August 27
Woah. And it begins.
After a normal/boring ride east out of the city, we turn on a barely marked road and head north. We get passed by four adventure riders, so we know we are headed to the right place at the right time (and are reminded that Grandma & Grandpa ride slow). We ride through Guna Yala jungle. Seriously, jungle. The trees… the flowers. Heliconius and birds of paradise. Ernie crosses a hill a bit ahead of me and says “WOWWWWW” (so I know I’ve missed something epic). He got a perfect view of a female Humboldt toucan. Before we got to our online field guide he described it to Audubon perfection. The road was so quiet. So steep. We learned afterwards that the road to the Carti (which is mostly the Port of Carti) is in fact the last north-south road in Panama. We had some other good viewings of Jesus lizards and morphos. And a sad roadkill monkey.
~20 km in we stop and pay the Guna Yala tribe $46 ($20 per person, $3 per moto). I can’t blame them in the least for charging for access to this land. At ~35 km we have finished our trek north and are headed to the Atlantic for the first time on this trip. We head down a dirt road to find a group of motos and a concrete pier behind a fence. A man (who we now know as Juan, pronounced jew-wan, not who-wan, as he is Catalonian/from Catalonia, Spain) directs us where to park. We have about 45 minutes of greetings and a cold Coke and then it's time to move the bikes to the pier. Woah! There are 14 bikes in all, and they are lined up in a most impressive fashion. We were instructed to unload everything off the bikes, and one boatload at a time all of us and our gear got onboard the Stahlratte. Which Ernie hypothesizes is German for “steel rat”. She was built in 1908 (?) and was a herring fishing vessel until the late 40’s (?? There is a book about her which we would like to get and read, and will probably tell us what the name means ha ha).
All the gear got hauled on and dropped to the lower deck (which are called neither the poop deck nor the galley, so guess I won’t get to use those nautical words properly). There were name tags on each quarters as to who was sleeping where. We had a double bed with a curtain that said “Ernie y Tara”. Aww. We collected our 6 cases, drybag, and guitar and piled them into our little quarters. We didn’t know if or what was going to happen the rest of the day, so we (as well as everyone else) headed back up to the deck to make sure we didn’t miss anything. There is a large table on the upper deck that can seat everyone on the boat, which is really cool. Sometimes everyone is talking, and then sometimes side conversations break out. Ernie and I had a nice visit with Tom, one of the blokes from the UK. Soon enough lunch was served. YUM. It was just a pasta salad, but it was so good. The veggies and pesto and sea salt, it was much needed sustenance and flavor. Conversation continues and a couple of folks at the table come and go. Ludwig, Kapitan Ludwig, finally joins the moment, and after only a few minutes I turn to Ernie and tell him I am crushin’ on Ludwig. Ludwig is very tan, blue eyed, has blonde salt washed hair, and a belly that would put Santa to shame. I doubt I will see him wearing shoes or a shirt at any time over the next five days. He offers a few guffaws and sits next to Ernie. He is the center of attention as he talks about the Stahlratte and the history behind how all this came to be. “I don’t own the Stahlratte,” he said, “the Stahlratte owns me”. Ludwig ceases to be the center of attention and small conversations start up again all around the table. Ernie asks about the nasty burn-wound-scab on his left hand. Ludwig’s hands are definitely workin-man’s hands: they are heavily callused and his fingernails are too long and who knows what is causing the black underneath them. He says there was an emergency with the boiler room, and he said there wasn’t time to grab a proper tool so he just had to deal with it, thus burning his hand. He showed it to Ernie and said he liked the color and that he liked to look at it. He leaned in and whispered to Ernie “it looks like pussy”.
Post-lunch we are told we should pack an overnight bag as the boat is coming to take us to to the hotel. About half the people immediately (and kind of in a panic) ask about loading the bikes on board before/after we leave for the hotel. Not surprisingly, we all wanted to watch our bikes get hoisted off the pier and into the sailboat (post-blog note, Master Steffan took a video for all of us on board and shared with us and we shared on our Youtube channel. Gracias Steffan!). But the wind and the tides and blah blah, they couldn’t load them until later but now was the good time to take us to the island where we would be spending the night. So we all pack one of our many stuff sacks and pile on a 16-man dory. Ernie and I both thought we were headed to the island that was just off shore. Nope. We took a 30 minute boat ride through wind and 4-5 foot swell to an island where the only thing on it was our “hotel”, some solar panels, and a heliport. The island is probably a square kilometer (see Google maps). There are lots of hammocks and about 12 rooms, each with running water but only with electricity for a few hours in the afternoon (which we didn’t learn until later). They say “enjoy the afternoon, dinner in many hours”.
The water is crystal clear and we can see from shore there is a mix of coral reef and seagrass beds. We snorkel until we are too cold to do so anymore. In addition to a very healthy reef (including some huge brain coral), we saw lots of beautiful reef fish, urchins, and snails. And skates. Ernie found the first two - it was fun to watch them glide from the sand to up and over the seagrass beds. And Ernie got to molest his first feather duster worms. Now we are warming up on the beach, in the hammocks, with a few cold beers. The price seems to change depending on who we buy the beer from (the younger man, the older man, or the older woman). Ernie is watching a feeding frenzy - the pelicans have found a school of fish and there is a collective excitement just offshore.
