fly or sail

Tom, the guy I set of with, was adamant that he could save money by sailing round the Darien Gap, rather than as I did, fly over.

Flying over: went with Girag for the bike-$900 and relatively simple. Ride to Panama Cargo Airport (not the same as the International) pay CASH, so have CASH available, no cards, no cheques.
Take the mirrors off, drain the tank (almost) and disconnect the battery. Leave the bike with them, come back with bits of paper that they give you, to what looks like a guard hut at the entrance to the Cargo airport main gate (by the bus stop), get some more paper and stamps from the guy with the hat and badges who lives there, then that’s it until Colombia as far as the bike goes.
Booked a personal flight with Copa Airlines, pleasant enough, $300.

The bike is shipped either that day or the following day (depends on what’s ahead of you, oh and Girag will tend to um and err about any specific time, but that’s just to cover their bums). In Bogota, collecting the bike involved a couple of walks across from the import to customs building, and for Javier, my new riding buddy, a quick reconnection of battery and mirrors, then off into the city to get the obligatory bib and license numbers.
My case was different, due to the change of plan and need to ship back to Seattle, where my new adventure awaited and is still ongoing.
Bogota and the immediate rural areas and mountains around it are biking delights (I know I was in a car, but you do recognise these things).

By boat. From Tom:

#3 From Norte America to Sur America
We arrived at the moment of transition from one continent to another. How to bridge the Darian Gap? There are 51 miles of impassable (in any practical sense) jungle between Panama and Colombia. The options are to fly or to boat around “the Darian”. Reasonable people put their motos and themselves on the plane and go. Cost about $1,000 or a bit more all total to get from here to there.
But, there is another way; for the not so reasonable people. Find a guy with a sailboat and hire him to take you across. Cost about $700, takes 5 days including a 2 day stopover in San Blas Islas to enjoy snorkeling and partying on the pristine beaches – and get passports stamped out of Panama. We found an Italian with a boat – 18 meters with 2 masts (the better to tie the bikes to). The bikes are loaded from the beach – onto a small boat and out to the sailboat and lift it over the side with some muscles and a winch from the main mast; then go get another one until up to 5 bikes are loaded and tied in place for the trip to Colombia. Our boat had 5 bikes and 6 passengers including one backpacker.
There are lots of different people here in Puerto Lindo (East from Colon, Panama about 50 kilometers): French, Italian, German, Dutch, American, Colombian, and Panamanians mostly Black rather than Brown or Indios. The common language is, of course, Espanol, but everyone is mixing their mother tongue with their version of Spanish.
At the Wunderbar Hostel where we stayed, the German/Austrian couple who own it are also bikers (used to have a biker bar in Greece) and he runs his 18 meter boat also back and forth to Cartagena, Colombia with bikes and passengers a couple of times a month. They lived on their boat for 16 years and now have a baby – and land base to go with it – lots of stories to tell over long breakfasts and long evenings with no TV. They bought the baby a Honda Monkey (a real, but very small bike) even before she was born.
After waking to the sounds of Howler Monkeys off across the river and competing roosters off in every direction, Patrice and I rode off in the morning to a very nice beach about 5 kilometers down the road. A swim – sunburned again – and lunch at the little home style restaurant near by then back to the hostel for a quick shower and a siesta in the hammocks. Life doesn’t seem to include a lot of stress here. There is an island for sale if you’re interested – see picture. Looks very nice from our beach; might be kind of expensive to keep all white and shinny….
Loading our bikes was easy … if you are very strong and have great balance. Lucky we had a lot of help from locals.
In the morning, we just climbed on board and off to San Blas Isla about 9 hours away – except that the guys who were supposed to put water in the boat tanks didn’t. Instead of leaving in the morning, we left at noon. Instead of arriving before dark, we arrived after dark in a narrow channel into a small harbor – but, we lived to tell about it. We stayed for 2 nights and then moved on two other San Blas Islas enroute toward Cartagena across open ocean – for 2 days – we all got to steer the boat in the crossing – 2 hour shifts at night. There are 5 bikes on board and 8 people including our Italian Captain Leonardo, his Panamanian girl friend, Lilia an Israeli ‘backpacker’ (anyone who isn’t riding a moto) who sells real estate in Israeli and 5 male bikers – two Canadian, two American, and one Venezuelan. This boat trip was wonderfully absurd in the mix of cultures and interests and, in the relatively disorganized nature of it – sleeping on the deck until it starts to rain very hard at 3:15 in the morning then a mad scramble for non-existent comfort inside, for example – and in the simplicity of it – very relaxed pace, no apparent schedule for much of anything, messy boat and messy passengers – the life of Caribbean values and timeframes – way of living.
