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The problem with the Specialized tires I have used on the trip - the rubber begins to separate from the kevlar before the tire is completely worn out.

Cookies and a souvenir shirt Andres and his mom gave me before I left

Andre gave me a ride back to the gas station where he picked me up, so I could continue riding from the same spot I stopped

The cities are always horrible to ride through.  Later this night I had black boogers from all the exhaust

Drying corn on the road to make pupusas

Random stuff I always seem to encounter on the road

Evaporated sweat marks on my handlebars, leaving just the salt

Terrible nights sleep with rain and ants in my tent

Then while cooking breakfast, biting my feet and ankles

Too many times

If it wasn't for people like this, my trip might have ended long ago.  Regreased my headset, fixed few small things, charged me nothing and even offered for me to stay

Crossing into Honduras

Such a great spot, for once no prying eyes

Water purification places are like hidden jems these days.  Tasty reverse osmosis, always clean water and they almost always fill my bottles for free

Pupusas in Honduras are definitely not as good.  They don't give you any salsa with it, and are like triple the price than El Salvador

Kids trying to collect money by acting like they're filling one of the many potholes in the road

This is a great photo illustrating a lot of the Latin America roads.  Potholes to avoid, random people walking the streets, occasional cattle... (sometimes are even sitting/laying on the sides of the road)

Dengue is a much bigger problem than Malaria these days.  A few kids had recently died from Dengue when I was in San Salvador

The customs of Honduras

Still had to smell some as I passed to get to the customs for Nica... and people always tell me how healthy it is what I'm doing - things like this and breathing diesel exhaust all day... right

So much extreme poverty

Nicaragua was real nice and flat

San Cristobal volcano that started erupting a few days before I arrived, was still spewing smoke/steam from the top

Volcanic ash and dust from recent eruption... I rode by fast

One of my favorite meals in Central America, only 50 cordoba, or about 2 bucks

Leon, Nicaragua

Cattle passing in the morning as I pack up camp

I lost count long ago, think number 14 or 15 now

Lots of volcanoes in Central America

Fading light as I'm just leaving Rivas, and another 30km to go

Last of the paved road in Tola, then the rest of the 15km was dirt, gravel, and hilly

Came across a band.  Because they don't have the money for proper drums, they improvise and use old jugs and stuff to make music.

Pitch black, riding a hilly dirt road.  Occasional car would pass and kick up clouds of dust that I'd have to breathe

Was ecstatic to see this sign

Had to cross huge puddles of mud

Relaxing on the beach out in front of John's place

My uncle TJ loves this stuff.  Rum of Nicaragua

Had my own room, but had about a centimeter of dust/dirt/debris on everything, so had to pitch my tent to try to keep things clean

Caked mud from some of the crossings, good thing had my offroad spare trailer tire

Hangin with John at his hostel

Rivas, Nicaragua

So vital, earplugs for all the noisy nights I have.  I knew how important they are, and almost knew that I would eventually lose them (I recently did)

Nice break

Nice folks at a woodshop they let me camp outside of

Never know what I'll come across on the road

Few more feet and it might be surfable

Down a hill, crossed this river, then suddenly was in some serious rainforest

A couple km's down a dirt road, no one around, heard the road is used to collect sand.  About 3am, the cops come and harass me, at least they didn't give me a ticket

Such a delicious meal Hans' girlfriend made for us.  We even had it for breakfast again, was just as good.

Hans and his girlfriend

What a terrible smell that is

Lots of beautiful open land in Costa Rica

Loads of palm farms, that use to make palm oil (above)

Last time I surfed, and probably last time for a long time.  

Playa Hermosa, Costa Rica

My friend Miguel in Santa Ana, El Salvador, tried to give me a bible to read on my trip.  I told him I'm honestly not religious, and that I wouldn't read it.  A month or so later, when I pulled my board out of my board bag to surf at Playa Hermosa, it fell out of the board bag, wrapped in a plastic bag.  At some point he must have secretly put it in.  I had a good laugh about that.

So many times, small or large, problems with ants in my tent in Central America

The islands here are a common place for whales migrating from the South or the North to come during the winter months and to give birth to young

Mamon chon (or something like that) love these small sweet fruits

So much moisture/rain, fungus growing on the signs

My copper pipe kickstand, and weapon to beat chasing dogs.  Had since Montana my friend Todd gave me, broke when my bike fell over.  Nothing gold can stay

Feeling thoroughly pissed off and aggravated, fed up I saw this from the bridge and went swimming to cool off from the heat.