We read and wrote until dinner, which was six mountainous plates: rice, beans, some sort of coleslaw, papas fritas, fried mahi mahi, and baked chicken. And it was all of the chicken; there were necks and feet in the serving tray. Two groups have formed along the long table, and we stay and socialize for a few hours. I was conscious to ensure Grandma & Grandpa were not to be the first ones to go to bed.
The characters:
Matthew and Karin, the kids from Holland we met at a border crossing that have the same photos as us. They are in their late 20’s and I am impressed with how much Karin knows about motorcycle maintenance (the mechanics, not the book). Mucho gusto y gustamos mucho.
Matthew’s parents - Don and Monique. They are visiting the kids for two weeks, and hopefully they don’t feel out of place every time everyone seems to be talking about motos! They are recently retired, spunky, and we get the sense this is absolutely not the first adventurous thing they have done (either pre- or post-retirement).
July - firecracker from UK that Matthew and Karin met on the road and has been traveling with. He is tech savvy, fashion savvy, and funny. And the only non-white adventure rider for most of the America’s. Fuck yeah. He is probably ~30 and we enjoy his energy.
Paul and Neake (as in -nique as in Monique, “it just got spelt crazy along the way” she says). They are from Australia and this is month 17. They have no time frame and plan on riding around the world until they can’t. After the tip of South America they do Africa, then Europe, then Asia, and then maybe go back west instead of home. Amazing and inspirational! They are late 40’s (??) and a total kick in the pants. Their Facebook and logo is “Two Bikes, One Dream”. Awesome.
Ian, Tom, and Phil of England and Ireland. They are all retired anesthesiologists and met a few years ago. They are my favorites (Ernie’s favorites are Matt and Karin, we be sharing the love). During our first chat with Tom (who is wearing a black tank-top that says “Fucking Bueno”) the subject of stickers comes up. He asks, “What is it about us riders that like stickers? Full grown men loving stickers. My mate heads into the shop and buys a sticker and I’m like “you didn’t get one for me?”. They are all in their early to mid 60’s. They are on the nicest bikes on board. Ernie and I will likely spend the most time interacting with these guys.
The four lone dudes who we hope aren’t too cool for us: Manuel (from Germany), Simon (from UK), Antony (from Australia), and Pascal (from Canada). Manuel is rather quiet, but hopefully we get a chat or two. Simon recently sold off his Indian restaurant, and it was a huge passion for a long time and he clearly did it right in the sense of ingredients, treatment of staff, etc. Antony seems to be the son and brother everyone wants, and Pascal is a hoot and a holler. He is retired Canadian military; he said his plan was to serve 20 years, get an early pension, then do the entire PanAmerican Highway. When he started dating his now serious girlfriend, he said “just so you know, a year from now I’m heading for a big motorcycle trip”. Laughs by all.
Ludwig. Who knows how old he is… And his three man crew of Steffan, Juan, and Anna, all of which are late 20’s earning a free stay on a tropical adventure while they help out. Steffan and Anna are from Germany, and all but Juan are vegetarians (including Ludwig. He is full of surprises. Ernie said “He must eat a lot of vegetables”).
And Ernesto y Tara. Or, the only two people who talk boring. We do not have fun accents.
August 28
Although it was on a beautiful island, that was no hotel. It was shelter. They turned off the generator at 9 pm and while the pitch black quiet was greatly appreciated, the heat and claustrophobia were nearly intolerable. At one point I thought I was having a heart attack. Luckily the rain started and created the slightest not-hot breeze and I was able to catch my breath. Ernie was very sweet and helped me fumble around in the dark. Which was even more entertaining as we were under giant pink bug nets adorned with plastic flowers. The nets were exceptionally long so getting out of them was non-trivial. And even under the net Ernie and I felt bugs biting us all night long. Perhaps when they stapled/taped/glued big plastic flowers to the bug net it affected the integrity of the bug net… hmm… Within an hour of the rain the thunder and lightning started. Big, loud thunder. The kind that reminded me why the Greeks used to say thunder was the gods fighting. It continued well into 7 or 8 am, so there was very little sleeping last night.
As soon as it was light out I went outside to feel what little cool air could be felt. Ernie and I ended up reading in some hammocks under a palapa for an hour. By the time everyone woke up we hung around by what was “the bar” last night, all sort of wondering what was going on. There was no coffee, and a couple of the blokes took to a warm Coke out of desperation for morning caffeine. By 8 am a boat arrived and took us to the Stahlratte, which was now at a new location. The moto’s were safely on board! They were tied in two’s to the sides of the boat and covered with tarps. Everyone (but Ernie and I think) pretty much went straight to the bikes to find their own and make sure they were ok. After a full and well rounded breakfast of eggs, breads, fruits, meats, cheese, juice, and of course coffee, we take a three hour motor (not sail) east. Apparently the winds weren’t strong enough for sailing, so I guess we’ll have to wait a bit longer for a real sail.
