From San Juan, we had a short ride to the border, and when we got there, we were glad we had left early, there were hundreds of people at the border, waiting to cross. It looked like we would be here for some time.
We parked up and tried to work out where to go first. As usual, a gaggle of “helpers” appeared to guide us through the process, but once again, we fought them off as politely as possible.
Outside one of the immigration buildings I spotted a KLR with US plates and at the window, talking to the clerk, I met John.
Like us, John was on his way to Costa Rica, and he asked us if he could ride with us to Playa Coco, our first stop. We told him we would love to have him along, and after a couple of hours of running from building to building with our papers and passports, we were in Costa Rica and heading to the coast. The clouds were gathering while we were going through the process at the border, and half an hour into Costa Rica, the heavens opened. We pulled off the road and into a little town in search of shelter, and stopped in a Pizzeria for our first meal in Costa Rica.

welcome to Costa Rica!

We ate the steaming Pizza, dried off, and went to survey the sky. It didn’t look like the rain was going to stop anytime soon, so we pulled on our waterproofs, and continued on our way to Coco.
We immediately disliked Coco. Saltboxes were dotted along the beach, and the town was dirty and characterless. The beach was a disappointment too, so we spent one night there before heading further down the Nicoya peninsula to Samara.
Samara is one of the last few remaining Tico towns. A small surf town, with a beautiful bay, a football field and a splattering of guesthouses and small hotels along the beach. This was about as far as you could get from the reckless tourist invasion of Coco, and we liked it immediately.
We found a couple of rooms in a hotel on the beach and went out to explore. It really didn’t take long. Samara was a very small place, but we all liked it. None of us could quite put our finger on it, but it certainly had something.

The beach was lovely, the people friendly , there was a little market , a couple of shops and enough restaurants , bars and cafes to keep us occupied.
We were walking through the town when I noticed a new bar was being built in the centre. I spotted the owner and we started chatting, I told him I could help him get the place up and running, after all I had opened many bars in London, as well as owning two of my own before I came out on the trip. We chatted and arranged for me come back in a couple of weeks, after Jacquie had left, to work at the bar.
It had been my plan from day one to stop and work in Costa Rica, and Jacquie would go back home and work too. Costa Rica was our half way point, and I was hoping that I would get some hefty tips from the American tourists who were dotted around the town.
A day later, we left Samara and pointed the bikes towards our next destination, Mal Pais, where an old school friend of mine lived, and I had promised her a visit.
We had a tough ride on unmade, unpaved and washed away roads, and finally pulled into Santa Theresa after my first river crossing, tired, muddy, and of course, hungry!

My first river crossing, Costa Rica

One day, there will be a road here!

We met up with my friend, Ruth, whom I hadn’t seen for some 20 years, and she helped us find a nice place to stay. That night, we attempted a BBQ on the beach, but the damp wood and damper air forced us back to one of Ruth’s friends’ apartment to finish off dinner after several aborted attempts to light a fire.
We hung out in Mal Pais for a couple of days, but the combination of bad weather, constant power cuts, and a lack of anything to do helped us in our decision to move on to the capital, San Jose. John wanted to stay and improve his surfing, so we said our goodbyes, and after a party in the main bar where I DJ’d once more, we made our way back out of Mal Pais and on to San Jose.

Mal Pais Beach

DJ Dan , rocking the house once more for a free dinner!

I had been invited by the Costa Rica Harley Owners Group to go on a ride with them on the Sunday, and I had also contacted an Italian guy now living in San Jose who rented out apartments. He had said that he would put us up for a couple of nights, so we rode to his place, spent a couple of nights there, and then went to meet the Harley posse at the dealership, only a couple of minutes away from his house.

Ready to roll, CR HOG Chapter at the dealership.

And a hearty Breakfast

We turned up at the dealers and were surprised by how many bikes had shown up for the ride, there must have been at least 40 bikes there, and more were turning up all the time.
There was a breakfast laid on for all the riders, and after a quick pre-ride briefing, in which Jacquie and I were introduced to the rest of the riders, we all headed off in a deafening rumble.

We rode out of the city and up into the mountains, we rode through the clouds and out the other side, we stopped off at a little mountain town that was celebrating its ”Saint’s Day” before looping back round and finished the day off in a cool biker bar just outside of San Jose.

