Still in Panama

Apparently sailing from Panama to Cartegena at this time of year can be rather unpleasant. We were originally booked to sail on a 115 ft catamaran which would have been awesome. However we have not been able to find anything over about 49 ft and they look pretty small with two big bikes strapped on them considering the seas right now. We've got emails out to everyone we can think of and posted calls for help on some popular internet motorcycle websites but nothing has come up yet. We took a day trip on the bikes out to Portobelo, Pto. Lindo and Isla Grande on the Caribbean coast to see what we could find but came up empty handed. It was a nice ride but for such a short distance it's amazing how different the weather was. Both the skies and seas were looking very unfriendly. We had some heavy rain and skies were pretty black. It reminded me of the weather on the prairies in the summer when they get the huge thunder storms.

Okay, so it wasn't raining the whole time. This is near Isla Grande.

Countryside on the Caribbean side of Panama.

Remains of a 17th Century fort in Portobelo.

The old Customs building in Portobelo.

Another view inside the ruins.

Another shot of the fort and its' view of the bay in Portobelo.

There were crews cleaning up a mudslide that had come right through the middle of the ruins.

So if we don't hear anything in the next few hours we'll fly the bikes to Bogota, Columbia. We spent yesterday at the cargo terminal at the Tocumen International Airport exploring our shipping options. We found everyone to be extremely helpful and friendly.
Once we get the bikes in Bogota we plan on the 2000 km detour back to Cartegena. I hear it's a must see.
We'll keep you posted. Bye for now.