Where exactly we anchored I do not know, but there are three islands within swimming distance, and an additional two islands within Michael Phelps distance. With just the afternoon left in the day and the inevitable rain that would come, Ernie and I decided to snorkel the closest island. After the few meters of white sand that surround the island itself, it is otherwise full of healthy reefs and seagrass beds. It was hard to find the smalls that I like to find (worms, arthropods, etc.), but the larger vertebrates, anemones, and mollusks more than made up for it. The highlights were pufferfish (with giant green reflective eyes), parrotfish (two feet long), and Ernie (see pic).
Full of small steaks and potatoes and fatigued from our swim and cold beers, I think we were the first to go to bed last night… Damn it Grandma & Grandpa!
August 29
Great start to our morning - we had a two hour snorkel to and around the island we did yesterday as well as the island behind it. Visibility was great and the highlights were the ray (black with dozens of white spots and a tail three times as long as its body - must look up), the squid (loligo I think, all in a line in the water column, why?), and the nudibranch (a large, deep red dorid that I will look up - I don’t know anything about Atlantic species). The afternoon was swimming to the farthest island (“island three”), and our highlight there was the moon jellyfish. While we warmed up and dried out on shore we enjoyed watching the pelicans feed just a few dozen meters away. It is easy to be the only two people on an island.
All these islands belong to the Guna Yala tribe, and they plant/planted all the coconut trees. A motto here is “every coconut has an owner”, so they ask all visitors to leave the coconuts alone. I wonder how they enforce this to the collection of yachts and catamarans that drop anchor for a night or two?
The food has been really good. We are impressed with what they are preparing in that little gally. Despite my issues with fish and dairy I have been able to chow down at almost every meal. Everyone but us is putting back on a few of the pounds they lost since Alaska. To clarify, Ernie and I, like everyone else on this trip, are shoveling in the fresh meat and veggies like mad on the Stahlratte. However, unlike everyone else on this trip, Ernie and I have not lost weight over the past few months... We feel squishy and we are missing our active lifestyles. Maybe our new friends have sit-down jobs?? Or maybe we are just saying that to justify our non-weight loss.
It has been fun to be the middle crowd of this group of adventure riders. There are 14 of them in total, and the bulk (not all) are divided. Some haven’t yet committed to a life; they left jobs they didn’t like and are taking this trip before marriage, kids, jobs with 401k’s, etc. And some are on the other end of the spectrum; they have retired (in all cases early) from their careers, the kids (if they have them) have left the nest, and their houses (if they have them) are all paid off. Ernie and I part of the small middle crowd that have started and committed to a life but haven’t yet retired from it. We are enjoying both their perspectives on what is important in life and why.
Its now 8 pm and we have just pulled up anchor and started our ~30 hour sail to Cartagena.
August 30
We shouldn’t be surprised, but if you put us in a cube that is closed in on five of its six sides on a lower deck of a boat and then rock the boat around arrhythmically, we don’t sleep! And poor Ernie is deaf again. The hours of snorkeling has clogged up both his ears.
It has been raining most of the day so, if you include yesterday, Ernie and I sat in our shoebox for about 15 hours straight. Luckily we had a cloudy but rain-free afternoon, so we could read outside up on the top deck. Although he has been right here next to me physically for the last 24 hours (either up on the top deck or when we are in the shoebox), I am missing the Ernie and I that is “us”. Our last week has been full of some good and fun things for sure, but they have been piled back to back in such a way that has prevented us from having intimate time with each other. By the time we leave this boat I hope we can get back on the road and into our groove. Just he and I, at our own pace, and working as a team.
We had a pre-lunch chat around the table we enjoyed some beers and talked about the Darien Gap as we passed it on our left. Jokes were had that we were going to see some big GAP in the forest as we rode by. Ludwig was with us, and Karin brought up this group of men that are doing the PanAm/Overland route but are going to take their motos through the Darien Gap. They are wheretheroadendsmoto.com (or something like that), and they are four ex-military Alaska men with lots of sponsors. Ludwig pipes up immediately, at one point even pounding his palms on the giant table. “It is stupid! The gap is all water!” Any side conversations stop and we all listen to Ludwig in his rant. “In the gap you winch your moto across water. Ride a little bit, then put your moto in a boat and cross water. You don’t ride your moto, you haul your moto over and over across water. It makes no difference whether you load your moto on a big boat and cross big water or load your moto on little boat over many little waters! It's all still water! So just come on the Stahlratte!” A good laugh by all.
Also… that we “set sail” and are “sailing” to Colombia is a bit of a facade. The diesel motor probably powers each and every “sail” from Panama to Colombia. Ernie felt a little patronized (as he says giggling). They had the sails, and the crew raised them for half the day to give the appearance of sailing… And more than one of the moto riders took some video of the crew hoisting the sails. The ropes and such are indeed impressive. But after, when we looked up and the best word to describe them was “limp”... well, we were not fooled. Ernie laughed when later in the day we were only down to one sail from three… He said, “they probably burned too much fuel pushing that many sails through the dead air”. During one of our conversations with the crew, when we asked if the sails provided much reduction in fuel consumption, she said in a bit of broken English, “No… Not that. But now looks like sailing”.