We returned to our new Italian mate Paulo’s house for one last night, and in the morning we were back on the road and heading south once more to Puerto Viejo, on the Caribbean side of Costa Rica, in search of some drier weather.
We had a long ride, stuck behind what seemed like hundreds of trucks that were all crawling along the windy road. It turned out that one of the trucks had spilled its load, and the tailback went on for miles, even skipping down the middle of the road, we were help up by at least an hour, but 5 hours after leaving San Jose, we pulled into Puerto Viejo.

This was not our first Caribbean town, but it still surprised us at how different the two sides were. The Caribbean side all along central America had its very own identity. The aroma of Jerk chicken and marijuana filled the air. Black skinned Rastas cycled along the path next to the beach, and every bar was playing Bob Marley tunes. The town was a fair deal bigger than Coco and Samara, but still had a lovely easy going atmosphere. Again we bumped into some fellow travelers that we had met before, and we spent our first night at the bar at Rocking J’s with two American brothers we had met at Matilda’s.
Unfortunately the weather didn’t change, it was wetter than ever. In a beach town where everything is pretty much dependent on chilling on the beach, there ain’t much to do when it rains all day. We prayed for the sun to come out, but to no avail. We stayed one extra day just in case the weather broke, but it didn’t, so we headed back up to San Jose to hang out until it was time for Jacquie to fly home.
We really enjoyed San Jose. It felt good to be somewhere with a bit of life after so many sleepy, off-season beach towns. I hated the hostel we stayed in, but after being turned away from our first five choices, we would have taken anything with a bed and a roof!
We used the hostel as our base to explore the city; I went shopping for some essentials. The combat trousers I had been using as my riding pants had all but fallen apart, and we both needed new books and odds and sods.
Jacquie and I had one last dinner together in the city, and at 4 in the morning, I waved her off as she rode off in the bus to the airport. I was on my own again.

And so it came to pass…that after a few days riding round Costa Rica alone and a weekend in Jaco for the world surfing championships, I returned to Samara to work at Arriba, the bar I had spotted in construction on my previous visit.
I tracked down Glenn, the owner in an attempt to sort out my lodgings. He had said there would be a room for me in their beach house, but as things turned out, there was still plenty of work to do on the bar, and so that room was still taken by the builder who was living there while he was working on the bar. Instead I was put in touch with Stella, a friend of Glenn’s who worked at the Massage School as an instructor. We got on well, and what started as a few days turned into a few weeks, as the builder’s work continued, and I never got my room at the beach house.

The opening of the bar was delayed by a week, and I was getting really itchy feet. It was low season, so there weren’t many people around, there were no travelers about, and I had no one to play with. On several occasions I almost packed up the bike and left. After being on the move for so long, it was really hard not going anywhere.
I kept myself busy writing the cocktail menus, opening and closing procedures, and helping Glenn and his brother Alan prepare for the opening.

Finally the bar was ready to open. Well, almost ready, but we opened anyway.
It felt great to be back behind the wood. The bar was an instant hit, the cocktails were flowing, the music, supplied by yours truly, was pumping, and the Samarans; locals, tourists and ex-pats, were lapping it up.

Glenn took great pleasure in walking around to the other bars in town and coming back to report that they were all empty, whilst we were busting at the seams.
The team, comprising the effusively gay cook, the German surfer-girl waitress, and myself had a party behind the bar, and the customers, loved it. We were dancing around behind the bar, pouring flaming cocktails whilst standing on the bar, and generally running amuck. Word spread quickly in this tight community of the new bar in town, the new bartender from England and the amazing cocktails, and believe it or not, meatballs! The reputation of the bar spread and its popularity grew. I would see many of the same people and got better acquainted with the regulars, my life in Samara was becoming fun.

