After nearly 3 years, 55.000 km and 7 months of traveling the american continent, the bike is packed and ready for shipment to Belgium next wednesday. I will only continu the journey in January 2011, and leaving the bike for one year in Panama was no option. Since the bike had to be shipped anyway out of Panama, I preferred to ship it back to Europe where I will do a complete overhaul. At the end of next year I will ship it back to Cartagena, or I could decide to ship the 1200 instead. After a horrible day yesterday where I had to wait 4 hours for a signature by the police of a stupid document that confirmed my name and chassis number of the bike, I got this morning in 5 minutes the stamp that permits me to leave the country without the bike. In 2 hours I crated with the help of some guys of the transport company the bike. I paid the 1300 dollars and left the bike in the parking lot of the transporter. They are supposed to take it this afternoon to the port of Colon. Weird feeling. I feel a little bit lost now that we have to behave like any other tourist, taking a tour on the Panama Canal, taking a plane to the Bocas del Toro Island, taking a taxi to Panama Viejo, etc. But we will survive.
8500 km - We decided to come one day earlier to Panama city because somebody told us that the Quetzal trail in Boquette had been destroyed by the rains in November. And today was a national holiday - dia das madres. The road to Santiago across Chiriquiti is very beautifull, nice biking. After Santiago the scenery becomes more flat and the road turns into a autopista. Coming out of the city I accelerated to a nice speed without paying to much attention to a policecar parked along the highway. Of course the man jumped out of his vehicle and made me stop. 112 km/h in a 50km/h zone. I had not seen any 50 km sign. He finally let us go because of the passports. I must say that this time I stopped, because 3 days ago in Costa Rica I overtook a truck, fullspeed and over the double lign. I saw the policeman jumping along the route, but I just waved when I passed. I had not seen that he also had a motorbike and I kept going at a good speed without paying to much attention on what happened behind me, untill I saw the police bike, full lights and horns. He was not happy, aksing me why I did not stop. When I told him I came from Mexico and in all these countries you are advised not to stop for any reason, even not for a man with a white shirt and a speedgun in his hand, he was happy with the answer. He noted my name and said he was going to advise the embassy and just turned his bike and rode away. On the road we met Ian, who left Vancouver 6 months ago on his bike. He was so happy we stopped to have a chat. He just had finished a climb of several kilometers and we thought he would be exhausted. Climb, which climb? he said. We chatted for half an hour. He had had no problems what so ever, even no security problem. We talked about the security, because the day before we met our first victim of an armed robbery, an australian woman who lost her computer and bag in Puerto Viego, costa Rica at 7h30 at night when coming out of an internet cafe. At 5h in the afternoon we passed the Puente de las Americas over the canal. Quite an experience. Then the 4 lane road takes you through the slums of Panama city, weird. We are now in the business zone and I will meet tomorrow Sr Luis Carlos, whom my friend Tom found for me, and who works for the shipping company Spli. So hopefully we can decide tomorrow what we will do with the bike.
We changed our plans because of the heavy rains on the Osa Corcovado peninsula and crossed yesterday the border with Panama. Boquete is the place from where you can go for rafting on the river bordering Costa Rica, climb the Barú volcan or do the Quetzal trail. We still did not decide what to do, but we had an excellent panama coffee, took the laundry to the automaticó and are now hanging around in the (small) town. Thursday we will be in Panama City to find out what we will do with the bike.
After nearly 3 years, 55.000 km and 7 months of traveling the american continent, the bike is packed and ready for shipment to Belgium next wednesday. I will only continu the journey in January 2011, and leaving the bike for one year in Panama was no option. Since the bike had to be shipped anyway out of Panama, I preferred to ship it back to Europe where I will do a complete overhaul. At the end of next year I will ship it back to Cartagena, or I could decide to ship the 1200 instead. 
