OverlandSphere
Overland Travel, Expedition & Adventure Information for 4x4, motorcycle and truck overlanders
We needed to get back to the mainland so we had to wait for the ferry until 4 pm. They load it like a jig saw puzzle and we ended up sealed in. The nice thing about the delivery guys is they off sell their wares so there are lots of snacks for the 2-hour ride. This huge diesel delivery…
On the Isla colon itself there is only 1 road to Bocas del Drago beach 15.5 km away so we headed out there and back before we could go to the hotel to check in. The town itself is very touristy and there is a garbage collection dispute going on in town so it is strewn everywhere. The mayor announced…
We were meeting friends in Bocas del Toro in a few days time and decided to drive back instead of flying with them. Getting out of Panama City in the traffic took almost an hour. The F800 was having some issues with the bike dying at speed. So we stopped at BMW to get a fuel pump electronic controller. Daniel…
Now for some real adventure we headed south of Panama City towards the Darien. This is a place with many of the indigenous Kuna people. There is a beautiful road to “nowhere”, and where the pavement ends is where the deforestation begins. Headed back to “civilization”. Click on the main picture to advance to the next photo // jQuery(document).ready(function($)…
Today we started with a trip to the Tocumen airport and a visit to Girag Shipping. We arranged to bring the bikes back on May 1 for storage until the end of September, when we will come back to arrange the shipping to Bogotá. That done we decided to go Coast to Coast and rode over to the Locks at…
The ride from El Valle to the Pan-Americana is amazing, but the Careterra itself is a bore. There are radar police at regular intervals, especially when the limit is 80 or below. Nearing the canal we crossed the bridge of the Americas. The Panama Canal has two locks on the Pacific side and you pass one on the way to…
We were a bit sad to leave the cooler and colorful Boquete, but south it is. Daniel and I have been following Gino and Fiona as they headed from BA to Ushuaia and north. They just arrived in Panama and we all planned to meet near Santiago as our paths crossed. We headed west again to David and then south…
We had a short ride down the Pan Americana to David (Daveed) and then up the under construction new 4 lane highway to Boquete. We drove thru town and asked where a good hotel was and were directed just up the road. While we are turning the bikes around to park another bike pulls up. When I went over to…
Today we are going to cross the border into Panama, which is our tenth country in ten months. As usual we stay near the border, get a good sleep, eat a good breakfast, take snacks, and plan a destination not too far from the border. Driving up to the border pass the guys about 1 km before the crossing waving…
Yesterday we said goodbye to our new friends Dan & Sara and headed with Gianni to Boquete, a small and very nice town just in the mountains above David (the town, not the person!) Before we left though a visitor in our room, a scorpion, obviously enjoying a sleep under my riding trousers until I woke it up! I’ll be…
We left the hussle of Panama City yesterday, really congested , so much so it took us an hour to escape the clutches of the metropolis and head out to the highway. Another really hot day as we headed just north of Santiago to a nice “Eco Hotel” We stopped for lunch but the restaurant wasn’t open so we had…
Paul and I are now back in Canada, and yes I have been slacking on the blog. There are several more entries in the works with details and photos of the rest of our trip south and back north. For now, I am going to leave you with a video our friends Andrea and David made with footage of our…
(By Alex with a from-the-field report by NattieK) Even though we went to bed quite late on our last night in Panama City (see our Panama Post) and I was dead tired from the prior days’ production needed to get the car into a container in the Gomorrah of a town that is Colon, the 4:30 am taxi pick up…
It was with a certain amount of sadness we left Colombia and of course the South American Continent, South America has been fantastic, Colombia the jewel in the crown, We were lucky enough to stay at the Habitel Hotel where the concierge Eliana was excellent, going beyond the call of duty to deliver a great experience, thanks Eliana! The flight…
Editors note: This post was written on March 15th. We know, it’s late, but we’ve been quite busy with The Awesome. Our travels over the last 7 weeks have involved separate magical journeys at times, so we’ve each reported on our own adventures. Lock your office door, tell your secretary you’re out for lunch, and prepare yourself for a long…
