the things I’ve seen and done……..

Within the last few days I saw these: Dwayne and Nate wreck their motorcycles, watched a man die, saw mounted cows heads (Holsteins), watched everyone get into Nates “personal space”, rode my cycle over the panama canal, hit two buses with my fist while riding, got sick, flicked off more buses, got hit/hit a bus with my cycle, got hit by a truck while hitting another, got bad fuel or something in my cycle, changed my oil, kicked my cycle, whacked my cycle with a large hammer a number of times, I’ve gone through four boarder crossings, slept in a bunkbed with chad, met Mennonites in at least 3 countries, helped fix chads bike, talked with old friends at home, made new friends abroad, done countless wheelies, dropped my cycle once, pounded out the miles, sat and ate, and I’ve watched millions of pounds of boat and cargo be lifted up with ease, watched God bless places just by us walking in, Laban sleeping under his cycle in a parking lot in panama city, chads head being bandaged up, the sun rise, chad trying to explain why his head was cut, and watched native Guatemalans worship in their church.

This is all in a matter of a few days. I will refrain from typing up the list of things and people I have thought about, that would take me the rest of the night and be boring to most people. But now for a in depth look at what I’ve been up to.

So from San Jose Costa Rica we headed south to our most southern destination, Panama City. That’s where it hit me that we road a long freaking way. Pa to Panama on Two wheels, ok sometimes just one wheel. We were going to go down the Pacific coast but due to all the rain taking out some bridges we figured we better go down the gulf side. So we stayed close to the panama costa rica boarder. The next day we where going to try and make it into panama city then check out the city and the canal the next day and then head back the following. So we got up early to get to the boarder and get a crossed. Well we got there at 7 am and the boarder people had not shown up yet! What?! We had gotten early for nothing?! Well we didn’t wait long till they got here and checked us out of Costa Rica. Then after traversing the most questionable bridge, we had to check into Panama. Lets talk about this bridge for a moment. It was originally a railroad bridge but best as we could figure out there used to be a main bridge that got washed away, this had to be years and years ago because the railroad bridge was being used for everything for quite a while. So with the tracks still in the center of the bridge they just laid planks down for the motos and the cars to drive on. Well the panks didn’t really stay in place so they had gaps and holes just waiting to swallow our tires and send us crashing into the river. Ok we probably wouldn’t of gone into the river but we would of gotten thrown into a chain link fence or into the railroad tracks, both of which would of hurt and both would have been very bad for our bikes.

we rounded a bend and saw this

After a long time waiting at the boarder to get all our paper work we were off. Nate was leading us up and over the mountains toward the canal. Everything was going great we went up the mountain then after cresting the top the road conditions deteriorated quickly. Potholes, bumps, loose gravel, and wet roads. Now combine that with some tight corners and what do you get?? a two bike wreck that’s what. As was posted on the blog earlier via video post Nate then Dwayne both went down. There was some damage to both bikes, Nates front forks we found out later were bent quite badly but still functional. Dwaynes front brake lever was busted off, along with his CB antenna. After getting both bikes on the road again and everything back in its place we headed off. Now another hour behind schedule riding in the rain, Dwayne with no way of communicating with us besides hand signals, we stopped to fill up with fuel and decided it wasn’t going to be wise to ride in the rain at night and that we better start looking for a hotel. Panama City could wait till the next day.

Dwaynes road rash on his bags

Laban out for the night

coming into panama city

everyone makes fun of how big laban and i's toboxes are. this guy had us beat

sick of riding around looking for a hotel

Laban was sick and tired

Laban getting some shut eye when we stopped for like 10 min

some lane spliting in slow motion

this bus tried to kill us right after this picture. he swerved to block our pass

nates bent forks after his little wooopsiedo

So the next day we spent looking for a Suzuki dealer only to find out it was some big holiday and everything was closed for the day. We then proceeded to spend a good 4-5 hours looking for a blasted hotel. It was killing me. We had found one but it was going to be $$ so we that we would keep looking. Turns out nothing is cheap in Panama. Finally we found a little hostel, just before dark.