As many of you know, when I came back from my motorcycle trip through Latin America, I stayed about two months in the states before I went abroad again. This time not on a motorcycle, but to settle down for a bit (of course while preparing for the next adventure) and to try something new. Read more →
It has been one year since I crossed the final border of Central America into its southern most country… Panamá. I stayed a total of 2 nights there with most of the daylight hours spent rushing along the Pan American Highway in order to catch a boat.
Day 1: (Dec. 7) We were supposed to meet at 9am at the Carti loading docks, about 1-1/2 hours east of Panama City. We (met another solo female rider Deb at the hostal) intended to leave at 7am, but my KLR decided to have starting issues (i.e. didn’t have the juice to want to start in the morning). With the aid of a jogger passing by, we tried to gain enough speed on flat ground to bump start it. That didn’t work. Unfortunately, we were in a business district and no one was interested in helping. So Deb, dug into the plastics around her GS650 to get to the battery. A jump start worked and off we went an hour late. There was no stopping until we got there, not even for fuel which I would be running really close to empty by the time we got there.
I was warned by a motorcyclist ahead of me to pay attention to the speed limits in Panama. I was watching the speedometer, knowing there were Policia with radar guns lurking in the shadows of overpasses and trees next to the road. The freeways in Panama are 4 lanes wide with pull off shoulders again, and keep going in a straight line for miles. I saw the signs drop from 100kph to 80 kph, but my speed didn’t drop quickly enough.
