Bienvenidos A Panama

July 29th to 31st

The plan is to beat the rush at the border crossing so we overnight in Sixaola in sight of the 'International Bridge' that forms the frontier between Costa Rica and Panama....



Unfortunately it's a popular plan, and at the 7am opening time when we hit passport control there are already 40 people queuing ahead of us at the one and only window. Processing is slow....

When a couple of coaches turn up, the queue grows and with it people's frustration at the long wait. Inevitably impatience gets the better of people and the orderly queue disintegrates as people start to push in. Normally my British reserve prevents me from commenting in these situations, but to see people marching boldly and without shame directly to the front is too much. After 40 minutes waiting we are moving backwards and my stiff upper lip crumbles and starts to give way.

I would therefore, like to take major personal credit for what follows....

I begin to protest loudly and start to physically prevent any more people pushing past me. Seeds of dissent are sown and others around me become emboldened. It's like fanning a spark and then watching the flames grow as more and more people begin to express their anger.

Suddenly everyone is pushing. It's become a free for all! I'm amazed at some people's cavalier disregard and lack of respect for the people in front of them. One woman is ramming me in the back and trying to drag me out of her way like clearing out a ruck around a rugby ball. I calmly explain to her that she is a vile individual who has no respect for others and she equally calmly tells me 'You gotta do what ever it takes' whilst clawing at me. So, I agree with her and push her back into the melee.

It's all getting so silly it's almost comical. Sue is remonstrating with one guy who is shoving her and he calmly takes any verbal abuse she dishes out until she puts an arm across his path. Then he explodes in anger 'Take your hand off me!' She explains if he joins the back of the queue she won't be able to reach him to touch him.

Something has to give, and it's the patience of the passport clerk who sits with head in hands and refuses to process anyone. It's bad timing as we had finally got to the front and he actually has my passport in his hand. The border is closed! He makes a phone call and now the police are on their way....

It's just incredible watching a woman being forcibly dragged away by burly policemen whilst still protesting and trying to push her passports through the window. She seriously thinks she can still get a passport stamp whilst holding off armed police!

The mini riot is finally put down! Order is restored, the passport clerk removes his head from his hands and our passports are duly stamped. It's taken us nearly two hours, but at last we can enter Panama as 'La Policia' remain behind to keep order....

Being responsible for closing the border is an interesting and entertaining way to enter a new country...

Our map shows the road meandering along the Panamanian coastline. There are no contour lines and we are expecting an easy ride through flat rainforest. Wrong! The land never climbs enough to break a contour, but it is far from flat. The border delay means it's hot and the dense forest keeps humidity close to 100%. We are permanently drenched in beads of sweat that sit in the clammy air and do little to cool us....

Immediately we reach an unsigned junction and the locals fall over themselves to help us and point us in the right direction before we even have time to ask. Time and again in Changuinola locals cry out greetings and wish us 'Buen Viaje' (have a nice trip) and we get an instant good vibe about Panama. It's a Saturday and the main road is blocked by a good natured procession of hundreds of school aged boys marching in team colours to a baseball tournament. Baseball is a national obsession in Panama!

The day has got away from us after these delays, so we decide to stock up on supplies and stop in the next town Almirante. The currency here is the American dollar, a legacy from the building of the canal when the country became so inundated by foreign nationals from all over the world, it was easier to adopt a more international currency. It is the dollar, complete with pictures of another country's president, but they still call it 'The Balboa'.

Another legacy of the American involvement in the canal is the availability of foodstuffs we haven't seen in ages. We are like kids in a toy shop staring at rows and rows of well stocked shelves in an air conditioned supermarket. After the sweltering mini-marts of Nicaragua and the Caribbean coast, it's a revelation.

Weighed down with a cyclista sized feast of food, the decision to stop in 'Almirante' is a good one as the road is a scorching series of steep undulations.

The next day is worse as the road reaches for the sky in what looks like a launch pad to put cars in orbit...

It's a beautiful ride past a beautiful archipelago - 'Bocas del Torro'. Many people take a boat across to this island paradise, but we're visiting the San Blas islands further south so we just enjoy the view from the mainland...

The scene is authentic tropical rainforest and indigenous people live in wooden huts raised on stilts to avoid frequent floods and ever present insects....

It's a Sunday morning and the world is still. There is absolutely no traffic on the road and the only sounds we hear is our own harsh breathing as we climb, and then the swish and fizz of our tyres as we descend...

