Hello again,

Well, I can now answer my own question. Since my last post I told my family our plans to cut short our trip and they said that they'd cover our transport home from the US. A call to my boss bought me two extra weeks leave and so now I write this post just south of Nogales, Mexico and about to enter the US tomorrow.

Central America was brilliant. Out of necessity we only saw a couple of 'highlights' in each country and we missed out El Salvador and Belize altogether, but we got a good taste for each country we visited. Likewise, we gunned it through Mexico, especially the northern half (quotas...), but we got a taste, which is better than nothing.

All in, we made it from Panama to the US in 22 days. We had only 3 non riding days, but still saw a fair bit - we just woke up early each day, rode a few hundred KMs to somewhere we liked, then either stayed there, or if there was time, just kept going until it got dark.

I'm very glad we did it and we were pleasantly surprised with the borders and the cops. We were stopped only once in CA for a routine paperwork check. A few more times in Mexico, but again just for papers - nothing underhand. The borders were a breeze; we spent no more than 2 hours at a single border and did not use helpers. This even with us crossing at every hour of the day - lunch time, mid afternoon and the end of the day. We don't know why other people have reported problems. We only guess that it is because of a complete lack of any Spanish or a complete inability to follow a very simple process.

Anyways, all's good. If anyone else faces a similar quandary and reads this - go for it!

Cheers
G