Few Shots of the Canal, Just Because I Can...

Kyle is cracking up while typing here so his post should be pretty funny, well at least for him. In the meantime, enjoy some shots of the Panama Canal. We went to check a small section of it out this afternoon called the Miraflores Locks. Pretty amazing to say the least. We are basically pros on the Panama Canal now so if youŕe interested come talk to us sometime.... ;)

By the way I finally figured out what the problem was with some of the pictures I uploaded and not being able to click on them to bring up the full sized shot. So they should all work now if you click on the photo itself. Yes I know, I am a Genius, you don't have to say it.

The Miraflores Locks is the first system of channels from the Pacific Side that allow one large ship to pass through at a time. The canal operators bring the water levels of the channels up and down to move the boats through and over the different terrain levels underneath.

Here's a big oil tanker making it's way West towards the Pacific Ocean. It takes a total of 8 hours to pass through the canal from coast to coast and can cost big ship like this over $50,000 each time they use the canal.

You can see the varying water levels in this shot. They use the water to act basically as a"ship elevator" if you will. These channels fill up in about the time it takes to fill up a bathtub, pretty incredible.

Here´s a map of the entire canal in the Visitors Center. Probably not the easiest to see but we were just at a little section of it on the Pacific Side, close to Panama City.

When we pulled up to the Hostel yesterday these kids were pretty enamored with the bikes. Kyle put his helmet on one of them and put him on my bike for a photo. They were pretty excited.

Anyways, that's it for now. Tomorrow we load up the bikes and ourselves on Fritz' Catamaran and take off for the San Blas Islands and Columbia!!! We'll update you in a few days when we reach land. We´re really excited for the boat and Columbia. Talk you all soon.

Clay

Panama stuff

First I just want to piggy back on clays comments about corrupt police in Costa Rica. It is a major problem getting pulled over 3 times in 2 days and having the cops to shake you down each time is a serious pain in the ass. On day three in Costa Rica the day we got pulled over twice within 30 minutes, we had just about had it with these jokers. We just smiled and nodded at everything the cop said. He threated to "take away our passports and licenses", we said "ok fine". then he was going to "impound the motorcycles", we said "ok if thats what you need to do", then he said "you will not be allowed to leave the country until you go to the bank which is already closed today (Monday at 2pm um hm ok...) and pay the fine" we smiled and agreed to wait until the bank opened to pay the fine so we were permitted to leave the country. This poor cop got so tired with us agreeing to his ridiculous demands that he just let us go, well more like "get the eff outta here" so that was Costa Rica. But aside from all the corrupt pig activity, Costa Rica is my favorite country so far. It is just absolutely beautiful the beaches and the dirt roads that connect the secret surf spots are out of a fairytale. I guess thats the reason Costa Rica has probably seen more tourism and related development than some other countries in Central America, even so its still a pretty sweet country.

Panama is pretty sweet too, but it feels completely different. As soon as you cross the boarder into Panama you are greeted by the sight of a beautiful straight and wide concrete freeway that could have only been conceived by American engineers. 6 weeks ago back home in the Bay Area seeing a road like this is no big deal, but after 6000 miles of mostly piss poor pavement, decreasing radius turns and potholes the size of storm drains the real Panamerican HWY looks impressive. For the most part the so called Panamerican HWY outside of Panama is really not that great, many sections remain under construction and are largely unpaved, other parts run through towns and villages and require you to slow down to ridiculously slow speeds of 25kph (= 10 mph), this is not longer the case once you enter Panama, although the condition and size of the freeway does vary slightly as you move through the country it is a vast improvement over much of the freeways that we have ridden so far and is on par with roads in the US. Now thinking back to Mexico the roads there, especially the Mex200 were very good, but Central America for the most part has been a different story.
Last night and tonight we are in Panama City. It is pretty chill here. There are approximately 500,000 people who live in the city and about 3.2 mil people who live in all of Panama. Panama City aside Panama feels the most under developed, most of the country just feels like a tropical wilderness and when you look at a map its not much of a surprise the only thing you really see on the map is the Panamerican HWY and Panama City which is situated right next to the Panama Canal.
so we went to check out the canal today, 8 bucks (yes all USD in Panama, feels kinda cool to be using real money again but to still be paying dirt cheap prices for everything) got us into the observation deck to check out the big boats moving through the lock systems, a short informational film on the history of the canal and cool museum that kept going on forever. It was a fun filled day at the canal. Lots of boats and water moving around.
Tomorrow we are waking up early to continue south for another 80km or so where we will take a louie (left hand turn) in the town of Llano, at which point we hit the dirt road to get to the dock on the Caribbean side were we are meeting up with Fritz The CAT! I cant wait for somebody else to do all the navigating. Im going to sit on the deck and sip on rum and cokes for the next 4 days. total sweetness... Peace OUT!
oh Post Script we found out yesterday that a total of 14 people will be on Fritz The Cat, so it might be kind of a party scene. We will post pics of the madness once we arrive in Columbia.