Until your ear re-adjusts in that is....

Then you realise there is a cacophony of noise all around you.

It's like tuning a radio into different frequencies and suddenly hearing a range of stations that are normally drowned out by deafening mechanical sounds.

A bird call here...

Over there a frog chirruping and burping...

Cicadas starting up their buzz saws...

And once you learn to hear properly, sounds is everywhere, and suddenly you want your tyres to be quiet so you can pin point more.

The trees are talking to you...

It's a surreal experience as you feel yourself drawn in to the jungle and all it has to say!

Interrupted by the crash of a pannier that escapes Sue's bike on a dangerously fast and bumpy downhill....

Another tough but sublime day's riding through nature's wonders gets us to Chiriqui Grande and it's that odd jolt again as you emerge from the green and once again return to the world of straight lines and man-made objects.

We turn in for an early one, for tomorrow; we climb. The road along the coast ends here and the Pan American Highway is on the other side of the continental divide! Riding into town we come under the shadow of the 'Cordillera Central', peaks scraping the sky at over 3000 metres (10,000 feet).

Tomorrow we tackle the mountain!

A Love Hate Relationship Building

April 7th

Leaving Esteli, we stop at a petrol station to load up on water and run through the usual conversations with the usual small crowd that gathers to watch our antics. One guy in particular grabs our attention, being unusually enthusiastic and uniquely attired in a crisp white linen suit. It is only after we've been chatting for a couple of minutes that we realise he has a small entourage with him and women are queuing up to have photos taken. Finally he asks us if we know who he is and we have to confess our ignorance, just as a van rolls up to collect him. None other than Octar (the soap guy) he is something of a celebrity throughout the whole of Central America and I am jealous of his affect on the ladies as he does a promotional tour....

The other big guy around here is THE Big Guy. Graffiti and roadside banners proclaim 'Jesus Christ is God the King and The Main Man in Esteli and Nicaragua'.

Nicaragua is an emphatically catholic country with 90% of the population devoutly practicing. Much like the rest of Central America religious festivals are widely celebrated and Sunday is still sacrosanct with most businesses closing to observe the Sabbath.

We ride out and the land changes from green to barren brown as the crop changes from tobacco to sugar. Roads are littered with crushed brown canes that fall from the backs of hugely overladen 34 wheel transporters; Esteli is a major sugar town. Many fields have just been harvested and only the battered and truncated stalks remain in what looks like the aftermath of a biblical locust swarm....

Traffic seems to be lighter than Honduras - people are generally poorer and there are fewer private cars as more people travel by bus. It's easy for them to get about with every town served by several buses every hour costing, say a dollar for a couple of hours ride. Whole families move house and business using these old workhorses more used to carrying American school children in the 1950's....

So - straight road, wide shoulder, clear skies, no worries....

Then.... BANG.... and I'm on the deck, bike scraping along behind me....

There's a man.

I get up and turn to face him, ankle vaguely painful from the crash.

Slowly it dawns on me that he made a grab for my handlebar as I rode past him, and so, in confusion, and also strangely politely I ask him 'Que pasa?' (what's going on?)

He makes a move towards me and instinctively I grab his wrist....

And then I see the knife, silver steel glinting in the sun!

Suddenly angry, still confused; I shove him in the chest.

'Da me su camera!' he shouts - give me your camera!.

It's all happening in a flash and I tell him NO and push him back again.

Then he takes a swipe at me and I just manage to flex and get my stomach out of the arc of the blade as it swishes viciously, slicing air where soft flesh had so recently been.

Then I see Sue run past me out of the corner of my eye, arms frantically waving. Distantly I hear her shouting to the man's accomplice to get away from my bike.

Only then does the first light of awareness filter through the slow fog clouding my brain.

Apparently we're being robbed...

at knife point....

and by not one, but two toe-rags.

It's strange how one minute you are just cruising along, pedals slowly turning over, lazy hazy.... your mind a thousand miles away in it's only little travel trance.... and whooosh - reality suddenly smashes you in the face.

Maybe it would be a good idea to just give the camera away and maybe allow both Sue and I to retain a full gallon of blood each; our precious skin still attached to precious bodies.

Yes - that's a good idea.

So I tell toe-rag number one - 'Here you go' and offer the camera....

But without thinking I suddenly tell him I'm keeping the memory card - I need those photos, and I calmly open up the camera and remove said card before handing it over.