In the end, after the unforecast 60 knot windstorm half way across from Panama to Colombia in which we had to turn around to run with the wind – or run out of fuel fighting it, after an extra day at sea with frayed nerves and tempers, after the lack of basic cleanliness and food and comfort had taken its toll on the passengers and captain alike, we arrived in Cartagena on a nice calm sea in the sunshine. We were all very happy to have survived and to once again be on land. Removing the bikes from the boat proved another occasion for argument and emotion. But, we all live to tell the tale as each of us experienced it.
The Venezuelan and the Israeli went off together to explore their newfound relationship. The Americans and the Canadian hung out together for a couple of days licking their wounds on land and trying to get clean and rested for the bike trek south.
The captain’s girlfriend was first ashore (she’s Colombian) and was quickly disappeared to find a fix for her suffering cocain habit. The captain found new girl friends on shore and was back to his ex-pat ways. The dog was happy to be again on terra firma and soon forgot being almost lost at sea and being constantly wet and uncomfortable – like the rest of us.
Together we experienced more than just a crossing of some ocean and the pleasures of the beauty of San Blas Islas, we were close and sometimes too close to each other and to the threats of weather at sea. Life slows down on a sail boat. Six days to cover the distance that one could do in 2 or 3 hours on a moto on land. I wouldn’t trade the trip for anything! (An overstatement to be sure, but it was wonderful – some of it at the time and some in hindsight. I would definitely recommend to my moto riding friends that they detour around the Darian Gap by sailboat – just not with an Italian Captain. There are lots of boats doing it, find one with a good reputation for clean and efficient and go for it.
The salt water has caused some problems that I am now trying to resolve. Patrice and I road from Cartagena to Medellin then on to Bogota and then Cali – from which I am filing this report.
Patrice’s wife, Christanne, flew into Bogota from Montreal to ride two up for the rest of the trip – maybe. Patrice wanted to be there when she arrived, so we left Cartagena after only 2 nights on the beach after the boat and got to Medellin late at night – me with no headlights. Medellin is a big city, beautifully spread out into the mountains all around. We stayed at a $12 a night “habitacion” that had no place to safely park the bikes over night. But, the women downstairs that ran the little café, let us park the bikes in the café which was tightly locked up for the night.
In the morning, we woke early and walked in our biker suits into the town Centro where we found an ATM and people having their early morning coffee and chat; we joined them. Then we went to church (it was Sunday) and listened from the back of the crowd to some singing which sounded fabulous in the big cathedral then left for a leisurely walk to a place selling fresh orange juice and hot sugar donuts. We waited not too patiently for the ladies to come and open the café so we could get our bikes and be once again on the road. Back into the mountains.
After the first couple hundred miles out of Cartagena, you get into the mountains – beautiful and fun on a bike. There are thousands of trucks to dodge and try to pass. The roads are not generally too pot holed, but the rain and “geological instability” of the region make for many large and small mud slides and road subsidences – keeps your attention. The vegetation is lush tropical, there are little communities and homes scattered along the route, the roads are constantly twisting and uping and downing – it is a biker’s dream. From this initial mountain section between Cartagena and Medellin on south to the Ecuadorian border (we’re told) there are mountains – steep with coffee plants growing on the sides and mules and carts and little motos mixing with the biggest trucks fully loaded. These are the best moto mountains in the world – or maybe this side of central France or Switzerland. Then again, Peru is still to come.
Two days ago, I left my bike at the magnificent facility that is Autogermania Moto Rad in Bogota. They have all the best equipment and tools that BMW Motorad has to offer. Edgar Gomes, the moto division manager (in Latin America BMW dealers sell cars and bikes out of one operation) is a fantastic guy – he loves practicing his English. I highly recommend this place for any servicing or repairs you might need on your BMW moto when in Bogota.
My headlights were working intermittently, the gas had water in it, the tack sometimes registered about twice the RPMs of the engine, a piece that I had welded on in Cartagena to add strength to the pannier rack disappeared somewhere in the mountains between Medellin and Bogota, the air filter is water soaked …. And, the homemade bags for tools that I’ve roped together and draped over the front of the “tank” for better weight distribution on the bike (it handles much better in curves and rocks) started to tear apart. I asked Jeraldo, our family style “hoteliera” guy, if he knew someone who could sew it – 5 houses down a “susteria” – works great now. With a lot of back and forth in Spanish and laughing and pointing, I left the bags to be not just sewn up where coming apart at the seams, but improved with new straps and some Velcro to secure in place at the sides.
Just arrived in Cali after a rather trying day of constant rain and washouts and mud slides and wet mountain roads with too many big trucks – 12 hours in the saddle from Bogota. This was a baptism of fire for Christianne – her first day of riding behind Patrice on this trip. They have done many other trips 2 up.) We’re staying at the Casa Blanca Hostel – great place with very hot showers!
Tomorrow on towards Ecuador.
Tom
tom@mathperspectives.com