"Nothin like a couple of Over-Achievers!" Hanging with Pablo at Playa Negra

First of all...before I go hogging all the attention, let me give a big congratulations to the 2 "Sling Shot South" Followers who just got engaged this last weekend, you know who you are. Wish I was home to congratulate you but this will have to do for now. Very happy for you guys. I better be invited by the way... :)

So we headed out South from Tamarindo along the Nicoya Peninsula in Costa Rica but didn´t make it too far. About 10 miles in fact. We had to stop, you´d be crazy not to. The beaches along the peninsula are absolutely beautiful, and largely empty to add. We hesitantly passed Playa Negra driving down a small dirt road with little traffic. We made it to Playa Junquillal and couldnt take it anymore. It was scorching hot and the water looked too perfect. After a quick dip and a couple cervezas we decided to head back to Playa Negra to find a place to crash and a little more beach time. That reminds me I have to give a shout out to our friend Chris who we met and rode with down the Baja and also stayed at his place in Cabo. He too is publishing his adventures. Using the word "adventure¨to describe his trip is a complete understatement. I would use something more like "complete madness" to describe his trip. Chris thanks again and we definitely need to hook up for a ride afterwards, minus the dislocated shoulders and broken feet. Here´s his blog http://superadventura.blogspot.com/

That´s when we found Pablo´s Picasso Restaraunt and Hotel right next to one of Costa Rica´s great surf breaks at Playa Negra. You couldn´t miss Pablo´s with a sign like that, see above. After we pulled up Pablo comes strolling out wearing a pair of shorts, sandals, a cook´s apron (no shirt), and he´s wiping his hands with a rag that made me think he was chopping up a cow in the back kitchen. "Damn you guys must be hot! You look like you´re wearing space outfits. Where you headed?" he says. "Buenos Aires, Argentina" we replied. "Oh great...nuthin like a couple of over-achievers" says Pablo. From that moment we knew we had found the right place....

Let´s just say Pablo is a pretty cool guy. He came down to Costa Rica 15 years ago and opened up this bar and restaraunt. In addition to a cook, Pablo is a surfer, painter, chess player, poker player, and comedian. We had a great time hanging with Pablo, pretty hilarious. And the burgers really are as big as your head...

Here´s a mural of Pablo surfing at Playa Negra a few years back. It´s painted on a wall of his hotel, pretty cool. Uncle Bob I see you just signed on to our blog with the unmistakable Notre Dame Logo (I just threw up a little in my mouth). Anyways this painting reminds me of you a little. You need to come check out these breaks in Costa Rica and Nicaragua.

And another shot of Pablo, this time he´s taking our money in poker. Kyle hung in there pretty good but got the short end of the stick on a couple hands. Gotta know when to hold ém, know when to fold ém they say. All in good fun.

It´s amazing that it hasn´t happened until now actually, but we´ve gotten a major dose of corrupt cops while in Costa Rica. Maybe it´s due to the fact that they´ve gotten a good taste of the tourist dollar and think they can take all tourists for fools. We were flagged down by policemen 3 times while in Costa Rica, and everytime they had the same act. It´s always a single cop standing by the side of the road next to his vehicle with a radar gun in his hand. As soon as he sees youre a tourist he flags you down and shows you the gun with a totally fake number on it. They tell you they are writing you a ticket and you have the choice to pay it here or in the bank at a higher price. One guy even threatened to impound our bikes if we didnt pay now. It´s all a complete scam, and obviously scares a lot of people into offering money on the spot. The trick (as we already somewat knew due to our extended research) is to act dumb like you don´t really understand and just keep asking for the ticket. Don´t let them get you worked up or scarred. One guy said he was going to keep our licenses and all this other BS. They will tell you the bank is closed or you won´t be able to leave the country with the ticket or whatever. They just want to be payed off. After a while of you just standing there and asking for the ticket they get impatient and finally just tell you to scram, unhappy that they´re corruption didn´t work. Meanwhile locals are flying by in their cars twice as fast as you were. Oh well, we left Costa Rica completely unharmed by these guys and leared a valuable lesson.