I think he was just too stunned to object, and in any case Sue had managed to stop a couple of cars by now so toe-rag is losing confidence. He takes the camera and melts into some trees by the road side.

I guess Sue and I are too stunned to realise we should be afraid, worried, angry or maybe shocked. We're just both a bit bemused as we continue to watch this guy slip in and out of the tree cover for a couple of minutes as he fades into the distance. Bizarrely his accomplice hangs around, so we tell him we're going to the police and he tells us he was nothing to do with it and even offers to help by telling us where the other guy lives.

Finally we ride on and by chance, a kilometer or so down the road, we see a police car. Flagging it down, I explain to the driver what has happened and he jumps into rapid response mode. Telling Sue to look after the bikes at the roadside, the three police policemen in the car make space for me in the back and we set off in hot pursuit.

We were robbed on the main road at a point where two dirt roads intersect heading off in opposite directions. We hit the first at 50mph, dust flying, car careening and bouncing on the broken surface. It's all gone very Starsky and Hutch!

A shotgun emerges from under the back seat, a rifle from under the front, and I'm trying to offer a description as I bounce around in the back. Under the circumstances I just can't remember the Spanish for 'purple and white striped T-shirt'....

It's just a warren of tracks disappearing off from the dirt 'road' terminating in wooden shacks finished with plastic sheeting and you can almost taste the atmosphere of suspicion at the unexpected intrusion of a speeding police car with it's out-of-place gringo cargo. People stare blankly and understandably, they have seen nothing.

We try the dirt road in the opposite direction, and amazingly, the knife-man's accomplice is calmly strolling along listening to his (or recently, someone else's) Mp3 player. Parking the car across his path, all three armed cops get out and invite him to get in.

It's a short ride back to Sue and our bikes and we set up an altogether slower procession back to the police station, Sue and I leading on bikes, police car and prisoner following on behind.

Interviews, statements, cross examinations.... passports are checked, forms are duly filled in. Toe rag sticks to his story - what me guv? Dunno wot you're on about.... and we kiss the camera goodbye thanking our lucky stars the cost was so low.

And I've got a cheap, spare camera - so here's the police station where it all happened....

But the day has changed for us and indeed, sadly, so has Nicaragua. It's like riding out into a new world....

It is not the loss of the camera - who cares about that. We could have lost so much more - and not just stuff. No, in many ways it was a lucky escape, but the next 30 miles pass in a blur as your mind replays the incident and suddenly you start to look at people differently.

It occurs to me I had seen those guys before, earlier on the road. They were walking towards us as we rode past. Then I saw them again, overtaking us in the back of a pick up truck. Obviously they had seen the opportunity and hitched a ride to get ahead of us so as to carry out their premeditated plan.

I am angry.

Central America had worked so hard to dispel what really is a myth about the level of danger and violence here. In some ways we were becoming complacent in our trust, but that is to be expected after hundreds of good deeds verses none of the bad variety. I did notice something not-quite-right about that guy as we passed him the first time. Something subtle, a glance maybe, or just a slight movement towards the bike rather than away as we passed by. But I thought nothing of it after so much good will. Now I am looking at people walking at the road side differently. It's understandable, but it is not their fault and they have no awareness of what happened further up the trail. They don't know why I'm so angry. People continue to wave greetings of friendliness, but now I distrust them all.

The land blurs and some distance passes. I see nothing but a purple and white shirt and a knife. I wonder what could have been....

Eventually we reach San Benito and enquire about a room. The only hostel in town has an amusing owner who wants 200 for a room not worth a hundred and I am in no mood to be robbed twice in one day. I let him know about that and explain to Sue we will be riding to the next town.

We post 135kms (85 miles) for the day, despite losing a good three hours. Anger makes good fuel for the pedals it would seem.

We hole up for the night and reflect on the next day's ride to Managua lying just 15 miles ahead of us. There we had planned to extend our visas for another 30 days to allow time to explore Nicaragua more fully. After consideration, we both agree it would be churlish to change our plans now and head directly to Costa Rica. You can't judge an entire nation based on the actions of one individual, no matter how much of a scumbag he was. We have to give Nicaragua more time. It is easy to balance this one bad incident off against the driver who stopped to offer us assistance and then gave us his last money 'for luck', plus all the other acts of friendliness we have seen here already.