During the downtime and fake sailing, I’ve figured out why I don’t like boats. I’ve always liked the IDEA of boats as they always seemed to represent a freedom I wanted. Outside of safety measures, little about “time” actually matters from the time you leave port until the time you make it to your next port, and in academia, time seems to dictate everything about your day, week, semester, year, promotion schedule, etc. Turns out that for me, boats are the opposite of freedom and seem more like prison. It turns out I have to come to enjoy a life and lifestyle where I can act on thoughts and wills or step away to change a scene. Like escaping a needy student in my office or going into another room so Ernie doesn’t hear me fart. But here, if I want to get off this rocking boat I can’t. If I want the sound of the birds or bunkmate snoring to stop, oh well. If I want anything that I don’t have with me, I cannot go out and get it. Off this boat my reasonable wants are attainable, but on this boat many of my reasonable wants are impossibilities. The sound of this fucking engine comes to mind. Lying in our five-of-six-sided shoebox, sweating, listening to the sound of that engine turn over and over and realizing it will be like this for the next 20 hours. There is no leaving the room. It's like prison. Like department meetings, an evening with someone else’s kids, and having no other shoes but these Keene’s. Why would I seek more prisons? It is true that my reasonable wants may be unreasonable… if it makes me high maintenance so be it. I will however clarify that “prison” isn’t the same as “challenge”. We are on the trip of a lifetime; Ernie and I are taking our motos to the tip of Argentina. I hope I no longer have to defend to myself, in the mirror or in a blog, that I am up to life’s challenges :)
(pause)
Not only an hour after writing about why I don’t like boats, a pod of bottlenose dolphins decide to pay the Stahlratte a visit. Ernie got to stand port side and watch them play in the bow waves. I love boats. My hypocrisy knows no bounds.
August 31
Hola Colombia! Last night we arrived and anchored in Cartagena, the oldest settlement in all of the Americas. Although we are not yet on land, I think we can officially welcome ourselves to South America!
Was a slow morning waiting on procedures… the aduana officer of ~2 years past retired, so there was a “new guy” and Ludwig and the crew weren’t sure how things would go. Our passports were with this aduada guy, so our job was just to be ready; our gear was packed and on deck and at the signal, we would “sail” (i.e., diesel motor) over to the shipping docks where all motos and luggage would be unloaded. The signal came at around 11-12, and everything moved pretty fast after that. The motos still had their rope harnesses around them, so affixing the winch to the bikes was fast. Within an hour all the bikes were off the boat, and within the next hour all our cases and luggage were locked and bungeed back on our motos. We still didn’t have our passports and we were ~10 km from aduana, so off we went.
Imagine… no passport, no GPS system, no address, no information… you land in Colombia by ship in a boatyard and you have to go in a pack of 14 motos, through traffic, through a city, to get your papers in order. Looking back at it, it was so past my stress point that I guess I just let it all go and went with it without stressing. Sigue. Sigue the dude you know has the GPS coordinates to where we go and pray I can keep up with whatever turns and roads he takes. And it worked! Tara (and of course Ernie) just went with it. Thankfully many of the more experienced riders stopped and created roadblocks for all of us to be able to follow around some sketchy parts, and I’m super grateful to them for doing so.
I think it was another hour or two until a pack of aduana came out with our papers. They checked VIN’s, we signed things. They probably thought we smelt so bad they just wanted it all done. By 3 or 4 we were all set to go our separate ways. Problem was Ernie and I hadn’t had wifi for days, and without it we had no plan, no map, and no idea what was ahead. We decide to piggyback with the anesthesiologists and their GPS and satellite phone and followed them to a hotel about half way between old town and out of town. It was a crazy ride there (holy motos!), but it turned out to be a perfect location. We got to walk around, go the store, and eat at a nondescript Chinese place. We ordered the pollo and I’m ashamed of us for ordering it and the restaurant for serving it; it was fried chicken, french fries, tomato-lettuce-onion salad, served with a side of ketchup. I.e., we did not travel 10,000 km to go to a Chinese restaurant in Colombia, South America to get one of the most American meals we have had this entire trip. No bueno.
We are looking forward to more Colombia, but so far the obvious points are the motos (so many motos, they buzz and zip around like mad), the heat (we are closer to the equator now, so the black pavement looks white and the UV penetrates everything), and the… modern. Things are back that I forgot were normal like guardrails, city street signs and real billboards and not ads painted on rocks. It has only been one day, so we’ll see how the roads develop (or not).
Back at the hotel we sucked up the wifi and got a game plan for places to visit and stay for the next week or so. We make a few bookings, and post a few pics. Bueno. Our blokes give us some good info about some apps that work offline. Grandma and Grandpa now have two apps that they just might use in South America. Bueno!