You get a really unique perspective of a place when you are behind the bar of the local hot spot. I made acquaintances with the majority of the ex pat community and got to observe the locals at play. Its funny how bar scenes play out the same all around the world. There is always the “early doors drinker” who is waiting at the door for when the bar opens, there are always the young overly made up girls waiting at the bar counter for some unwitting guy to buy them drinks, and there is always a decent contingent of guys looking to pick up the fillies, the bar flies, the wannabes, the trendies, the posers and the alcoholics. There are the tippers and the non-tippers, the courteous and the rude, the good, the bad and the ugly.
This place was no different. I got to know the regulars very quickly, and their drinking habits. The retiree who would finish off a bottle of Chardonnay before hitting the daiquiris, the divorcee who would drink Mojitos until she had to be carried back to her apartment, the graphic designer, who, thanks to the world wide web could work as easily from his beachfront condo as from his small city centre flat and could drink tequila like it was water all had something in common. None of them fitted into society in the developed world, and they all had their weird little quirks.
Not to say that these weren’t god people, on the whole they were, but every one of them had something about them that was just a little off.
The ex pats were made up of a jangle of Americans, Canadians, Brits, Germans and Italians. Then there were the business owners, who were a fair deal saner than their retired counterparts, but who still had their foibles.
One of the contributing factors in the case of Samara, in my opinion, was the prevalence of cheap, high quality cocaine. Without doubt there were a fair few people living in Samara, throughout Costa Rica, and indeed all over the world who were running away. Running from the stress of city life, from ex husbands and ex wives, from drug or alcohol problems, from debt. They were all running, some knew it, and some didn’t but they were running al the same. The only thing is, you can’t run from your problems, the follow you, and in Samara, as anywhere else on the planet, there was no escape. The prevalence of cheap cocaine, cheap alcohol and an almost anarchic society, where the Police could be paid off, and nobody asked too many questions didn’t really help anybody.
The ex pats of samara could all renew their identities, erase their past and start a new life in a place where no one knew of their previous existence.
My life in Samara ticked over nicely. I knew I was only here for the short haul, and I tried to make the most of my time. I went surfing regularly, was a frequent visitor to the wooden gym on the beach, and sat home on rainy days catching up on correspondence and my journal.

I made friends with some of the locals and a few of the more reliable ex pats, and within a couple of weeks, I was accepted as a new member of the community.
The problem living in such a small town is that everyone knows what you have been doing. I would go to the beach and hear stories about what I had done the night before. When I told Glenn that I would be leaving at the end of the week, the news came back to me that very same day. People were asking me if I could put in a good word for them at the bar, others were begging me to stay. I was, I had been told many times, the only person in the town who could make a decent cocktail!

As the time of my departure drew near, I eased myself into my usual state of panic. Where was I going to stay in San Jose, how would I navigate the city without Jacquie sat behind me reading the map and issuing instructions, which route would I take to get to Panama, how should I cross the Darien Gap, and where was I going to get a new rear tyre.
I only came to realize as the end drew near how much I was growing to love my little surfer town. Sure there were annoyances, the prevalence of mosquitoes, which seemed to have a taste for my feet. The distinct lack of any sort of decent coffee shop where I could use the internet, drink a coffee and enjoy a tasty snack all at the same time, and a poor salary at work, not augmented by tips from Americans as this was the low season, and there were few tourists around.
On the plus side, however, I had made some good friends with the teachers and students of the Massage School and the TEFL School, I had a steady income and an enjoyable job, and I was living on the beach in a gorgeous little town.
I was also constantly missing the company of fellow travelers, especially those on motorbikes like myself. Most of my previous traveling friends were way ahead of me now , in Colombia, Chile and other parts of South America. I missed the social aspect of moving from hostel to hostel, and I felt quite alone when I though of the future prospect of riding through the rest of Costa Rica and Panama alone.
So the day before I was due to leave, my options changed. I learned that the boat I originally wanted to get on was no longer an option, due to the road to the boat getting washed away by the rains, my other option was to race down to Panama city and try to get on an earlier boat, but that would mean that I couldn’t get my much needed rear tyre until Bogotá, which was really a little too far for my bald tyre in the rainy season.
I had originally planned to stop in San Jose to get my tyre replaced before heading to Panama, but my intended day of travel was Costa Rica’s independence day, so all the shops would be closed, and many roads would be closed, and getting into San Jose would be a nightmare. I had been putting this day off for a week or so already, and now, just when I thought I was really ready for the off, I had to rethink everything. God, this was turning out to be one of those decisions that was getting harder and harder.
I had been in Samara now for 6 weeks, and had only just started being accepted by the Costa Rican men, who were at first quite standoffish. I had developed relationships with a few of the students at the various schools, and the workers in other bars and restaurants. I had got to the stage were I was accepted as a full member of the Samara community, and my life was pleasant. I had contacts for all that I needed, cheap surfboard hire, and free drinks!!