So tomorrow; the capital, and another 30 days here hopefully. We try to forget this incident and reset our expectations so as not to prejudice our opinions of Nicaragua and it's people.

And anyway - you can't ride through the whole of Central America and not have a good knife story....

Peru - The Border Crossing

Monday 4th Tuesday 5th August

Copacabana is too mad! There are too many people here on a pilgrimage for the festival and I feel claustraphobic in the narrow confines of the streets. I consider a boat trip to the Isla del Sol, another form of pilgrimage performed by backpackers with lonely planet guides, but I need space.

So I ride...

And it's chaos. Leaving this small town is reminiscent of leaving La Paz in miniature. I escape in a foul mood after a couple of near misses. I need to ride....

Unfortunately I ride just a little too far. 30kms quickly pass me by and I stop to consult a map. You see Copacabana sits quite close to the Peruvian border. Like 8kms close to the border and I've done 30. I wondered where all those tricycle taxiis had come from - not seen any of them in the whole of Bolivia. And the new red and white flags?? Something has definitely changed I thought, but I just had my head in a cloud - lost in riding mode. Now it dawns on me I might be in trouble.

I've just left Bolivia and apparently entered Peru illegally!! Yeah Bolivia, second only to Columbia in it's reputation as a South American drug capital, and I've just left there without officially crossing the border. That's the type of thing that could be misconstrued by a customs official... I do remember a bit on the road with queues of traffic, loads of people and a barrier across the road, but then there are so many police check points with barriers. Usually I just go round them as no one is interested in a solo cyclist. Except perhaps on this occasion....

I begin to think about going back to the border and confessing. But then that won't nesessarily help - why should they believe me, and they don't know when I crossed the border - could have been days ago. So rushing back doesn't make it look like an honest mistake. Might as well see a bit of Peru first and worry later I reason. Se la vie, let fate drive...

Plus there's an almighty head wind for 22kms if I decide to go back. Ho hum...

So I ride on, flip-flopping between a feeling of casual laissez-faire, and a sphincter tightening terror at what could happen should I hit a police check point.

So I have one single photo of the first day on the road out of Copa. And it's not even a very good one. This kind of thought process (Peruvian jail, explaining the extended time away to the family etc) rather detracts from the holiday snappers gay abandon....



I camp at the roadside to finish the 160 km ride to Puno the next day...

To be honest, I find the ride along the lake shore a little disappointing. That's not to say Titicaca is unimpressive. Maybe I was just spoilt in the Argentinian Lake District. Maybe I was just expecting so much by making it one of my tour highlights before I set out... Maybe I'm still edgy from my (failed) border crossing, but for some reason I was expecting more.

However the shoreline does team with birdlife and has prosperous farmland. I pass "Julí", nicknamed the "Rome of South America" for it's four churches on four hills....



And the massive, but now disused bull fighting arena at Acora....



Meanwhile something burns out on the lake...



But I am in no mood for sightseeing and finally get my first glimpse of Puno...

Finally Busted

Sunday 11th

We leave Bariloche and cycle all of 20kms out of town, partly to avoid paying another night in the hostel and partly as the volcanic ash finds us again in the afternoon.

We´ve definitely been pushing our luck so far. We´ve slept in some fairly risky accommodation and even been caught by the military on one occasion. This time we push it too far.

There´s a bridge over a river, the river cascades to Nahuel Huapi lake, there´s a flat spot of green grass in the corner of river and lake. Michael and I both stop at the same time and agree it´s the perfect spot for camp.



That´s the plus column...

In the negative column...
1) It´s overlooked by 4 rather nice looking mansions over the river



2) The bridge is the border to re-enter Nahuel Huapi National Park which means no camping outside organised sites.
3) Oh... And there´s a police check point 30 metres down the road.



We know about 1) and 2) and decide to risk it. Crucially we fail to spot 3) as the police are tucked out of site in a cabin off the road.

Lighting a fire to cook chorizo sausages is probably the boulder that broke the camel´s back and soon thereafter we see blue flashing lights on the bridge.

Probably nothing to do with us we agree.... but no the locals have rumbled us.

And then we see a torch beam descending from the bridge, closely followed by an extremely angry young man in uniform. We hastily extinguish the BBQ and trudge guiltily behind him back to HQ. Even his back looks angry! It starts badly when he asks for passports and we explain they are back in the tents. Mine´s in my pocket (and I find out later - so is Michael´s) but there´s no way I want to give that away.