Woah. And it begins.
After a normal/boring ride east out of the city, we turn on a barely marked road and head north. We get passed by four adventure riders, so we know we are headed to the right place at the right time (and are reminded that Grandma & Grandpa ride slow). We ride through Guna Yala jungle. Seriously, jungle. The trees… the flowers. Heliconius and birds of paradise. Ernie crosses a hill a bit ahead of me and says “WOWWWWW” (so I know I’ve missed something epic). He got a perfect view of a female Humboldt toucan. Before we got to our online field guide he described it to Audubon perfection. The road was so quiet. So steep. We learned afterwards that the road to the Carti (which is mostly the Port of Carti) is in fact the last north-south road in Panama. We had some other good viewings of Jesus lizards and morphos. And a sad roadkill monkey.
~20 km in we stop and pay the Guna Yala tribe $46 ($20 per person, $3 per moto). I can’t blame them in the least for charging for access to this land. At ~35 km we have finished our trek north and are headed to the Atlantic for the first time on this trip. We head down a dirt road to find a group of motos and a concrete pier behind a fence. A man (who we now know as Juan, pronounced jew-wan, not who-wan, as he is Catalonian/from Catalonia, Spain) directs us where to park. We have about 45 minutes of greetings and a cold Coke and then it's time to move the bikes to the pier. Woah! There are 14 bikes in all, and they are lined up in a most impressive fashion. We were instructed to unload everything off the bikes, and one boatload at a time all of us and our gear got onboard the Stahlratte. Which Ernie hypothesizes is German for “steel rat”. She was built in 1908 (?) and was a herring fishing vessel until the late 40’s (?? There is a book about her which we would like to get and read, and will probably tell us what the name means ha ha).
All the gear got hauled on and dropped to the lower deck (which are called neither the poop deck nor the galley, so guess I won’t get to use those nautical words properly). There were name tags on each quarters as to who was sleeping where. We had a double bed with a curtain that said “Ernie y Tara”. Aww. We collected our 6 cases, drybag, and guitar and piled them into our little quarters. We didn’t know if or what was going to happen the rest of the day, so we (as well as everyone else) headed back up to the deck to make sure we didn’t miss anything. There is a large table on the upper deck that can seat everyone on the boat, which is really cool. Sometimes everyone is talking, and then sometimes side conversations break out. Ernie and I had a nice visit with Tom, one of the blokes from the UK. Soon enough lunch was served. YUM. It was just a pasta salad, but it was so good. The veggies and pesto and sea salt, it was much needed sustenance and flavor. Conversation continues and a couple of folks at the table come and go. Ludwig, Kapitan Ludwig, finally joins the moment, and after only a few minutes I turn to Ernie and tell him I am crushin’ on Ludwig. Ludwig is very tan, blue eyed, has blonde salt washed hair, and a belly that would put Santa to shame. I doubt I will see him wearing shoes or a shirt at any time over the next five days. He offers a few guffaws and sits next to Ernie. He is the center of attention as he talks about the Stahlratte and the history behind how all this came to be. “I don’t own the Stahlratte,” he said, “the Stahlratte owns me”. Ludwig ceases to be the center of attention and small conversations start up again all around the table. Ernie asks about the nasty burn-wound-scab on his left hand. Ludwig’s hands are definitely workin-man’s hands: they are heavily callused and his fingernails are too long and who knows what is causing the black underneath them. He says there was an emergency with the boiler room, and he said there wasn’t time to grab a proper tool so he just had to deal with it, thus burning his hand. He showed it to Ernie and said he liked the color and that he liked to look at it. He leaned in and whispered to Ernie “it looks like pussy”.
Post-lunch we are told we should pack an overnight bag as the boat is coming to take us to to the hotel. About half the people immediately (and kind of in a panic) ask about loading the bikes on board before/after we leave for the hotel. Not surprisingly, we all wanted to watch our bikes get hoisted off the pier and into the sailboat (post-blog note, Master Steffan took a video for all of us on board and shared with us and we shared on our Youtube channel. Gracias Steffan!). But the wind and the tides and blah blah, they couldn’t load them until later but now was the good time to take us to the island where we would be spending the night. So we all pack one of our many stuff sacks and pile on a 16-man dory. Ernie and I both thought we were headed to the island that was just off shore. Nope. We took a 30 minute boat ride through wind and 4-5 foot swell to an island where the only thing on it was our “hotel”, some solar panels, and a heliport. The island is probably a square kilometer (see Google maps). There are lots of hammocks and about 12 rooms, each with running water but only with electricity for a few hours in the afternoon (which we didn’t learn until later). They say “enjoy the afternoon, dinner in many hours”.
The water is crystal clear and we can see from shore there is a mix of coral reef and seagrass beds. We snorkel until we are too cold to do so anymore. In addition to a very healthy reef (including some huge brain coral), we saw lots of beautiful reef fish, urchins, and snails. And skates. Ernie found the first two - it was fun to watch them glide from the sand to up and over the seagrass beds. And Ernie got to molest his first feather duster worms. Now we are warming up on the beach, in the hammocks, with a few cold beers. The price seems to change depending on who we buy the beer from (the younger man, the older man, or the older woman). Ernie is watching a feeding frenzy - the pelicans have found a school of fish and there is a collective excitement just offshore.