Yesterday we had an amazing ride up into the highland jungles of Costa Rica after we passed through the capital City San Jose. It was scorching hot in San Jose and then all of the sudden really cold and started raining on us pretty hard when we got up into the mountains. Visibility got pretty poor and we had to reduce our speed quite a bit. It cleared up quickly as we started down the Southern face of the mountain. Check out the picture to the left.

So I really need to wrap this up so I´ll add a couple more pictures and call it a night. We made it into Panama this afternoon. Let me just say one thing about Panama: Freakin awesome roads. 2 lane highways in each direction, no potholes, no animals darting across, and somewhat realistic speed limits. We´re staying in David, Panama tonight and tomorrow we head for Panama City. We have to stop by the hostel that booked the Catamaran for us, check out the Panama Canal of course and then head to the Carribean side to lad the boat on the 12th. Enough for now, catch y´all later.

Here we are at the Panama Border. It was stifling and I was ready to get the paperwork overwith, hence the enthralled look on my face.

Here´s Kyle squeezing every last drop of lime into his mouth after some guy (one of the cops that pulled us over actually, funny) told us that jugo de limon is settling for an upset stomach. I think it worked.

This is one of the spots we got flagged down by the Policia. Not a bad spot to be pulled over I guess...

Quick Update on Costa Rica and Nicaragua

Just a quick update this morning from Tamarindo, Costa Rica because we need to hit the road. Our whole schedule for the next week is based on meeting our deadline for getting on the Catamaran in Panama by the 12th, which is not a lot of time to get through Costa Rica and Panama. We got into Costa Rica yesterday afternoon after spending 4 great days in Nicaragua. Our last night in Nicaragua was probably my favorite. We zenned out at Playa Maderas at the Parque Maderas Hotel and Hostel right above the famous Nicaraguan surf spot. This place is brand new and is pretty beatiful, including an amazing sunset and monkeys swinging from the trees above our heads. Here's the website http://www.parquemaderas.com/ check it out.

Right next to Playa Maderas is a beach called Playa Marseilles. The place was deserted and we got to bomb the bikes up and down the beach a few times, a lot of fun, I'm not gonna lie. Both Playa Maderas and Playa Marseilles are about 10 minutes down a dirt road from San Juan Del Sur in Nicaragua. San Juan Del Sur is on a horsshoe bay and is a big hang out spot for both surfers and travelers in the area.

Also I wanted to give a big shout out to our new friend Clare from the grand country of Canada. We randomly met her in Granada, Nicaragua and soon found out that she is so incredibly hardcore that she puts our trip to shame. She is riding her road bike on a solo mission starting in Cancun, MX ending in Panama City. She very humbly said she's done some road-racing in Canada and down-played it entirely but I'm pretty sure she's some big time racer up there. Anyways, riding a bicycle down here is such an enormous task I can't even fathom it. She told us she's spent the night in some pretty shady places along the way because that's just where she was when it got dark. Anyways, here's a picture of her. Good luck Clare!

So now we're in Tamarindo, Costa Rica. A pretty big tourist area and pretty built up with 5 star hotels and the whole bit. We gotta run here so I'll add a couple more pics and get back to you soon. Thanks again for reading!!!

Clay

lurking, laundry and looks

blog update time. Clay and I just finished dinner along with several cervezas Tonas and we are just taking a little break from the fun to provide an update and make some phone calls before heading out again so there may be a few grammatical and spelling errors in this evenings update.

First order of business. there has been some lurking that has been going on around our blogspot. Both clay and I have received emails from people who are reading our blog but who have not signed up as followers... while we are glad many more people are reading along we hope that all readers sign up as followers as well. while we are not seeking public apologies or admissions of guilt we simply ask that if you are reading along you sign up as a follower to slingshotsouth.blogspot we know who you are so don't try to disappear into the shadows! and if you guys don't sign up as followers soon we are going to call you out!!! i kid i kid....

