A Frog and an Elephant (Originally posted 2 May 2016)
Country
There is something about inertia, something that drives me crazy. It is the way that our lives take on inertia as though they were physical objects. We settle quickly into routine, whatever it may be, and the longer we don't change the harder change becomes. Six months back on the Gold Coast and it was a wrench to pack the bags and go. Two months in London, buried in our London routine, and moving on seemed so much harder than just staying. And we know that after months on the road, that life too, will become a habituated norm and the simple act of stopping will be a wrench. I am not sure why we see this as a problem, or if others have the same problem, or if it is a real problem at all. I only know that making a start always seems like the hardest part of each journey.
Years ago we worked out that the best way to get things moving was simply to buy a one way ticket to somewhere. That got us committed and forced us to work out the rest of the plan. But switching out of one mindset and into another doesn't happen so easily. We bought our tickets to Panama a month ago in London then promptly forgot all about them. Even when we arrived at Heathrow to board a flight we still had our London heads screwed on. It was probably that which caused us to overlook a detail. You can't get on a plane to Panama without a return ticket or proof you are leaving within the visa time.
Now, most of you know our motorcycle, “Elephant”, is in Panama and when we pick it up we will ride it out of the country. Unfortunately, we had no evidence of this so had to resort to purchasing a fully convertible ticket from Panama City to Bogatá to show evidence we intended to leave. This put a cool $2K on a credit card but, being a convertible ticket, we can cash it in and get the money back. Unfortunately, we don't get a refund of the booking fee of about $35 a ticket which I will now called a stupidity tax.
We found Panama City pretty much as we left it 8 months ago and used our few days there to get some necessary admin out of the way. The most important task was buying a replacement battery for the bike. We had started on this task back in the UK and had run up a half dozen dry gulches before we met an American named Jay in Oxford who was staying at the same B&B and studying at one of the colleges. He had a father (Roy) living in Panama City. In no time we were hooked-up and Roy had discovered the only suitable battery in captivity in this part of the world. It was an OEM BMW part and eyewateringly expensive but at least it was ours.
We caught up with Roy to thank him for his help at a tap-house with the wonderful name of La Rana Dorada (The Golden Frog). We also had a half day wandering the Casco Antiguo (old city). Early on Saturday morning we joined a throng of locals and piled onto a bus heading west for the nine hour ride to the small rural city of David where Elephant is in storage with the Aduana (Customs).
Tomorrow is Monday and we will buy insurance for the bike, get it out of hock, give it a service, then ride south into a largely unplanned future. But on a lazy Sunday, in a closed up town, we feel strangely adrift. For these last few days since leaving London it seems as though the momentum has gone from our lives. We do what we have to do, but there is no go-forward. This apparent lack of motivation doesn't bother us at all. We have been here before and we know that sometime soon I will fit the new battery to the bike, turn the key and press the starter. When that big twin grumbles and coughs and bangs into life and we feel that familiar rumble at the base of our spines, it will all make sense again and inertia alone will take us forward.