Rough roads, just something else to aggravate me more (looks softer than really is)

Last border crossing with my board.  At this point good riddance, gotta lighten up physically, and mentally

Usually see lots of cows, Panama for some reason has lots of bulls

 

David, Panama

As I packed up one morning, some nice construction workers nearby walked over, said little, but smiled and just gave me a bunch of these

Starting to lose my mind at this point

First traveling cyclists I had seen since Baja

Firefighters are funny

Legs of bike packer, burn on my knee from my frying pan, dirt and debris, and heavily tanned/burned

Leaf cutter ant nest

Surprised to see X-ray scanning machines

Real good thing I changed my front tire when I did, loads of wet roads, mud and dirt roads to cross. 

Feeling so much better to be on a side road detour to Santiago, smooth and no cars/noise

Then I fall in tar.

Everything I was wearing was ruined.

Took hours to scrub everything with gasoline and rag, trying to get it off.  Another hour just to clean myself to get the tar off.

Much easier to distinguish tar from a normal road when it's dry.  When it's wet, can't tell the difference

The side road detour the other cyclists convince me to take, told me "so much better than main highway", neglected to mention the ~15km of dirt/gravel construction I had to get through.

Fortunately crashing/sliding out on the pavement only resulted in cut up hand.

Great place for a solid stretch and a bite to eat, bus stop with pretty murals

When will the heat end...

Broken glass I had to cross, happy not to get a flat

Pretty parts of the detour

but soooo hilly

Treating myself.  Falling in tar, figured I deserved it.

Camping on a sugar cane farm

Going down a side dirt road late one day, after seeing a sign that said something about river sand.  Only to find a dump on one side, and a side road that looked low enough to fill with water.  I ended up camping inside the fencing, on the far side of the dump.  There was only one small pile of trash, but just the thought of camping in a dump...  I found a spot where I couldn't actually see the trash, felt a bit better.

Waiting for my mom and grandma to arrive

Party time!  Having a lovely dinner together and catching up after not seeing them for about 8 months

!

Whole pile of parts, gear, and goodies my lovely mother brought down for me.

Bag of stuff I should have received in the package my uncle sent to San Salvador.  Thanks don!

Giving them all my gear, just heading out to ride from Playa Blanca to the city.  Thought it was going to be about 100km, turned out to be around 130km. 

What a relaxing wonderful time with my family.  Really needed it.

View from our room

Miraflores locks at the canal

The trains on the side help guide the boats through, trying to keep them from bumping the walls

Fortunate to arrive and see this car transport ship passing through

Farewell

I never had room service before.  My ladies spoiled me plenty

Always nice to have new rubber

Modified rig.  Went through everything in my gear.  Cut about 20lbs of stuff, including tools, surfboard, clothes, and odds/ends.  So much lighter, can feel the difference

Camping much happier, new stove works perfect, luxurious life with cream of wheat and fine chocolates to snack on

Nice picture of Colon, but bad representation.  To say the least, Colon is aptly named, and I was happy to leave promptly

Building the new canal

On my way to Shelter Bay to find a boat ride, crossed the Gatun locks.  Cruise ship and oil tanker were passing through

All the signs say boldly to not stop, so while bumping along the grated bridge, I managed to pull my camera out and snap a few.  Had to, how often do you bike across the canal?

All the way to Shelter Bay, what incredible stretch of road cutting through the jungle. Saw numerous animals, and almost no cars, really enjoyed it.

Remnants of the U.S. occupation.  Fine buildings slowly rotting away, right next to the water for that matter.

Loads of ships waiting to enter the Canal from the Carribean

Shelter Bay marina, so excited when I rounded a corner and could see the masts of sailboats

Dianna, John and Stein, lovely dinner

Staying with Stein and Dianna, they love to do early morning walks.  I would barely be awake, stumble out of bed at sunrise and we'd go walk into the jungle.  One morning we saw monkeys, morphus butterfly, parrots, well worth it

Stein and Diana's beautiful catamaran.  They just finished repainting the hull

Moving their boat back into the water.  Quite the process, I was curious to see how it's done.

These tiny strands of fiber, and piece of metal, all that's holding up 10 tons of boat (2 of them)

My new Norwegian friends Dianna & Stein

Another morning walk, so early haha!