Laundry - we finally got it done today after a couple weeks of no fresh clothes if feels pretty nice to be wearing clean threads again! also the laundry services that we have found down here are so awesome you drop off all your stuff in the morning and then return to pick it up a few hours later and everything is fresh and clean and folded in a nice little plastic bag for only 4 dollars! sweet! I love it.

Looks - we have been getting a lot of them. mostly from females. unfortunately we can't speak Spanish very well. Which is the primary reason for my interest in Spanish school after our trip is over. i kid i kid. actually not really i'm pretty serious. Anyways my theory on all the looks are related to soap operas. In mexico and central america they watch a lot of soap operas, and by a lot i mean between futbol and soap operas there is not room for much else on tv. so as the story goes all the soap actors are kinda white looking, but with brown eyes. so clay figures that girls holler at us because we represent soap stars to them. ummm could be, i'm not really sure but either way we've both had are fare share of looks, hoots and hollers from the ladies.

ok all the joking aside we have been in Nicaragua for the last couple of days and it has been a relatively different experience than the other countries we have stopped in so far. I feel like we are getting hit up by a lot more street people and beggers here. It has almost gotten to the point a couple of times where we are getting a little frustrated because we cannot enjoy a beer or a meal without getting hassled to buy a hammock, a ceramic pot or something you blow into that makes a silly whistle noise. That aspect aside Leon and Granada are absolutely beautiful towns with gorgeous colonial architecture all painted in vibrant Caribbean colors. Leon is a little less tiddy than Granada but still has its own thing going for it. Granada is similar in many ways to Antigua in Guatemala with its tidy streets and colorful buildings. A definite highlight so far has been the canopy tour. 1300 meters of zip lines and tree platforms outside of Granada. pretty awesome! not much else to say about it. Clay will post the pictures that can tell the story better than i can describe it.
thats all for now. all the best. -Kyle

Milking Granada and ziplining our way through Nicaragua

Kyle the super bodacious madman amateur turning part-time pro Blogger is tearing it up on the keyboard here at the local internet cafe again. I think I can literally see smoke coming out of his keyboard. I am the one who normally brings the camera so I will humbly continue uploading photos for your viewing pleasures. You know Kyle is getting serious when he starts talking about making some extra gas money by allowing Google to start running ads on our blogsite. Always the businessman, however I don´t know if Google pays much for sites with 10 followers...

Here´s Kyle and I at the Zipline Canopy course today outside of Granada, Nicaragua. As you can see we are tightly, and I mean TIGHTLY, strapped in. If I were speaking to you right now you could probably hear the high pitch in my voice that still won´t go away for some reason...


Here´s Kyle with a crazy upside down riding position. The guys at the course were calling this pose the upside down reverse cowgirl praying mantess position. Kyle was really good at it...


I´ve been trying to keep the number of architecture and building shots to a minimum because you have to see them in person to really respect them, but oh well. Here´s the beautiful cathedral here in Granada. I know what you´re thinking...such great lighting and color contrasts, huh???

Here´s G.I. Ky doing tons of pushups in our hotel room. Ok he did a few but then collapsed. I didn´t do much better. We have to do something to stay in shape down here. There´s not much between us and the Guerilla´s but our super huge muscles you know...


This is Kyle´s new favorite car. A diesel powered stick shift Toyota Land Cruiser with a snorkel on it. Really a sweet truck, they should start producing these in the US.


THis is a random shot but really funny because almost all of the Hotels and Hostels we inquire at offer us secured parking for our motorcycles. The one here in Granada is kinda attached toisomeones house and they literally had us wheel the bikes into the family room. We were very hesitant at first but they insisted. Very sweet people, and they love talking to us about the bikes in rapid Spanish. Nod and smile, nod and smile....

Leaving Honduras entering Nicaragua

ok blog update time. I have trouble starting these. I mean I like doing them once I get rolling but they are pretty difficult to start, I mean there is so much cool stuff going on right now that it is difficult for me to focus on typing and computers etc. Clay is much better at getting the blogs done. Anyways I digress.