But Colombia was still nagging me. I could wait until Jacquie was ready to fly, earn a bit more money, and chill here for a bit longer, or I could push on, and have my own little adventure. Right at this moment, what I needed most was a magic 8-ball to give me the answers!

After much deliberation, I decided it was really time to leave and go see the next place down the road; I was on a journey, after all.
I told Glenn that I would be definitely finishing work at the end of the week, and started getting mentally used to the idea of leaving Samara at the beginning of the following week.
I had a quiet departure from Samara, leaving early in the morning and making my way up to San Jose for the last time. I needed to get a new tyre at Tak’s shop before heading out of Costa Rica and into Panama.
A friend of mine from Samara had told me that I could stay with her brother when I was in San Jose, so, after a beautiful ride up to San Jose, I headed straight to Tak’s.
I had met Tak through Paulo, the Italian who had put us up in San Jose on our first visit, and he was a great guy. We had also visited Tak’s place, “Motor Psycho” after the ride out with the Costa Rican HOG Chapter.
Tak was a Canadian bike builder, who had moved to Costa Rica some 15 years previously. Now he had a Biker bar/restaurant with a chop shop in the back where he built his custom bikes. We got on well when I first met Tak, and I was really looking forward to hanging out with him some more.
I pulled into Motor Psycho’s lot around 3 pm, Tak turned up a little while later, and we sat at the bar, sank a couple of beers and shot the proverbial shit. Before we knew it, it was 5.30pm; we were too late to go to the garage to take the old tyre off and put on the new one, so,we decided to fit the tyre the next morning, even though Tak didn’t generally do mornings!
I headed off to my friend’s brother’s house for the evening, and was greeted at the gate. Geraldo and his wife Isabella took me into their home and made me feel extremely welcome. They had to go to a function for Independence day, and they invited me along. After a quick freshen up, we got in their car and drove to a huge Marquee where there was a Mexican expo and a joint Independence day celebration. I ate some delicious Mexican food, which I had really been missing, and watched the traditional Mexican dancers on stage, before heading back home for a much needed rest.

The next day I went back to Tak’s for our 10am meeting. The security guard let me in , and when I told him I was meeting Tak at 10, he laughed.
“He never gets here before lunchtime” he said, I assured him that we had a meeting, and sure enough, at 11am, Tak showed up with the girl he had spent the night with.
It was a strange sight. Here was this heavily tattooed biker, complete with shaved head and 4 inch long goatee, strolling into his biker bar with a well-dressed, beautiful girl who, he later told me, was a Criminal Judge!
We set about taking the rear wheel off, pulling off the rusted on mufflers, taking off the panniers, knocking out the axel and undoing the belt. We drove the truck to the garage and changed the tyres over, and then set about putting the wheel back.
A few members of the Club came in and out while we working on the wheel, and we stopped and talked and smoked for a while before getting back to the business at hand.
I was really enjoying the whole wrenching process, being in a workshop surrounded by custom projects, and hanging round with other bikers. A litre or two of sweat later, the wheel was back on and the bike put back together, we went to push the bike out of the shop, but it would not budge. On closer inspection we found out why. I had out the axel spacer in the wrong place, we looked at each other, and my face went even redder than it had been.


Tak, just after I told him that I had put the spacer on the axel wrong...oops

Me looking unhappy at the prospect of having to take them muffles off again!

I apologized profusely, but Tak, taking it all in good humor, just told me not to worry, and we started the whole process again. We took off the mufflers and pannier bags once more, extracted the axel, put the spacer where it should have been, and put the bike back together once more.
I had planned to leave San Jose at around 11.30, due to my error, and Tak’s delayed arrival, it was now nearer 1.30.
I thanked Tak for all his help, apologized again for my mistake, and headed out towards the coastal road to the Panamanian border.
The sky was already grey when I left San Jose, and within half an hour the rain started to fall. As I approached the coast, then sun came out once more, and I pulled over to take off my waterproofs at Jaco.

Jaco, just before the rain came

I had a quick coffee and a quiche at a bakery and then set off along the coast to see how close to the border I could get before dark.