Prior to this boat trip, Tom had spent everyday avoiding contact with people, their cultures and history, by riding through their country’s as fast and as directly as possible.

From another guy on the boat:When we got to the hostel there were five other bikers there. Two of them were older guys, one from Bellingham and the other from Quebec. The other three were younger guys traveling together who told us that they had rode through the last five countries before Panama in four days just to get to the hostel on time to get on the boat . They were drinking hard and had spent one night sleeping at the border.

The captain of their ship came by the hostel the next morning when they were ready to go and all five of the bikers told him that they didnt have the money to pay for the boat in advance and that they would pay when they got to Cartagena. This isn´t the normal practice because the captain can´t prove they didnt pay him if they decided to screw him on the other side. One of the guys supposedly didnt have money to pay for the hostel as well so he had to borrow money from the captain to pay for his bed. Right before they left the same guy came around asking everyone if they had seen his $100 pocket knife, no one had so he started making a stink about it getting stolen. When he couldn´t find it they left and I figured we wouldn´t been hearing anything else about them unless we crossed paths on the way down to South America.

Charles and I were already VERY bored so I tuned up my bike and we rode into Sabinitas for money, food, and internet. Nothing of note happened that night, we just sat around and talked with the people who were on our boat that had just arrived.

The next morning we got up and realized that a shitstorm was rapidly brewing. The captain had called Guido because one of the guys on the boat (the one who claimed his knife was stolen) was now saying that his laptop and a bunch of cash had been stolen as well. Guido immediately thought this was bullshit and when Silvia told him they hadn´t paid for the boat, and one needed to borrow money to pay for the hostel he was positive the guy was trying to commit insurance fraud to pay for the boat trip. On top of that the guy fingered us as the ones who stole his laptop.

So Guido asked us if he could search our things and of course we agreed. Sure enough there wasn´t any laptop. He called the captain back and told him to wait for him in Porvenir (the island with Panamanian customs). Guido would sail there first and sort out the whole thing.

We didn´t hear anything else about it, other than that the captain had worked out a contract with the guys to make sure they paid on arrival in Cartagena, until the last day of our sailing trip. It turns out that once on the boat one of the guys offered the captain´s young girlfriend (about 30 years younger than him if not more) some coke in exchange for sex and the captain found out. Then they hit a 6 hour long storm and the dog on board got so scared it shit all over the floor in the boat so they were walking through it until the storm let up and they were able to clean it. Four of the guys paid when they got to Cartagena but the guy who accused us of stealing his laptop took another 3 days to pay, and ended up having to borrow the money from one of the other guys. I have no idea how he plans to make it to Ushuaia if hes in Colombia now and already out of money, other than coning people of course.

So, it looks as though the boat offers the adventure, where as Girag will ensure that you do actually get to the next stage of your journey.

Costs seem to equal themselves out when you factor in time, extra gas, food, lodgings etc…

So, take your pick.