We know what we´ve done wrong, and we duly get the third degree. He explains about a rather lovely sounding campsite 30km away.
30km?? It´s 9pm, dark, and we´ve not finished our chorizo sausage supper, so this is terrible news. We play the dumb foreigner and throw ourselves on his mercy.... There must be room in his cabin for 2 weary travellers who meant no harm, who´s customs and ways are different and lead us innocently to misunderstand these complexities of camp etiquette.

He relents. Slightly - there´s no way we can talk our way out of this into a warm cabin. He allows us to camp "out of site" behind a tour office across the road. Somewhat cowed, we drag our gear back up and over the road and re-pitch camp. We decide another BBQ is probably not a great plan. Pan fried sausage it is...

What Time is It..... Ask a Policeman

Wednesday 16th

We need to cross the border and cycle just 15kms to Chile Chico to catch a ferry across the lake. No problem. Except we ask several different people about the ferry times and get the following "3pm", "4pm", "not today", "not tomorrow"?. We ask the price and get the folowing "30 US dollars", "15 dollars", "very expensive", "25 dollars". We also get told there is a 13 dollar charge to use the road??

I´m starting to realise that Argentines give misinformation about Chile and vice versa - they are not on the best of terms and border towns can be tetchy. We surmise that the ferry goes in the afternoon, costs less than 15 dollars and the road might just be free - like the other 1000 miles so far!

We settle in for a little tent fixing and a long leisurly 4 course breakfast - eggs, cereal, toast, porridge with Julian another crazy American who´s WALKED from Ushuaia - now that´s crazy. He teaches us to fish and gives us some hand made lures...



And then Martha - the kleptomaniac turns up looking distinctly guilty. We decide to give her a hard time, partly because she´s the number one suspect in the sock investigations, and partly, I admit just for sport - she´s not a nice person. She cracks in a most amusing way and storms out.

Not so amusing when the police turn up 5 minutes later. Martha accuses us and Carlos of going to hit her, plus victimisation. It´s all getting very entertaining when the site admin get involved as well - I just watch and play the dumb foreigner (an easy part, I admit), No entiendo - I don´t understand, but it´s clearly emotional. I debate about getting the camara out, but decide against it.... it might not go down too well with the cops.

I get the low down from Michael later - "Sticky Fingers Martha" who has also been impersonating a site worker is to be evicted and Carlos´s who dog turns out to be a stray he adopted is also evicted for eating too many tents - he got Julian´s as well.

We decide not to take up the offer of free accomodation and leave for the boat.....
and miss it by 20 minutes. It did go at 3pm - 3pm Chilean time which is an hour behind. We would still have made it but Michael got a puncture on the way, but at least it does go tomorrow.

We camp in the municipal site which is amazing complete with BBQ pit. Mmmmm steak and chorizo.

Los Antiguos Crime Statistics

Tuesday 15th

Should have gone North!! Lago Buenos Aires has mountains on one side where the wind can get up some speed as it descends, it crosses the lake with no obsticles until it hits a cliff on the other side. Unfortunately the road runs at the base of the cliff - so you get the full force of a trapped wind. Fun fun fun - even the lake have white caps and wind generated 2 foot waves along it´s shore.



We camp in border town Los Antiguos and go for a last Argentine steak before we hit Chile.

There´s been a crime!! We came back to camp to find a pair of socks stolen! Who would steal a pair of cyclists socks - we should be able to track them down like the bisto advert by following the brown air trail.

Then I get back to my tent and find the straps for my awning have been cut and a pair of shoes are gone. No I´m annoyed and we go to the camp site admin to complain as Michael can speak Spanish fluently.

Then things get interesting. There are 2 Argentines being housed on site in cabins until they have houses built for them (?). Carlos owns a dog and we soon find the shoes minus a couple of bits, plus a few teeth marks. Apparently the dog has the sharpest teeth in the world and chews through tent straps. The straps still look like they´ve been cut to me. I don´t know, maybe the dog is part shark, maybe he carries a flick knife but Carlos is OK so we drop that one.

Martha is the site Kleptomaniac and a known thief, plus she left the site as soon as we started to make some noise. Looks like that´s where the socks went. We bitch and complain enough to get a refund for camp fees and a free stay as many nights as we like.

So we fill in the forms (South America loves to write things down before losing all trace of documentation in large filing cabinets) and add to Los Antiguos crime stats.

The crime scene!!