Another half an hour along the road and the sky suddenly blackened. I stopped just in time to put my waterproofs back on just before the deluge, and rode the rest of the day in the pouring rain, cursing myself for not having any sort of visor for my helmet as the rain stung my cheeks.
I rode on for another two hours, then another half an hour on a dirt road that made my Harley slip and slide precariously along at 10mph, in the rain, and the dark. I was almost blind, my lights were still all out of alignment, and lit up the branches of the overhanging trees, but not the road. Add to that the rain and my poor night vision, I really had to find a place to stop. I checked the map, and pointed my bike towards Palomar Norte, a small town 60 miles from the border. I booked into the first hostel with a free room, walked into town for a burger, fries and chocolate, and went back to the hotel and slept for 10 hours.
I got up and out of the hotel bright and early, and was on the road to the border by 7am.
Half an hour later I remembered I had forgotten my sweatshirt, so , back I went to the hotel, picked up the sweatshirt, and started off again.
The weather had cleared and I had another lovely ride to the border. The crossing at Panama was the same as everywhere else, Passport etc for me, export the bike form Costa Rica, then ride 100 metres to Panama, immigration for me, and back to customs to import the bike. Two hours of queuing at half a dozen different windows, and I was on my way again.

As soon as I crossed into Panama, I was greeted by a fresh smooth two land highway, and I motored along at a good pace for over 100 miles before stopping for gas. The scenery was delightful, and I pulled over several times for photos. I had over 400 kms to cover before I reached Panama City, I contemplated stopping for an overnighter before I reached Panama City, but decided that I would rather get there for the weekend and have Friday night in the city, so I pushed on.
I reached the Bridge of the Americas just after dark, and had a great view of the city lights and the docks as I crossed the bridge.

I somehow found my way to the old part of the city, Casco Viejo, and after asking a couple of street vendors for Luna's Castle, I rolled up outside just after dark. I checked in, parked up, unloaded, e.mailed Tak's friend who lived in Panama City, and rinsed the sweat and dust off me in a cold shower.
I got back to my computer to see that I had a message waiting already form Tak's mate, George, telling me to meet him in Hooters in 30 minutes if I wanted to go to a killer party. Hmm, Hooters..killer party...I thought about it for about 2 seconds, and then started rushing to get ready to go out. I wasn't going to miss this!
It turned out that George, together with his partner, Hector, owned Hooters, and another club called the Roof. We had a beer at Hooters, and left to go to the party which was at the roof.
We turned up, skipped the queue, got ushered into the VIP bar, and got settled at a table with a bottle of Absolut and a load of mixers, and told to help myself!
I was introduced to a bunch of people, made a few drink for some of the ladies, then got into some dancing!
I was mistaken for the lead singer of Anthrax and asked to sign the Absolut guitar, posed with some of the Rock n Roll lookalikes who were there for the Absolut Rocks party.

I stayed a while at the party, but fatigue got to me, and I headed back to the hostel at around 3am.
The next day I suffered. I had caught a cold somewhere, probably in my last ride in Costa Rica when I got rained on all day. My nose was leaking like an old Triumph, and I felt terrible. It took all my strength just to get downtown and buy some medicine, but fortunately the next day I was back on form and went out for a walk round the city.

Panama, a city of contrasts, the shiny modern high rises dwarf the crumbling former glory of the colonial days

The staff at the hostel told me where the areas to avoid were, so I headed straight there. I always find that the no go areas are generally the coolest to explore.
I had no money on me, only my camera and some cigarettes, and as I walked around, the locals approached me, asking what I was doing there. “Mucho peligro”-much danger, they all said. I hung out with the barbers in their shop shooting the breeze as the clippered away at their clients, including a two-year-old boy who, it seemed, really did not to be in the barber’s chair.

Again they said the same to me;this area is not for tourists, much danger, don’t go round this corner, don’t walk down this street and so on. Finally I decided I might just be pushing my luck and started to head back to the safer area around the hostel. I hadn’t felt threatened at all, but with all the warnings, I gave in and headed back up the hill. I got back to the hostel and took my bike out for a ride over the bridge so I could see what it looked like in daylight. I rode down to Veracruz beach on the other side of the bridge and ate lunch in one of the Palapas on the beach, before riding back to the city.

Panama was a city of two distinct sides. There was the fading glory of Casco Viejo, the old city, with once majestic colonial buildings crumbling away standing next to beautifully restored old houses, narrow streets and dilapidated tenement buildings, and then there was the 4 lane highway leading to the high rises, skyscrapers and shopping malls of the new city. There were slum type buildings on the waterfront, with tin roofs and piles of garbage all around. Children would run around playing in the squalor wearing underwear, and directly behind these slums, were the shiny new office blocks and condos. It was a city of huge contrasts.

