Dane and I went and saw the Miraflores Locks today, a part of the Panama Canal. We also walked around afterwards up the main thoroughfare from the hotel. At the end of the thoroughfare we kept walking and ended up in a bad neighborhood. A man on the street told us to go East but I didn’t understand why, I thought he was telling us to get out of the street. On the next block we passed by a group of people who seemed quite agitated that we were there and told us to head East again. I didn’t understand most of what they said but I asked, “¿Peligrosa?” and they responded very emphatically yes. We started to walk back to the main thoroughfare and I got out my mace in case we found out why they thought the neighborhood was so dangerous.

Everything turned out to be fine and we had a dinner of pizza and pineapple juice. Going to get leave here at 5:00am and head back North towards San Jóse.

Today I left San Jóse at 7:40am and headed towards the coast. I got lost and was only able to get directions after perfecting my Spanish accent (three minutes of saying ruta tres in every possible accent imaginable). I got lost again after crossing an extremely rickety bridge (one of many crossed today) and stopped to look at my camera map invention. A guy on an 1150 GS drove up and said, “Hey, how’s it going?” It turns out he left San Jóse at the same time, took the same route, and got lost at the same place. Together we found the real route to the coast, pased hundreds of slow vehicles, survived 30 miles of grueling dirt track, and made it through the border without spending too much money. My generosity got the better of me and I may have overpaid our border helper. After the border the road was great but it began to rain. It also began to get dark but for some reason we soldiered on. After a grueling hour of dark roads and rain we stopped to fuel up. We agreed that conditions were pretty much the worst they could be and asked the gas station attendants if there were any hotels around. No hotels, they said, until Santiago. Two hours away. They made jokes about how we could get there much faster because we were on fast bikes. One of them wanted to know how many caballos (horses) my bike was.

After we set out again the rain stopped and the drive was actually kind of pleasant. It’s an interesting experience to ride at night… One I’d never like to have again.

I’m now in the lobby of the Hotel Gran David. I’m sharing a $34 room with Dane, the fellow I met earlier. We ate at a restaurant across the street that advertised an international menu—apparently international now means spaghetti, chowmein, ceviche, and steak. I will let you guess which I chose. It felt good to eat something, I didn’t have any snacks or food since breakfast. I’m in the lobby of the hotel now, typing this on an obnoxious “Internet Terminal” with flashing lights and a tiny screen. $1 an hour.

Every single muscle in my body hurts. Tomorrow we’re headed to Panama City and then back North on Friday. San Jóse Saturday and then the long drive home!

After more research it appears that the coast road South to Panama is open, though “regulated”. Going to try my luck tomorrow morning and see if I can get through. I’ll be driving through Parrita, one of the hardest hit areas. Hoping to end up in Panama City tomorrow night, wish me luck.

I’ve been staying at Kap’s Place since I last wrote, waiting for news on the road closures South of here. As far as I can tell there’s no way to get to Panama City right now short of flying or waiting more than a week for the roads to open up.

I did find a route to Bribri, a city on the border of Costa Rica and Panama Northeast of here. You can walk across the border but not bring a vehicle across. I’m going to head out there tomorrow so I can accomplish my goal of getting to Panama before turning around.

If anyone else needs road information for Costa Rica in the future you can look at the Costa Rico Transito website.

Tropical Storm Alma is causing lots of rain and flooding in Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Honduras. I tried to go South this morning on highway 2 and was turned around by police after 40 miles due to mudslides and downed power lines. I hear the coastal roads are flooded as well so I’ll be here in San Jose for a couple more nights it looks like.

If I had stayed in Granada for three more days I’d probably be without power and trudging through a few feet of water right now.

The drive to Costa Rica took 12 hours. This was partially because when I left Granada I drove in a giant triangle back to Granada. Coming back into the city I thought, “I thought there was only one big colonial city in Nicaragua…” And then I turned onto the street I had left on previously and my mind made an audible snapping sound of cognitive dissonance. I left again uncertain of where I had made my mistake but stopped at a ciber in a town called Niquinohomo and looked up where I was on a map. From there I was able to see where I had gone wrong and found the Pan-American Highway again. When I got to the border customs was very quick and I didn’t have to pay much money. The police at the border used BMW bikes and I parked mine next to one. I paid an old toothless man to watch after my bike even though I could see it from where I was waiting in line.

An aside: I thought up a brilliant plan for not getting lost. I’ll just take screenshots of Google maps and put them on my camera; that way I can have a highway map I can zoom in on and be able to actually navigate with.

It eventually got dark but I pressed on for San Jóse. Going was slow, I drove for three hours at 30mph. I couldn’t go faster because it was raining and I had to keep my visor up to watch for potholes in the road. Any faster and the rain stung my eyes too much. I also got stuck behind countless numbers of trucks in the mountain passes on the way there.