We have had a couple of pretty awesome days, well the whole trip is pretty awesome in fact there hasn´t really been much that hasn´t been awesome. I am actually a little worried about going back to my normal life, because after an amazing journey like this, all the usual work and day to day stuff is going to seem pretty mundane. Pretty easy to understand how some people go on the road for a few months and just never return. Don´t worry parents I don´t think that will happen to us. Although I´ve been thinking seriously about picking a place to live for a month or so after this trip to attend a Spanish school, not sure yet we´ll see how the rest of the trip pans out.

So Copan Ruians was completely awesome, there is an amazing Mayan site that was excavated in the early 1900´s today it is over 2000 years old yes that means BC. The whole village and grounds is very extensive. The rulers had built mulitple temples some with extensive tunnel systems. There was an area for scarifices, that is human scarifices and they had built a special court where they played Mayan ball games. Oddly enough the winners were the ones who were scarificed, it was considered an honor and they would be made into gods. Pretty wild to think about those beliefs and how religon played such a major role in peoples lives. As Clay mentioned we spent some time at the Red Frog, pretty cool little gringo hangout in town and we also went to the hot springs, I felt kind of gay going there with Clay but whatever it was cool. The spring water is really hot, I mean H.O.T. hot. well over normal hot tube temps, the operator has to introduce some cool water to make the hot springs withstandable. Also as you move further away from the hot spring source the water loses some heat so the springs further down the hill tend to be a little cooler.
The following morning we had breakfast and got a somewhat reasonable start and made it to Danli approximately 20km from the Honduras Nicaragua boarder. Danli was recommended to us by the owner at Reg Frog, but to tell you the truth. I´m glad we didn´t really have to spend any time in Danli, not for touristas. To start it looked like a pretty rough town, then the hotel selection was slim, it was getting dark so we settled on one we had seen on the way into town. it was big and clean and all the empolyees were strapped with pistolas so we figured it was safe too... go figure. Honduras, aside from Copan Ruinas was really the first time on this trip I felt a little uncomfortable. We didn´t have any problems, but I just got a couple weird vibes were my intuition told me some bad stuff probably goes down after dark. You see a lot of civilans with pistols unlike Guatemala and Mexico were there are just a lot of security gruards with shot guns. Either way Nicaragua is pretty mellow. So this morning we got to the boarder around 9:30 and we were into Nicaragua before 11am. Same usual boarder antics. The whole thing is a sham and completely unorganized. You have to make trips back and forth between offices to make copies of documents and pay money and then go back for signatures and stamps its all a lot of choas and in the mean time you have little helpers trying to extract money from you for keeping an eye on your bike or for showing you were the copy machine is. But you just kind of laugh once your through. So today is the first time we have been stopped by police. It was a check point inside the Nicaragua boarder, they want to see your documents and make sure that you have purchased insurance, Nicaragua is known for these checkpoints and sometimes they can be a problem were police shake down motorists, but we made it through just fine and the cops were really friendly even giving us directions to our next intersection, CA 26 which is the road we took from the Panamerican HWY down to Leon. And man did the Nicaraguan roads live up to there reputation. Deep pot holes all over, some big enough to sallow your whole front wheel. Most of the traffic is diverted to a side road which is mud and dirt but is in far better condition than the pot hole ridden road. I had a little get off today in some slipperly mud. I escaped completely unharmed but my Pannier rack is a little bent up, no problem though it is really just cosmetic and has zero impact on the funcationality of the bike. Not to worry, we will continue on.
I really can´t begin to discribe the scenery we have seen on this trip, it is truely unbelievable. I don´t think it can be captured in photos or discribed in words, it just needs to be witnessed first hand. I´m really glad we decided to do this whole thing, because it know I will have memories of these places forever. I´m a little bit worried about our pictures though, There have been so many times were we should have stopped the bikes to take pictures, but most of the time we are just trying to put miles behind us so we keep riding.
So it is around 7:30 pm local time and clay and I need to explore the local cuisine and nightlife in Leon. Tomorrow we plan to make it to Granada and San Juan del Sur the following day. I believe our boat to Columbia is scheduled. check it out! its called fritz the cat http://www.fritz-the-cat.com/ (clay says) for those who need help using the internet click on the union jack for the english version. It leaves Panama on march 12th. props to Ben Spies, 1st world superbike victory this weekend. go USA!