Brightly painted chicken busses raced through the city, dropping off passengers by slowing down a little, but rarely coming to a complete stop.
I dropped into my new favorite place in Panama, Hooters, to meet George for lunch, and we arranged to meet up again for bike night, which Hooters hosted every Tuesday night. I was introduced to Oscar, the President of the Panama Chapter of the Big Boss MC, and he asked if I would like to go for a little spin with him and a few of his mates round the city. A half a dozen of us got on our bikes and rode out the city to the new bridge over the canal, and we parked up at the top of a hill, overlooking Panama City and smoked. We hung out a while before heading back once more to Hooters. Oscar invited me to meet up with his club members at their clubhouse from where we would all ride through the city back to Hooters for their bike night the next day.

The Big Boss MC Members at the Club House

Bike night rolled along, and I rode up to the Big Boss Club house, at the back of one of the city’s many sports bars, and was introduced to the gang.
I sat in on their meeting, in which they discussed the pros and cons of leaving for their rides earlier in the mornings, and went through he details of their upcoming ride to Costa Rica. At the end of the meeting, I was presented with an “official” Big Boss MC cap and T-shirt, and welcomed as an honorary member of the club.
Photos were taken, and I gave Oscar my Harley Davidson of Florida T-shirt as a reciprocal gift, I had nothing else to give!
We finished off our beers and all saddled up and the dozen or so members of the club and I rode through the city, arriving to Hooters where another twenty or so bikes were already parked.

I had e-mailed the other 3 bikers who were going to cross on the boat to Colombia with me, and they had also come on their bikes to the bike night. The local bikers were all keen to find out as much as they could about our respective trips. I had heard this a few times before from bikers, “You are living my dream” and “I wish I could do what you are doing”, and the usual questions , they always wanted to know if I had a problem with people trying to rob me, steal the bike, damage the bike and so on.
We all told these guys the same thing. Just book it, pack, and go, it’s as easy as that. We had so far had no problems at all with the bike, other than me sometimes not being able to lift it off its stand. I figured that the Harley was a much harder bike to steal than a KLR or a smaller bike. It's like the sign said in the kitchen at Luna's CAstle which read, "FAT PEOPLE ARE HARDER TO KIDNAP!"
We talked bikes, roads, borders, police and roads and routes with the Panamian bikers, swapped e-mails and gave out blog addresses, ate burgers and sank a few beers before the bikes dispersed and us intrepid traveling bikers rode back to our hostels.
I had one day of running round the city in preparation for the next part of the trip, the sailboat from San Blas to Cartagena, Colombia.

I had deliberated over this choice for several days and had decided that sailing would be the best option, and I had picked a boat that a few of my fellow bikers had used before and had a good reputation.
I had been e-mailing the captain of the Stahlratte, a 106 year old fishing boat that was doing the trip from Panama to Colombia, and he had assured me that getting the bike onto the boat was not going to be a problem, all I had to do was to cross a small river, and the rest would be easy.
I knew I was in for quite a tough ride to Carti, where I would pick up the boat, and I was half looking forward to the challenge, and half nervous of dropping the bike and not being able to reach the destination.
At 5am, the Jeeps came to the hostel to pick up passengers, and I put my luggage in the back of one of them. I followed the first Jeep out of town towards Chepo, and then turned off the highway and onto a dirt road. This was a 40km stretch up to the little river that I was going to have to cross.
I followed the Jeep along the road which deteriorated as we went on. The track was made up of vaying types of grave, loose gravel, packed gravel, large rocky gravel, muddy gravel and loose gravel, and in parts, just mud.
I was following the first Jeep up a steep gravel hill when the Jeep stopped. I braked, my front wheel locked, and then the bike started sliding back down the hill. I did all I could to keep the bike upright, but the weight was too much for me and the bike went over.