When I got to San Jóse I spent a while looking for a hostel I’d read about and when I finally found it it was too much of a hassle to get all my things inside (lots and lots of stairs) so I looked elsewhere. I finally ended up at the Gran Central Costa Rica, a fancy hotel. I had a nice dinner and talked to some girls who were part of a tour group from Little Rock, Arkansas.

The next morning I got everything packed up and drove to a small hotel and guest house called Kap’s Place. It’s very nice inside and the staff is very friendly. They are very secure; you have to be buzzed in through two steel doors with cameras to get inside. I got my stuff packed away and took a taxi to the Terra Mall, the “biggest mall in Central America”. It was my goal to go to the Cinepolis VIP and watch Indiana Jones 4. I walked around for a while, played some video games (Midway’s Total Carnage from 1992 and Metal Slug 4), and people-watched. The movie was great and very true to the spirit of the first three. The theater was also great and featured reclining leather seats with footrests.

On the taxi ride home from the mall I passed a skating rink called Patines Music. The cab driver got hopelessly lost and could not find my hotel even after I drew him a map. I don’t think he was from around the area. We eventually found it after he talked to some of his compañeros. I decided to head out to the skating rink in hopes of meeting and talking to some Costa Ricans and caught another taxi back after trying to find the address online. I took a direction sheet back to the hotel this time. I tried explaining to the cab driver where Patines Music was but he had to call his wife who spoke English and we eventually figured it all out.

The skating rink was fun, skating is alive and well in Costa Rica. Some of their skaters rivaled people I’ve seen in the US. I took some videos of a guy whose name I have no idea how to spell, I will put those up later. They told me to come back tonight and that there would be better music. After the session ended they all got out hockey sticks and had a match. It was interesting to go skating because there’s a physical vocabulary that takes the place of a spoken one, you can say, “Can you do this? What about this?” without actually understanding the spoken part.

I went home and couldn’t sleep so I watched Beyond the Sea on my laptop. Very good movie. I can tell Kevin Spacey loves Bobby Darin.

I didn’t pay nearly as much money to enter Nicaragua as I did to enter Honduras. As soon as I drove up it was the same story, however. I was mobbed by money-changers and border helpers. I chose the first fellow to speak English and asked him up front how much it would cost. $10 US, he said, and at the end of it all that’s how much I paid him. The customs office had the prices up on the wall so I know I didn’t over-pay, either.

What was different at this border were the hordes of children begging me for money. All of them repeated un limpera (the lempira is the Honduran currency) over and over again. They also all asked if they could watch over my bike. I told them all yes, as well as a rather large man who looked like he could put my bike over his shoulder. I paid all the kids a few lempiras each and the large man about $5.

Once I got into Nicaragua I still had to deal with importing my bike which necessitated standing in line for a very long time and sweating a lot. I wondered what would happen if I proceeded without the paper they were to give me. I found out not long after the process was completed when I was stopped by the police and it was the first thing they asked to see.

I drove along the highway South towards Managua. Every 100 meters the pavement would end and mud and gravel would take over. There were holes, depressions, channels, etc. to navigate. I was afraid of losing traction when the mud was wet but I “kept it between the hedges” and didn’t have any issues staying upright. There were some wildlife issues, as cows, chickens, and dogs ran across the road with some regularity.

I slowed down before entering one section of mud—but not enough to avoid the gigantic mud puddle that became visible moments before I splashed through it, thoroughly coating myself and the bike in mud. The puddle was deep and as I exited I must have caught three feet of air. There were three spectators standing near the hole with bicycles; I’m glad they were there to witness it because it looked like I had done it on purpose. I felt like Malcolm Smith (who appeared in On Any Sunday, one of the best movies about motorcycling ever made).

At another police checkpoint further down the road the officer caught site of the pepper spray on my handlebars and decided to take it. I think it may be illegal to carry in Nicaragua. Because of the pepper spray he also had me open up my tank bag and one of my side cases. Him and his friend were pretty nice though and let me go when they saw I wasn’t smuggling any drugs. I asked to take a picture of them and they let me, it’s the last one below. They ride two-up on that old police bike. They asked me a few times if I wanted to trade.

I’ve been at Hostal Oasis in Granada for a couple of nights now, it’s probably the best hostel I’ve been to so far. Very luxurious feeling inside. They’ve got a pool and a courtyard. I rode my bike up the 8” sidewalk lip to get it inside. There were three other bikes already in the courtyard and I found out they belonged to a group of Jehovah’s Witnesses who live two hours South of here and had traveled up for a vacation. They’re pictured below as well.

As I was taking pictures in a crumbling church I happened upon an older police officer kissing his girlfriend. He walked over to me with a machete and I said “buenas” and he replied the same. He saw my camera and told me I could continue taking pictures. He walked around idly hacking on things with the machete while I took pictures.

I worked on the map a bit. It now uses Google maps for the background layer and you can switch to a street map view or satellite map view. It should also be a bit faster and work better in older browsers.

Tomorrow I’m headed to Costa Rica. It’s a ~250 mile drive so I may end up short of my destination if the border takes a long time.