The Nomads

Day 68 Monday June 16

Left David, Chiriqui Province, Panama

Temp: 26 degrees C
Sunny, then cloudy, foggy, rain

We were up early and on the road by 8:00 hoping to get as far as Cartago in one go and be through the Cerro de la Meurte before two in the afternoon when it gets very foggy and dangerous.

The first setback was taking a left turn out of David onto the Pan-American. The locals pointed us the way but apparently left turns are prohibited there. I was up the road in jig time with a cop chasing me on a much smaller bike. He decided he couldn’t catch me so he dropped back and pulled Denis (who is always slow into traffic) over and wanted to give him a ticket. He offered to let him go if he paid twenty dollars US (ten for each of us cause Denis told him I was his brother???!) He had to put it inside his passport and hand it to the cop who insisted it be done this way because he didn’t want anyone to see him accepting money! Duh!!! I would have taken the ticket which is usually a five dollar fine. And to pay for two…? If he had kept quiet there was no way the cop could charge him for my turn! He got suckered good!

That set us back about half an hour.

Several police and military checks set us back another half hour. Then the border crossing took up another hour and a half. The immigration lady started my paperwork, and when a Panamanian came in behind us she called him up front, pushed my papers aside, and processed him through. And his papers were not in order so she was running around trying to sort things out for him and completely ignored me as though I wasn’t even there for over half an hour!

I knew if I said anything I would get the “power trip” run-around and sandbagging so I had to just suck it up. What A Bitch!!!!

The end result is that we were headed through the Cerro de la Meurte at the worst possible time . It was a long hard row to hoe! Four separate half hour stops while backhoes and bulldozers and trucks tried to clear away landslides wide enough for one lane of traffic(seeing as how the other lane was washed down the cliffside, pavement and all)! And the fog really was as thick as pea soup. And the rain started….Then for about two hours we almost froze. Sue shivered the rest of the way to San Jose and my jaws and shoulders and hands were really cramped and hurting bad from the cold and the death grip I had on the handlebars!

The pic to the right - note where the center line is...

The Cerro de la Meurte (rough translation: the mount of death) at 11,520 feet is the highest elevation on the Pan-American in Central America, and there have been many deaths by Hypothermia and pneumonia on this pass.

We pulled into Cartago only to find there were no hotels that anyone could point us to so we about-turned and decided to head into San Jose, another 26 Km down the road. We pulled into the city in the height of the supper traffic and stopped for supper to let the traffic thin out before going on a search for hotels. By then it was dark and were did a lot of stopping and round-abouts before finally settling in at the Sleep Inn right in the center of the downtown, one block from the Jade Museum and the Centro Nacional de la Cultura.

First order of business…Hot Baths!!!!!

I didn’t think we were ever going to be warm again!

It was a rough day but there was some really fun riding and some great views on the way.

Tomorrow, up early, on the road and hopefully to Liberia before dark…….

Kilometers - Daytrip: 427 km total: 14,813
Gas: $ 23
Lodging: Sleep Inn $ 139