I jumped off before I got stuck under it and took a deep breath. First things first, take a photo.
I knew I couldn’t lift the bike on my own, but I tried anyway.
It was now around 10.30am and the sun was beating down on me. I took my helmet and jacket off, placed them on the side of the “road” and attempted righting my bike, with no success.
There was nothing to do but wait, and within 10 minutes, the second Jeep appeared at the bottom of the hill, the Jeep I was following had not seen me fall and had continued onwards.
The driver and a few of the passengers form the second Jeep got out and helped me lift the bike, I jumped on, and with a push from the guys, and help from the engine, the bike slowly started climbing the hill, I throttled back gently and the bike stabilized and I picked up speed as I tackled the hill.
There were a few more worrying moments when the back end of the bike was fishtailing wildly behind me in the mud sections and skipping friskily on the loose gravel going up the hills, but by keeping the bike pointed in the general direction of the road, braking with the gearbox, and taking good run ups for the next uphill sections, I finally made it to the river.

My heart sank when I saw what lay ahead. This little river was daunting to say the least. The level of the river was much higher than I had been led to believe. Huge trucks were crossing regularly, the water coming up to the tops of their wheels. As much as I had wanted to have a go at crossing this obstacle unaided, I figured there was too much at stake. The water level was as high as my saddle, and the current was fairly strong, the last thing I wanted was for the engine to stall and the bike to go over and get carried off by the river!
I got talking to Elissa, a lady who was working with the construction crew who were working on improving the road and building the bridge, and she said she had an idea to help me cross the river.
She got on her walkie-talkie and talked rapidly in Spanish to whoever was on the other end of the airwaves. A few minutes later and I heard a heavy rumble in the distance. A minute or so after that, the “solution” came into view in the form of a yellow JCB digger. The JCB crossed the river and lined up with the huge metal scoop alongside my bike, we measured up the scoop and the bike and soon came to the conclusion that this option, novel as it was, was not going to be the solution after all.

Next, I stopped a bunch of the trucks coming and going across the river to see if any of the drivers would agree to take my bike in the back of their trucks, but with no joy.
Then Julie, the boss of the Jeep drivers, came back from the other side of the river after dropping off the rest of the passengers, and told me more bad news. The boat that the captain was going to send to pick up the bike was not going to be able to come down the river as there were sections of the river that were too shallow for the boat to make it down.
I had had one last option, the Kuna.
The Kuna Indians were a fiercely independent indigenous group who inhabited the islands along the Panamanian coast. They had resisted the pull of modern, city life and still lived traditional lives on their island communities. There was a group of 8 or 9 Kuna men at the banks of the river, and after a little haggling, gesticulating and laughing, they agreed to lift the Harley into one of their canoes and walk it across the river to the other side.
Gingerly, I rode the bike down the mud banks and in to the river until it was alongside the canoe that was barely as wide as the bike.
With a few grunts and plenty of huffing and puffing, together we managed to lift the rear of the bike onto the canoe, and then hefted the front end in too. We pulled the canoe across the river, not helped by another truck that crossed in the opposite direction causing a huge wash that nearly knocked the canoe over, but a few minutes later, we were on the other side, repeating the whole lifting process to get the bike back off the canoe.



The task completed, the river crossed, and I was full of a sense of enormous accomplishment. I thanked the Kuna and paid them their $30, they were overjoyed at the prospect of spending it all on beer and having a party!
I got back on the bike on the other side, slid up the muddy bank and continued along the dirt track to the next river where I would take another boat to the Stahlratte.

I rode the last few remaining kilometers to the final river without any mishaps and arrived at the river as the lancha, a big canoe with an outboard engine that was going to take me to the boat.

The Kuna were there to help again, for a fee, and we walked the bike along a wooden plank until the front wheel was in the boat, then lifted the back end in. It was much harder getting the bike in this larger boat, and in the process, the bike sustained a couple of minor injuries, and I had aching muscles for the next couple of days.

Once the bike was safely wedged into the lancha, we set off along the river to where the Stahlratte was moored. We pulled alongside the ship and one of the crew, a tall blond German guy called Roly,also known as "Tachicumba"-the big man- tied ropes around the bike and we began the winching process.

The bike was lifted onto the deck and strapped up against the side of the deck. We then unloaded the rest of my luggage and I was shown around the boat, before getting in the dingy to go ashore on one of the inhabited Kuna islands.



