Blogs from Panama City, Panamá, Panama, Central America Caribbean - page 5

Geo: 8.99427, -79.5188On Tuesday, Nov 3rd we arrived at the entrance to the Panama Canal. For us this was a much anticipated highlight of the cruise, one of the main reasons we had chosen this particular trip. We were up early and on deck about 6-30am. We were due to pick up the pilot at this time and then reach the first of the locks at 8am. We could see the coast of Panama in the distance and we passed many cargo ships all lined up waiting for their turn. We grabbed a quick breakfast and coffee at the Ubersee buffet and were on Deck 9, at the bow again by 8am. It was a slow and steady progress as we gradually approached the harbour. I counted at least 50 ships all at anchor. We had ... read more

Nicaragua to Costa Rica and Panama. With an early start we left the comfort of our fortified hotel in Granada and headed for the border with Costa Rica. The ride was uneventful until the border where we first of all had to exit Nicaragua, it was stinking hot and everything was done at windows with the people inside with Airconditioning and us out there in the heat. The entry into Costa Rica was just a matter of formalities and finding our way to the stamp in our passports and on our papers to temporarily import our Motos. We chose not to use the Carnet system as they have moved on from that silly costly system over here and just issue you with a 30 or 90 day temporary import document. We have to buy some insurance ... read more

A kind of extreme trip across to LA this time, what with a 10 hour delay on Virgin, missing our connection with our Avienca flight pass and loosing all the subsequent flights, and then having to negotiate over hours with the help of Virgin staff to correct the flow-on effects. Wonderful support during the night from crew leader Kylie, but also day-long support from local Virgin employee Delilah, it was all good. Virgin ultimately consoled us with Velocity points and a night with food at the Sheraton Gateway. Things were not all that bad. Avianca had threatened to cancel the travel pass because we were late for the first leg. Through Catherine's persistence and the support of Delilah, the flights were connected through after an additional fee each. The original proposal was that we would stay ... read more

Distance driven today: 144 miles / 232 km Cumulative distance driven: 8,273 miles / 13,314 km Today’s trip: Panama City to Lake Gatun and back, Panama Today is Sunday and that means that pretty much everything is closed here in Panama City. Over the past three days here, Zoe and I have completed most of the items in the long to-do list that we had when we arrived at the Panamanian capital. We have done all of our laundry, including Christer’s motorcycle riding jacket and pants whose surface must have contained about half a pound of dirt, sweat, dead bugs, tar from the road, and ingrained dust; all of which were accumulated during the 8,000 miles between Alaska and Panama. We have also repaired the bike and gotten hold of all spare parts needed to continue ... read more

Distance driven today: 276 miles / 444 km Cumulative distance driven: 8,101 miles / 13,037 km (another 8,000 miles to go) Today’s trip: David to Panama City, Panama Milestone achieved: we have now completed half the PanAmerican highway :-) We let David in the morning, figuring that it would be a pretty straight forward ride to Panama City. Turns out that, between David and the next major city called Santiago, there were roadworks going on. These were not your ordinary roadworks, but rather what we believe must be the world’s longest roadworks! The entire 194km / 121miles stretch between the cities was one gigantic construction zone. The existing 2-lane road was being widened to 4 lane highway. Somehow the Panamanian ministry of transportation must have decided to widen the entire section all at once, rather than ... read more