Putting up the Genoa

Another marvelous dinner aboard the White Admiral.  Stein is quite the musician, played some great songs I had never heard before like "Waltzing Matilda".

Diana making delicious poached eggs

Motoring out of the harbor

Trying to get some fish for dinner

View from my room below

After motoring into the wind for a while, finally turned enough we could put the sails up

First time sailing (besides a sunfish couple times back home)

With the main and genoa up, all wind speed.  Clipping along

Heading up the Rio Chagres

Wild jungle on both sides of the river.  I sat on the deck into the night, quietly listening to the sounds.

We took the dingy out after anchoring, before dinner, went to explore a nearby river we saw

Evening calm, so quiet, rowing back to the White Admiral

Stein climbed the mast to fix some stuff

Walking up to the ruins of a Spanish fort on the point

Saying goodbye, Stein helped me bring everything ashore, I rode back to Shelter Bay and they continued on to Bocas Del Toro

Getting creative with no cars on the road

I came back to the marina, and talked to a couple that I had met when I first arrived trying to find a boat ride to Colombia.  Then they invited me on their boat.  Marvelous crab quiche Anne Marie made.

Relaxing on Loafer's Glory with Anne Marie and Larry

Loading my things onto Maly, for the ride to Colombia

Quick goodbye before heading out

Dodging tankers

Barely getting out of the marina, motoring to Colon and in the morning finding that the alternator was bad on the "new engine".  Had to sit on the boat all day watching the cargo boats load and unload, waiting for them to return with the new alternator (should have just had them drop me off at the dock at this point).

There were some good things to the ride.  Besides being the cheapest option, I had my own room/bed (lots of the "backpacker boats" have 8-10 people on the same size boat, I can't imagine).

And my trusty ride stowed below

Finally leaving Colon

Then having a problem with the throttle

I can't even remember what the problem was here

Marcos, the first captain, putting some lines out

Putting up the only sail we had (as I found out, we didn't even have a main).  Another plus of the trip, we couldn't arrive in the dark to Porvenir, so we had some time to kill.  Cut the motor and sailed for quite a while with decent winds.  Later that night, I sailed for almost 4 hours without autopilot, enjoying the quiet sound of waves slapping against the hull, and the sail flapping full of wind, with stars overhead.

I don't have the words

Andres and Orlando studying our route with Marcos

We hollered over at each other enthusiastically

Some people will never know the feeling

Early morning sunrise

Patrolling helicopter, for the frequent narco drug trafficking from Colombia

Porvenir, one of the principal Kuna islands, of the hundreds

Lots of reef to run aground on

Fuel lines were mixed up, so we had to remark them

Relaxing anchored at Porvenir

Maly

Exploring a bit of the Kuna Culture

Porvenir, actually has a frequently used airstrip

Giant sand bags keep the water out

The picture says it all

Tuna sashimi, just minutes from the water, killed, sliced, and eating... doesn't get fresher or tastier than that

Sleepy stowaway

Tikipiki (or something like that), strangely accustomed to our presence

Tilsen, the second captain of the trip

Engine cutting out completely in the middle of the ocean between Colon and Cartagena.  Dead calm, only a genoa to use.  We checked the fuel lines, switched to the other tank.  Tilsen, our captain, finally changed one of the fuel lines completely and this did the trick.  We left the seat cover off for a while because of all the trouble we had, felt like we probably just have to take it off again anyway

Dead calm, middle of the ocean.  A silence like none I have ever observed before.

There were numerous small birds on our boat.  I don't remember if they left with us, or flew out from land (land was not in sight most of the trip between San Blas and Cartagena).  This particular pair were fascinating to watch.  They would intentionally move closer to each other, and what looked like trying to kiss each other in a way.  Like the other birds, they would just sit and intently watch us, or the sails and rope move about, fixated on all the movement.

Cartagena, Colombia

Some of the terribly dirty diesel we pulled out of one of the tanks. 

Narrow passage between the two buoys, on the other side of each is a wall that was used hundreds of years ago to keep other invading countries from entering.

Walking around historic downtown Cartagena

They used the existing wall at the ocean, and built around it

"Natural" gas (natural is misleading, it's methane, and still petroleum based, from the oil deposits, however does burn cleaner).  They have a few of these stations, and always saw cars at them filling up.

Castle ruins. Cool...