I walked around exploring the tiny island, crammed with small traditional wooden huts, and traditionally dressed Kuna strolling around. The Kuna are amazing people. In their language, there are no words for work, money or time.
If, for any reason, they need to know what time it is , they will ask you “Watchie watchie?”, the word that they use for “work” is the German word, and the word they use for money is the English word. Their culture is one of trade and co-operation. As with many indigenous tribes, you have to ask to take a photo, and normally charged a dollar. I encountered a group of women making the traditional clothes with symbols embroidered on to ward off evil spirits and was invited to join them. We sat and chatted and they explained which animals kept which evil sprits away, and I was allowed to take pictures. Another group of women were sat outside the local store, and were not at all into the idea of me talking with them or taking pictures, even for money.
The funniest thing was to see these traditionally dresser villagers, living on a tiny island, living in wooden huts, chatting into their shiny mobile phones I spent a couple of hours on the island, watching the fishermen bringing their catch in, and then the women gutting and cleaning the fish by the water before I jumped back in the dingy to return to the boat.

The crew cooked up a beautiful dinner, and just as the light was fading, the other bikers, who had left a few hours after me, turned up.
Their boats were winched on board and we all sat down over dinner and talked about our day. They all said that when they saw the Harley sat up on the deck as they approached the ship that they were amazed that I had made it.
We were all pretty exhausted, and after dinner I went down to my bunk to sort out some bits and pieces and fell fast asleep, waking up some 10 hours later.
I sat up in the bunk, banged my head on the bunk above me, and stood up. Every muscle in my body was aching. The previous day had been extreme! The riding alone had been physically demanding, and all the lifting off and on boats had left me with a sore back and stiff arms and legs.
At around 11am,the rest of the passenger turned up and our small group of 4 swelled to the full compliment of 18 passengers and 4 crew.
We introduced each other, had a quick orientation of the ship and then we were underway. We sailed for a couple of hours, anchored beside an uninhabited island, donned our snorkel gear and jumped off the boat.

We swam round the island over the reefs , watching the fish below, and explored the desert island. Then it was back to the boat a nap before dinner. We took the dingy back to the shore, built a BBQ, and threw on a bunch of chicken. While the chicken cooked on the Barbie, we sat on logs around cluster of candles, told jokes and swapped stories.
I made cocktails for the Captain and the crew, and myself, we ate a great dinner on our private island and went swimming in the warm Caribbean waters as the sun went down and darkness rolled in.
Back on board, the music went on and the party continued for a while until bedtime.
I went to the top deck and settled into a hammock to escape the heat of the bunks below deck. I slept peacefully on the deck for a couple of hours until I was awoken by crack of the loudest thunder I think I have ever heard. I sat bolt upright, and for a moment had no idea where I was. The ship was pitch black, and as I was squinting to see anything, a bolt of lightning lit up the deck and the surrounding islands. I sat back down on the hammock and watched the light show.

The lightning wasn’t just a brief flash, but lit the sky up for a good few seconds at a time. It was quite amazing. The ship was quiet; there were no lights for what seemed like miles around, and every few seconds, the lightning lit up everything around in an electric blue strobe. I was in awe. I lit a cigarette and sat under one of the tarps watching the storm. After a while, I went and sat in the lounge and watch through the porthole as the rain came sheeting down. I woke up in the lounge as the day broke, and saw that the rain was still falling. The motor of the boat was put putting along, and the crew were busy preparing breakfast. We were on our way to our next stop, another tropical paradise island, and we were all hopeful that the weather would break.
Unfortunately, it didn’t. We sat and ate breakfast under a tarp supported by two oars on the poop deck, and then we all adjourned en masse to the saloon to watch a movie while the rain fell. Eventually there was a respite from the rain and we all jumped off the boat for a a bit more snorkeling.
The next day we were off again and heading for Colombia, we sailed all day and all night. I was one of the few people who didn't get sea sick, I think it was because I spent the whole time on board on the top deck, in the fresh air. I fashioned my self a kind of seat belt from some spare rope for when I was in the hammock to stop it swinging around too much and I slept in that at night under the stars.

After a few days of sailing round the San Blas Islands on the Stahlratte, we arrived in Cartagena. There was a bit of hanging around while our fixer went ahead with our passports to Immigration. We then all went onshore, as we had been summoned to the Immigration office. We grabbed a couple of taxis and were in and out of Immigration in a short time. We then returned to the boat, unloaded the bikes, and then headed into Cartagena to find a hostel.
We ended up in Media Luna , in the old part of Cartagena, and had a quick walk around to get our bearings before holing up in the hostel and relaxing.
Cartagena was a sensory overload after 4 days on the open water. The walled city was simply beautiful.