9/29/2010 - Boquete, Panama: Bring It On

A long cold soggy ride and I finally make my the destination for the night Boquete, Panama. It's a touristy mountain town where it seems to rain all day long. Apparently it's supposed to be beautiful, but I'd never know since it's covered in a blanket of fog. But I've got some time to kill, so it seems like a nice place to spend two nights.

Now I really wish I would have read this in some of the hours of Internet research I did before making this trip: bring your original title to your vehicle. That would have been so damn convenient. I'm here in Panama figuring out how to get my title to me. It's been problematic  at almost every border except Mexico. I guess my doctored up color copy doesn't really cut it. The dude at the Costa Rican border totally called me out, and asked where the original was, but luckily honesty worked, and he let me in. I'm not taking any chances in South America, so I'm getting that title somehow. Once I finish up some business, I'm headed for the first country on the South American list: Columbia. 

Now the Pan American highway is the longest highway on the planet, but there's a very inconvenient break in the road called the Darien Gap. It's a forty mile stretch of swampy forest controlled by guerrillas and drug runners, so for the sake of safety I've got to put my bike on a boat and ship it to Columbia. This is going to hurt. I don't trust people handling my bike with cranes, then putting it on an old salty boat in hopes of encountering calm sees. Definitely makes me nervous, especially since it's going to cost me seven hundred dollars. Yikes. I hope my Spanish skills are up to par, so the shipping adventure goes smoothly. If all goes well my bike will be undamaged, I'll have snorkeled in the San Blas islands, and eaten my weight in lobster. Definely not looking forward to the voyage, since my house is my Kawasaki. I hate when things like that are out of my control, at least on the bike if I crash or leave my bike somewhere dangerous, it's my fault if something happens. Whatever, It's all for the sake of adventure. Bring it on.