We read and wrote until dinner, which was six mountainous plates: rice, beans, some sort of coleslaw, papas fritas, fried mahi mahi, and baked chicken. And it was all of the chicken; there were necks and feet in the serving tray. Two groups have formed along the long table, and we stay and socialize for a few hours. I was conscious to ensure Grandma & Grandpa were not to be the first ones to go to bed.
The characters:
Matthew and Karin, the kids from Holland we met at a border crossing that have the same photos as us. They are in their late 20’s and I am impressed with how much Karin knows about motorcycle maintenance (the mechanics, not the book). Mucho gusto y gustamos mucho.
Matthew’s parents - Don and Monique. They are visiting the kids for two weeks, and hopefully they don’t feel out of place every time everyone seems to be talking about motos! They are recently retired, spunky, and we get the sense this is absolutely not the first adventurous thing they have done (either pre- or post-retirement).
July - firecracker from UK that Matthew and Karin met on the road and has been traveling with. He is tech savvy, fashion savvy, and funny. And the only non-white adventure rider for most of the America’s. Fuck yeah. He is probably ~30 and we enjoy his energy.
Paul and Neake (as in -nique as in Monique, “it just got spelt crazy along the way” she says). They are from Australia and this is month 17. They have no time frame and plan on riding around the world until they can’t. After the tip of South America they do Africa, then Europe, then Asia, and then maybe go back west instead of home. Amazing and inspirational! They are late 40’s (??) and a total kick in the pants. Their Facebook and logo is “Two Bikes, One Dream”. Awesome.
Ian, Tom, and Phil of England and Ireland. They are all retired anesthesiologists and met a few years ago. They are my favorites (Ernie’s favorites are Matt and Karin, we be sharing the love). During our first chat with Tom (who is wearing a black tank-top that says “Fucking Bueno”) the subject of stickers comes up. He asks, “What is it about us riders that like stickers? Full grown men loving stickers. My mate heads into the shop and buys a sticker and I’m like “you didn’t get one for me?”. They are all in their early to mid 60’s. They are on the nicest bikes on board. Ernie and I will likely spend the most time interacting with these guys.
The four lone dudes who we hope aren’t too cool for us: Manuel (from Germany), Simon (from UK), Antony (from Australia), and Pascal (from Canada). Manuel is rather quiet, but hopefully we get a chat or two. Simon recently sold off his Indian restaurant, and it was a huge passion for a long time and he clearly did it right in the sense of ingredients, treatment of staff, etc. Antony seems to be the son and brother everyone wants, and Pascal is a hoot and a holler. He is retired Canadian military; he said his plan was to serve 20 years, get an early pension, then do the entire PanAmerican Highway. When he started dating his now serious girlfriend, he said “just so you know, a year from now I’m heading for a big motorcycle trip”. Laughs by all.
Ludwig. Who knows how old he is… And his three man crew of Steffan, Juan, and Anna, all of which are late 20’s earning a free stay on a tropical adventure while they help out. Steffan and Anna are from Germany, and all but Juan are vegetarians (including Ludwig. He is full of surprises. Ernie said “He must eat a lot of vegetables”).
And Ernesto y Tara. Or, the only two people who talk boring. We do not have fun accents.
August 28
Although it was on a beautiful island, that was no hotel. It was shelter. They turned off the generator at 9 pm and while the pitch black quiet was greatly appreciated, the heat and claustrophobia were nearly intolerable. At one point I thought I was having a heart attack. Luckily the rain started and created the slightest not-hot breeze and I was able to catch my breath. Ernie was very sweet and helped me fumble around in the dark. Which was even more entertaining as we were under giant pink bug nets adorned with plastic flowers. The nets were exceptionally long so getting out of them was non-trivial. And even under the net Ernie and I felt bugs biting us all night long. Perhaps when they stapled/taped/glued big plastic flowers to the bug net it affected the integrity of the bug net… hmm… Within an hour of the rain the thunder and lightning started. Big, loud thunder. The kind that reminded me why the Greeks used to say thunder was the gods fighting. It continued well into 7 or 8 am, so there was very little sleeping last night.
As soon as it was light out I went outside to feel what little cool air could be felt. Ernie and I ended up reading in some hammocks under a palapa for an hour. By the time everyone woke up we hung around by what was “the bar” last night, all sort of wondering what was going on. There was no coffee, and a couple of the blokes took to a warm Coke out of desperation for morning caffeine. By 8 am a boat arrived and took us to the Stahlratte, which was now at a new location. The moto’s were safely on board! They were tied in two’s to the sides of the boat and covered with tarps. Everyone (but Ernie and I think) pretty much went straight to the bikes to find their own and make sure they were ok. After a full and well rounded breakfast of eggs, breads, fruits, meats, cheese, juice, and of course coffee, we take a three hour motor (not sail) east. Apparently the winds weren’t strong enough for sailing, so I guess we’ll have to wait a bit longer for a real sail.
