February 16 to February 21

Two Up and Travelin Down
Started South on the 16th at about 0800 Hrs, going to Panama to see what its like, bet its tropical and hot. It took about 3 Hrs to go the 250 klicks to Paso Canoas that's the boarder crossing on Hwy CA2. The road south was unpaved until last year for allot of its length, the improvement cut many hours off the trip.
We spent about 45 minutes getting passport stamps for exiting Costa Rica, for persons and for Motorcycle. We then moved to Panama side and there was a bus full of German tourists that created a line that lasted a little over an hour. Now we had to get the Moto migrated to Panama. This was done easiest with a guide, also known as border leach. He cost twenty bucks and was one of the few I met that was worth his pay, I thought the red tape was over done. We had five stations to go through, all in different offices. If that wasn't confusing enough some of the Oficio's would ask insignificant questions to make it more difficult. An example is where will you be leaving Panama? The question is not necessary and has no official value, you have to clear customs no matter where you exit, its purpose is to confuse and make the border leach look more necessary. All in all it was relatively painless process that took about 3 hours.
We decided to get to David and find a crash pad. David is a larger size town with lots of services. We went to the town square and found a hotel that had a restaurant and covered parking, it cost about 25 bucks a night.The town square was a few blocks away and we had a nice walk and a few drinks at a sidewalk cafe over looking it. The restaurant served us a nice dinner at about 8 dollars total for the two of us.Good lodging good food and 75 cent beers, pretty nice.

February 17
Today was going to be spent touring the country side looking for a Pacific beach. There are no real easy access beaches in this section, we ended up going back to Paso Canoas and west to the pacific where we found some nice beaches but no services so we opted for the mountains. This is a picture of a bird that got angry with my mirror, notice Terry's helmet hanging under the handlebars to catch the bird shit, she is always protecting the bike. It was a little late when we made the decision to head for high ground and we got into Volcan close to dark. The first hotel was full and the second had a room but it was expensive. Volcan is very touristy and its prices reflected that. The ambiance was really nice and the place gets rave reviews, it wasn't quite my cup of tea. Beautiful tropical woods and manicured gardens with a stream running through the grounds, very pretty but a little pricey.

February 18
Volcan to Paso Canoas by the back road was some of the best vistas  have ever seen. This leg was going to complete a figure eight and put us right back where we crossed the border. I've ridden a lot of roads all over the world and this section of 70 miles was as challenging as any I have ever done, steep canyon walls with switch backs that scrubbed the chicken strips off the tires. To be a challenge doesn't mean smooth pavement with no pot holes, it does mean steep descents with repeated max braking and having a 130 pound back pack (passenger) on. I really enjoyed this section, it was a test of the machine and me. The machine was superlative, the human factor survived.
With the fun stuff under our belt we were still ready for some beach time and knew that we had to get farther south than we had been so on to the slab and put some rubber down.
Seventy some miles south was las Lajas near the little town of San Felix this was our stop for the night. The beach hotel was full but 10 miles inland the little town had two more hotels and three bars, three restaurants A restaurant hotel owned by a German family got our vote and we settled in at the Paradise Inn.

February 19

We had been communicating with a gentleman about lodging on the computer by E-mail, he was farther south and we set off to investigate his invite.He said he was in Penonome and we should contact him when we were near. Fifty miles past Penonome he was still 30 miles out and we gave up with a bad taste for Panamanian directions. When we got to the point we could see the high rise sprawl of Panama City we reversed our course and headed back. Our lodging that night was in Penonome.

February 20
The 20th was an early start, we had discussed the idea that retracing was going to be a grind and could entail a lot of tail in the saddle time. We were ready at day light but a rain shower delayed our start 30 minutes while we rounded up some coffee and sticky buns.
When we started out I kept looking over my left shoulder at the sun and thinking we can't be heading south, this part of the isthmus is east west and where we were the road was dipping south for quite a while, North bound, right.
Almost back to David and we really did turn North , across to the Caribbean side. Chiriqui was the destination and the gateway to Bocas Del Toro. Chiriqui is in the pic and is a sleepy little place with pangas
The stop at Almirante was to investigate the ferry system to Bocas Del Toro, a very popular island resort area. Our arrival hour dictated we could get over by passenger ferry that night but would have to leave the bike or go in the morning with the motorcycle, we chose to catch the island another day.
Changuinola was the town with lodging that was closest to the frontier at Guabito so we got a room there and prepared for the border.
The days ride across the divide rivaled any passes I have done. At the top the natives would stop their cars and get out to experience the high winds. Great vistas of mountains, valleys, man made lakes,and dams. It was a supper day for moto.

February 21

Awake at 7 o-clock and on the road we wanted to get to the border early, then found it didn't open till eight and we had a twenty minute wait. The crossing was quaint ,attached is a picture of the bridge over the river that is the border.   It was a slow ride across and T had to walk the boards were wet with rain and slick as slug snot. The pass ports and vehicle immigration went smooth, we were on our way by 9 O-clock. There is not a lot of traffic between the border and Lemon and not a lot of reason to put a ton of money into maintenance, the road showed that.
At Lemon the traffic changed Lemon is a major shipping port and almost all containers from America go through Miami to Lemon, the next 50 miles was congested truck traffic at about 30 MPH max. The moto was a lot faster as we could pass safely in a shorter distance.
The mountain pass from the Caribbean side to the Pacific side was spectacular, there was a several hundred meter long tunnel at the top, on a moto it challenges your eyes to accommodate the change in light when you enter the tunnel.
The decent into San Jose was easy and good roads, the entry into San Jose is just a drop in the middle of the city with no direction signs. Again we relied on intuition and braille to find our way to a neighborhood where we new our way to the new divided highway and a short hour and a half to our digs. Well surprise surprise the divided highway was closed and we had to divert to the old road which is twisty and steep and because all the traffic was diverted the road was loaded with buses and 18 wheelers doing 10 to 15 MPH. Not a problem just a little longer to a shower and a nap.
We had started out with two nights of clothes and luggage, we had so much fun it lasted 6 days and 5 nights, it will feel good to relax a couple of days.