motosouth: Panama!

Hi! We made it to Panama City and are now running around trying to arrange shipping of the bikes to Miami and getting on a sailboat to Colombia in a few days. The past few weeks have been really good. After Costa Rica we spent a week on the islands of Bocas Del Toro in Panama surfing, swimming, hiking, and meeting some new friends. Its a lovely place, and despite having pretty negative impressions at first in Bocas town, we both really loved it by the end. Bastimentos Island is a gem that is scheduled to have a big luxury resort soon...blech.

After that we headed down to Santa Catalina for a few last days of surfing. We had visited Santa Catalina a year ago with our friends Bucky and Cara, and really liked it this time as well. Its amazing how different your perspective on a place changes after having driven there vs. flying. Everything made sense this time, there was context to everything we encountered...the people, animals, and place fit nicely in to the continuum we've seen driving south.

At the hostel we are staying at here we met up with a Aussie who had driven his motorbike from Argentina to Colombia, built a boat powered by his motorbike hooked to an old car transmission, and sailed to Panama. Amazing. We had heard about him in Guatemala from his former roommate Brett who we traveled with a bit so it was cool to meet up in person. Check out his site: fourstrokesofluck.com

They turn on the AC here in 1 hour, and I've never been one to seek out AC, but right now its all I can think about. Its soooo hot and humid. Here are some pics, enjoy!

Paul on the way up to Altamira and Amistad National Park in Costa Rica. There were a couple of sections on this road that were the trickiest we encountered, but neither of us fell!

Amistad National Park in Costa Rica

Miguel and his lovely farm, which we camped on for a night. He fed us one of the best meals of the trip, bacon steaks!!

Paul with one of the biggest trees I've ever seen. In Amistad NP, Costa Rica

Kayuka in Bocas Del Toro, Panama. Amazing how far out in the ocean people would go with these homemade solid wood canoes.

Bocus Del Toro, on Bastimente Island

At home in the jungle and the ocean, Bastimente Island

Sloth! With Baby! If you whistle just right they stick their heads up like this. 3 toed.

We swam back in to this cave, with thousands of vampire bats, so cool!

Paul, intrepid jungle explorer, in casual business attire.

Waiting for traffic to clear on the walk to Chapo's house.

Family traveling through Bastimentos Island

Wee little croc. Bastimentos Island.

How locals park their rides. Bastimentos Island.

Chapo's house on Bocas.

Walk to Chapo's house.

When Planes aren't taking off, people play soccer, run, and have bbq's on the runway. Bocas del Toro.

Camping at Playa Estero, Santa Catalina. That night there was a tsunami warning because of the earthquake in Chili (which we didn't hear about until 2 days later) luckily the water stayed where it was.