We had an escort, in the shape of a gate guard with a clapped out DT125 and a big gun, who was assigned to us until the customs papers were done. We have been in Panama a week and the bikes are already on their way to South America.
Panama City is surprisingly modern but you still know you are in Central America. Fancy shopping malls and shiny skyscrapers contrast with traffic chaos, hawkers on street corners and an army of police and security guards.

The modern skyline of Panama City.

There is lots to keep us occupied here, lots to plan and time to catch up on all those things we haven’t done for the last few weeks. Yes the postcards are on their way!!

The border crossing from Costa Rica into Panama was one of the easiest so far and one of the cheapest. Leaving Costa Rica cost 200 cordobas and entering Panama cost U$1 for immigration and U$4 for each bike. I am sure we should have driven through the fumigation tunnels and paid accordingly, but it was raining so hard, no one was venturing out from their offices unless they absolutely had to. There was one moment when we thought we were going to have to camp out at the border. The travellers in front of us, in the immigration queue, told us that they were asked for an onward ticket and not having one were told to go and buy a return bus ticket to San José. When we were asked the same question, we said we were travelling by motorcycle and pointed to the bikes behind us. Without further ado, we were stamped in and pointed along to customs. Phew!! One of the customs guys noticed we were carrying a few spare tyres and made sure they were entered into the paperwork, then had a look in our panniers before we were able to leave.

Waiting for the rain to stop at the border to Panama.

Not that we were in much of a hurry, the rain was still lashing down with a vengeance. We did eventually leave the shelter of the border and headed toward David on a 2 lane highway, in search of a camping spot by a waterfall, mentioned in a well known guidebook. None of the locals had heard of it, however, and so we ended up camping wild, our first night in Panama.
Boquete was a nice town in the hills above David, where we spent a night, it was windy though and threatened to rain every evening, so we were soon on our way again. We rode to Santa Clara in one long day. The countryside was very dry and in many places scorches where fires had been burning. On one stretch of road, the vehicles coming towards us started flashing their headlights and hazardlights, so we prepared ourselves for the usual carnage of a road accident. This time however the delay was a demonstration. The demonstrators took up one side of the road and slowed the traffic down so their point could be made.

A demonstration slows down the traffic.

At Santa Clara, we met Guido and Sabine, who are travelling in a VW van. Georg had travelled with them previously and they had lots of gossip to catch up on.
After a few days at the beach, it was time to go to Panama City, meet the shipping agent and part with some money. We also had to decide where we wanted to ship the bikes to. The price was the same to either Ecuador, Peru or Chile, in the end we decided on Chile. We really want to visit Patagonia and preferably before it gets too cold, this way we could be there by the end of February, then ride leisurely back up away from the cold weather.
The bikes are going by sea, and because the ship is a roll-on roll-off ferry, we don’t have to worry about making crates, draining the petrol and oil etc. It takes a little longer than by air but is about half the price.

Outside the police station in Panama City, our bikes about to be inspected.

We had a few days before we had to take the bikes to the port, so we did the touristy sights; Miraflores Locks, the causeway, the parks. In fact we actually camped for almost a week in the Parque Natural Metropolitano. A lovely spot to the north of town, lots of wildlife and friendly rangers, a great place if you have your own transport.

A container ship, in one of the locks at Miraflores.

By the time we had to take the bikes to the port (in Colon - OooErr), we had quite a group together. Joining Georg, Guido, Sabine, Arno and I, were Yukiko - a Japanese woman on a Suzuki 250, and Mauricio - a Chilean who had ridden his bike down from Toronto. It was a regular convoy heading down the autopista to Colon, talk about attracting attention! It took almost all day to sort out the customs paperwork and then the port paperwork, we had to actually go into Colon to the customs office, just inside the Zona Libre. However we had an escort, in the shape of a gate guard with a clapped out DT125 and a big gun, who was assigned to us until the customs papers were done. Our bikes were then checked out by the nose and 4 paws of the K9 drug unit and once pronounced clean, labelled with their destinations, while we filled out lots more paperwork. By the end of it all we were glad to see the back of Colon, and return to Panama City, even though it was by bus!!
We then had a week to see the rest of the city and do some relaxing before flying south to Chile.