Where exactly we anchored I do not know, but there are three islands within swimming distance, and an additional two islands within Michael Phelps distance. With just the afternoon left in the day and the inevitable rain that would come, Ernie and I decided to snorkel the closest island. After the few meters of white sand that surround the island itself, it is otherwise full of healthy reefs and seagrass beds. It was hard to find the smalls that I like to find (worms, arthropods, etc.), but the larger vertebrates, anemones, and mollusks more than made up for it. The highlights were pufferfish (with giant green reflective eyes), parrotfish (two feet long), and Ernie (see pic).
Full of small steaks and potatoes and fatigued from our swim and cold beers, I think we were the first to go to bed last night… Damn it Grandma & Grandpa!
August 29
Great start to our morning - we had a two hour snorkel to and around the island we did yesterday as well as the island behind it. Visibility was great and the highlights were the ray (black with dozens of white spots and a tail three times as long as its body - must look up), the squid (loligo I think, all in a line in the water column, why?), and the nudibranch (a large, deep red dorid that I will look up - I don’t know anything about Atlantic species). The afternoon was swimming to the farthest island (“island three”), and our highlight there was the moon jellyfish. While we warmed up and dried out on shore we enjoyed watching the pelicans feed just a few dozen meters away. It is easy to be the only two people on an island.
All these islands belong to the Guna Yala tribe, and they plant/planted all the coconut trees. A motto here is “every coconut has an owner”, so they ask all visitors to leave the coconuts alone. I wonder how they enforce this to the collection of yachts and catamarans that drop anchor for a night or two?
The food has been really good. We are impressed with what they are preparing in that little gally. Despite my issues with fish and dairy I have been able to chow down at almost every meal. Everyone but us is putting back on a few of the pounds they lost since Alaska. To clarify, Ernie and I, like everyone else on this trip, are shoveling in the fresh meat and veggies like mad on the Stahlratte. However, unlike everyone else on this trip, Ernie and I have not lost weight over the past few months... We feel squishy and we are missing our active lifestyles. Maybe our new friends have sit-down jobs?? Or maybe we are just saying that to justify our non-weight loss.
It has been fun to be the middle crowd of this group of adventure riders. There are 14 of them in total, and the bulk (not all) are divided. Some haven’t yet committed to a life; they left jobs they didn’t like and are taking this trip before marriage, kids, jobs with 401k’s, etc. And some are on the other end of the spectrum; they have retired (in all cases early) from their careers, the kids (if they have them) have left the nest, and their houses (if they have them) are all paid off. Ernie and I part of the small middle crowd that have started and committed to a life but haven’t yet retired from it. We are enjoying both their perspectives on what is important in life and why.
Its now 8 pm and we have just pulled up anchor and started our ~30 hour sail to Cartagena.
August 30
We shouldn’t be surprised, but if you put us in a cube that is closed in on five of its six sides on a lower deck of a boat and then rock the boat around arrhythmically, we don’t sleep! And poor Ernie is deaf again. The hours of snorkeling has clogged up both his ears.
It has been raining most of the day so, if you include yesterday, Ernie and I sat in our shoebox for about 15 hours straight. Luckily we had a cloudy but rain-free afternoon, so we could read outside up on the top deck. Although he has been right here next to me physically for the last 24 hours (either up on the top deck or when we are in the shoebox), I am missing the Ernie and I that is “us”. Our last week has been full of some good and fun things for sure, but they have been piled back to back in such a way that has prevented us from having intimate time with each other. By the time we leave this boat I hope we can get back on the road and into our groove. Just he and I, at our own pace, and working as a team.
We had a pre-lunch chat around the table we enjoyed some beers and talked about the Darien Gap as we passed it on our left. Jokes were had that we were going to see some big GAP in the forest as we rode by. Ludwig was with us, and Karin brought up this group of men that are doing the PanAm/Overland route but are going to take their motos through the Darien Gap. They are wheretheroadendsmoto.com (or something like that), and they are four ex-military Alaska men with lots of sponsors. Ludwig pipes up immediately, at one point even pounding his palms on the giant table. “It is stupid! The gap is all water!” Any side conversations stop and we all listen to Ludwig in his rant. “In the gap you winch your moto across water. Ride a little bit, then put your moto in a boat and cross water. You don’t ride your moto, you haul your moto over and over across water. It makes no difference whether you load your moto on a big boat and cross big water or load your moto on little boat over many little waters! It's all still water! So just come on the Stahlratte!” A good laugh by all.
Also… that we “set sail” and are “sailing” to Colombia is a bit of a facade. The diesel motor probably powers each and every “sail” from Panama to Colombia. Ernie felt a little patronized (as he says giggling). They had the sails, and the crew raised them for half the day to give the appearance of sailing… And more than one of the moto riders took some video of the crew hoisting the sails. The ropes and such are indeed impressive. But after, when we looked up and the best word to describe them was “limp”... well, we were not fooled. Ernie laughed when later in the day we were only down to one sail from three… He said, “they probably burned too much fuel pushing that many sails through the dead air”. During one of our conversations with the crew, when we asked if the sails provided much reduction in fuel consumption, she said in a bit of broken English, “No… Not that. But now looks like sailing”.