Die letzte Grenze Mittelamerikas Kati: Mit Panama machen wir unsere Tour durch Mittelamerika komplett. Auf dem Landweg kommt man hier nicht weiter, also muss ein Transport her. Dass der günstigste Weg von A nach B nicht immer der kürzeste ist, lernen wir auch hier mal wieder. Aber wir haben ja Zeit, sind flexibel und lieben Umwege. Doch wie abgesprochen…
It was day 210 when we crossed into Panama via the Caribbean coast and we could hardly believe that our tour through Central America was almost over. We never planned much in the way of adventures or sightseeing through this country, it was just the place we needed to get to for transporting Troy over to Colombia to start the…
Today was big for three reasons: We went as far south as we are going to for the trip. We have now turned around and are heading north again. We simply had a very special day riding We did full on legitimate lane splitting through Panama City and Gaila did great. So let me elaborate. Yes, we would so love…
Our travels this week (we flew) Gingers route across the stormy Southern seas! We can’t believe we are here in Colombia and about to be reunited with our beloved van!!! It’s been a bit of a challenge but we are happy to say we have completed the paperwork process unscathed. Well except for having to part with a fair bit…
We are on our way to South America! Well for the most part. The most part being the van in a container waiting at the shipyard for the boat that leaves on Sunday. It was just a couple of days ago we were hanging out on a beach in Costa Rica and got an email saying that there was a…
So, I am learning a lot about trucks. Driving a 1989 Trooper has helped me to gain a pretty broad Spanish vocabulary of truck parts, and meet lots of mechanics along the way. Just after entering Panama, Phyllis started to get a strange shimmy when we cornered slowly. We ignored it for the first little while, but it kept getting…
Once in Panama we both got the obligatory Central American travel sickness involving sweats, and many many trips to the bathroom. Our travel plans for the country were interrupted a little bit with the recovery process, but we did manage to see some interesting places, and meet some very unique people. We spent a week and a half exploring the…
[We've fallen a bit behind with the blog. Tsk. And so much has happened recently. So for that reason we took half each and turned this next post into a two-parter. Fellow travellers who want more details about shipping and boat journeys from Panama to Colombia can email us or wait until we get round to posting a separate page…
While our car was making its way across the Caribbean to Colombia, it was up to us to find our own way. We could fly from Panama City, take a sail boat across the ocean or go for the cheapest option which involves a number of outboard motor boats followed by a series of long bus rides. The motor boat…
Santa Catalina, Panama by Paula We’re back. After a dizzying, joyful, exhausting, emotional, treat-filled, wine-fuelled five weeks back in the UK, we again said many goodbyes to family, friends and the cat, and returned to Panama City. For a short time we swapped the humid hazy Panama skyline, for the misty hills of Scotland. Panama has been great. We enjoyed…
We’ve been lying to you all along. The truth is we can’t drive from the US to Argentina. No one can. The Pan American “highway” is a network of roads linking the majority of nations in the Americas and totaling nearly 30,000 miles. It stretches from Prudhoe Bay, Alaska to the farthest reaches of South America, ending arguably in Ushuaia,…
A late lunch was quickly turning into an early dinner as Jill and I wandered through various small towns looking for the right place to eat. Our hunger was distracted by the beautiful scenery of the mountains surrounding Volcan Baru in the NW corner of Panama. We entered the one horse town of Cerro Punta and soon passed what looked…
After San Vito Costa Rica I headed straight for Panama. At this stage I was only focusing on how I would get across the Darien Gap to Colombia so I wasn’t planning on staying in Panama too long. Despite what people may think about the mythical Pan America high way that connects North and South America no road has ever…
We entered Panama with pretty much one thing on our mind; shipping our car to Colombia. So we headed directly to Panama City to start figuring out the process. Arriving on a Thursday we sent out a lot of emails and made some calls asking for pricing and departure dates. However by Friday we had only received one response and…
Panama City, Panama by Jeremy Central America. Tick. At the end of a month in Panama, it was with a sense of achievement (not to mention a dodgy oxygen sensor and a pair of pliers where our right front brake should be) that we rolled – well, limped really – back into Panama City a few days ago. One of…