that receives a many visitors as Angkor Wat in Siem Reap!  We cannot recognize anything from 06 and tourism figures indicate that visitors doubled from 06 to 08 to 2 million annually and the amazing growth in tourism continues!  Of course no one goes to Siem Reap without visiting Angkor Wat and we paid up for three days two of which we spent riding bicycles through the ruins, which are as amazing as ever. 

 One big disappointment was that the neatest temple system called Ta Phrom was being rebuilt.  In 06 we had to explore our way through the ruins which were left in their original shape since being discovered by a french explorer in the 1800's...the huge trees growing throughout and through the ruins were amazing (the movie Tomb Raiders with Angelia Jolie was filmed here), but today there are hundreds of tourists travelling through these same ruins on board walks and all of the neatest areas are being rebuilt with all kinds of metal and wood scaffolding...its badly needed but sure ruins the experience!  We also checked out some remote ruins and stream carvings that we didn't see last trip.
After 5 days we bounced down some pretty rough dirt/blacktop roads to Phnom Phen, Cambodias capital of 1.5 million.  This place was pretty dodgy in 06...today is is close to Bangkok...what an amazing change!  Just don't eat at the KFC (we think they substituted crow for chicken) nor the Dairy Queen (offered about 5 icecream options and tasted like it was made with goat milk!...otherwise great food...oh yeah and the beer is CHEAP. (also great Margarittas for 1.50 and some amazing food options!
Next stop is Sen Monoram which is a mountain village about 10 hrs northeast of Phnom Phen...I should add 10 hrs of hell ride via a bus that resembled good old India!  None the less we made it and spent a few days exploring some waterfalls, farms and small patches of jungle that remain intact around this high elevation (we were actually kind of cold!) using 5 dollar a day scooters...a great way to go but hell on the ass! (One of the long drops was so bad (flooded) that by the time I got into it my urge to crap was replaced by the urge to puke.  Back to Phnom Phen and civilization!
Here we come Kampot...a sleepy colonial town resting on the shore of the Bay of Thailand.  Checked into the Kampot River Bungaloos for a big 6 (dollars that is)...had to share our stick and thatch hut on stilts with a couple of cool 8 inch gecko's and various flying creatures (Lori wasn't impressed!)  Renting motos to check out some cool local mountains and ruins was a ton of fun and a few days later we moved about 30 km down the road to the small community of Kep where we did some jungle hiking (in other words crawling up and down slippery hills in thick bush and trees without seeing anything! (anything that moves has been eaten by the locals unless it is poisonous!)  Still a very laid back place to visit and actually got some beach time. 
Back to Phnom Phen for a couple of days of relaxing (checked out the torture prison, Mekong River boat ride and our old digs around PP where we spent time in 06) 
From Phnom Phen we travelled the roads to the city of Battambang and spent another day riding motos and visiting some pretty amazing caves (killing caves where the Khymer Rouge bludgeoned thousands of people then threw them down into caves where their bones remain)  There was also a few good ruins to check out and just by riding around one could get a pretty good sense of what folks in the farming communities lived like...life is pretty rough for these good natured, hard working folks.
At this point in time we decided that we would fly to Malaysia vs. busing it back to Thailand then down to Kuala Lumpar where we are flying out to the Phillipines on the 5th.  So to get back to the closest airport (Siem Reap) we took a boat across Tonle Sap Lake and this truly was an amazing day.  This is dry season in Cambodia and the rice farmers (number one export is rice) are located on the lowlands around Tonle Sap preparing the fields.  Most live on boats but also have temporary tents etc. set up as once rainy season comes only a few places are above flood waters.
So we had a fantastic time in Cambodia but the old saying that the first time is the best time is true...it is the new places that we visited that we enjoyed the most in terms of finding new and exciting things to do and see.  The Cambodian people are pretty amazing so it is good to see that their country is definately doing alot better financially than back in 06.  However compared to countries like Malaysia, Cambodia has serious problems that will be very difficult to overcome.  Their population is rising at over 2% per year and despite having 25% of their land-base in Parks the environmental degradation is horrific...illegal logging is rampant and in terms of litter and water pollution Cambodia matches India with stinking raw sewage pouring into the Mekong right in front of the best tourist areas in Cambodia.  Poverty appears as bad as India yet in Phnom Phen there are Rolls Royce dealerships (500,000 $US), Range Rovers (150,000) Porches, Toyota PUs and we even saw some Ford 450's with 50 inch tires on at least 20 inch lift kits (can hardly fit on the roads!) along with hundreds of crippled beggars, mothers with a pile of young kids etc.  Looks like the ultimate capitalist state and government corruption is daily news. 

Food for thought

Was wandering around today and found some snacks in the market....

Savory deep fried cockroaches

Toasty frogs

Dried fish

I think I will give it a pass.

A big gecko ....10 inches long has taken up residence in our bungalow.  This is probably why we haven't seen any critters living in all the cobwebs. He is a shy creature and doesn't like getting his picture taken.  Beautiful blue spots..reminds me of Terisa and Matt's gecko in Had Yuan.

Waterfall Adventures in Eastern Cambodia

Scootering out of Sen Monorom.  Waterfalls, steep trails and red dirt jungle roads.

Angkor Wat Cambodia

Jungle taking back the ruins.

So, Angkor Wat and Siem Reap have changed (of course) since we were last here in 2006. Lots more of a tourist infrastructure in Siem Reap...feeling almost like a more civilized Kho San in Bangkok...we are relaxing along the banks of the Kampot river in sw Cambodia, a truly beautiful spot and at 6 bucks per night cheap.  We share our room with a bunch of Cambodian wildlife inc spiders and bats and something large crapped on Lori's sleeping bag yesterday.  Big changes at Angkor Wat since our last visit...Cambodge looks absolutely rich compared to 8 years ago which is fantastic as these folks are truly wonderful people that have lived through hell.  Its too bad that Angkor has  really been cleaned up...lots of the best old ruins that we visited previously are out of bounds.  None the less biking around was a great experience.  Phnom Phen was a revelation...it is full of tourists, many with kids and or ancient like us.  It is almost like another Bangkok and beer is 25 cents a glass.  We then took a bus from Hell to the mountain town of Sen Monorom where we rented scooters 7 bucks per day, and had a great time exploring some remnant jungle patches and waterfalls.  So it has been good so far.