During the downtime and fake sailing, I’ve figured out why I don’t like boats. I’ve always liked the IDEA of boats as they always seemed to represent a freedom I wanted. Outside of safety measures, little about “time” actually matters from the time you leave port until the time you make it to your next port, and in academia, time seems to dictate everything about your day, week, semester, year, promotion schedule, etc. Turns out that for me, boats are the opposite of freedom and seem more like prison. It turns out I have to come to enjoy a life and lifestyle where I can act on thoughts and wills or step away to change a scene. Like escaping a needy student in my office or going into another room so Ernie doesn’t hear me fart. But here, if I want to get off this rocking boat I can’t. If I want the sound of the birds or bunkmate snoring to stop, oh well. If I want anything that I don’t have with me, I cannot go out and get it. Off this boat my reasonable wants are attainable, but on this boat many of my reasonable wants are impossibilities. The sound of this fucking engine comes to mind. Lying in our five-of-six-sided shoebox, sweating, listening to the sound of that engine turn over and over and realizing it will be like this for the next 20 hours. There is no leaving the room. It's like prison. Like department meetings, an evening with someone else’s kids, and having no other shoes but these Keene’s. Why would I seek more prisons? It is true that my reasonable wants may be unreasonable… if it makes me high maintenance so be it. I will however clarify that “prison” isn’t the same as “challenge”. We are on the trip of a lifetime; Ernie and I are taking our motos to the tip of Argentina. I hope I no longer have to defend to myself, in the mirror or in a blog, that I am up to life’s challenges :)
(pause)
Not only an hour after writing about why I don’t like boats, a pod of bottlenose dolphins decide to pay the Stahlratte a visit. Ernie got to stand port side and watch them play in the bow waves. I love boats. My hypocrisy knows no bounds.
August 31
Hola Colombia! Last night we arrived and anchored in Cartagena, the oldest settlement in all of the Americas. Although we are not yet on land, I think we can officially welcome ourselves to South America!
Was a slow morning waiting on procedures… the aduana officer of ~2 years past retired, so there was a “new guy” and Ludwig and the crew weren’t sure how things would go. Our passports were with this aduada guy, so our job was just to be ready; our gear was packed and on deck and at the signal, we would “sail” (i.e., diesel motor) over to the shipping docks where all motos and luggage would be unloaded. The signal came at around 11-12, and everything moved pretty fast after that. The motos still had their rope harnesses around them, so affixing the winch to the bikes was fast. Within an hour all the bikes were off the boat, and within the next hour all our cases and luggage were locked and bungeed back on our motos. We still didn’t have our passports and we were ~10 km from aduana, so off we went.
Imagine… no passport, no GPS system, no address, no information… you land in Colombia by ship in a boatyard and you have to go in a pack of 14 motos, through traffic, through a city, to get your papers in order. Looking back at it, it was so past my stress point that I guess I just let it all go and went with it without stressing. Sigue. Sigue the dude you know has the GPS coordinates to where we go and pray I can keep up with whatever turns and roads he takes. And it worked! Tara (and of course Ernie) just went with it. Thankfully many of the more experienced riders stopped and created roadblocks for all of us to be able to follow around some sketchy parts, and I’m super grateful to them for doing so.
I think it was another hour or two until a pack of aduana came out with our papers. They checked VIN’s, we signed things. They probably thought we smelt so bad they just wanted it all done. By 3 or 4 we were all set to go our separate ways. Problem was Ernie and I hadn’t had wifi for days, and without it we had no plan, no map, and no idea what was ahead. We decide to piggyback with the anesthesiologists and their GPS and satellite phone and followed them to a hotel about half way between old town and out of town. It was a crazy ride there (holy motos!), but it turned out to be a perfect location. We got to walk around, go the store, and eat at a nondescript Chinese place. We ordered the pollo and I’m ashamed of us for ordering it and the restaurant for serving it; it was fried chicken, french fries, tomato-lettuce-onion salad, served with a side of ketchup. I.e., we did not travel 10,000 km to go to a Chinese restaurant in Colombia, South America to get one of the most American meals we have had this entire trip. No bueno.
We are looking forward to more Colombia, but so far the obvious points are the motos (so many motos, they buzz and zip around like mad), the heat (we are closer to the equator now, so the black pavement looks white and the UV penetrates everything), and the… modern. Things are back that I forgot were normal like guardrails, city street signs and real billboards and not ads painted on rocks. It has only been one day, so we’ll see how the roads develop (or not).
Back at the hotel we sucked up the wifi and got a game plan for places to visit and stay for the next week or so. We make a few bookings, and post a few pics. Bueno. Our blokes give us some good info about some apps that work offline. Grandma and Grandpa now have two apps that they just might use in South America. Bueno!