A beautiful sunset, a dirty beach, too much to drink and an architectural gem
March 21st 2023, San Salvador. Leaving Nicaragua was not as difficult as I feared it might be. The various officials at the frontier were, well, as they should be -- polite and efficient in their work, and I and the bike passed through their hands without incident,...
Nicaragua, part II
March 19th 2023, Coyolito, Honduras. I was stopped once more by the police in Nicaragua and, on this occasion, they could not have been more pleasant, friendly and professional. I am happy to be able to write that because it proves, again, that even in a society where...
First impressions of Nicaragua were good. Then I got pulled over by the police
Peter Murtagh in Managua. There is quite a contrast between Central America's Caribbean and Pacific coasts. With the exception of El Salvador and Belize, all of the other countries of the region -- Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala and Mexico -- touch...
Monkey business in the rain forest
March 13th 2023, Chuita, Costa Rica. When I first heard the noise coming from the woods behind the beach, I thought it was a recording -- some sort of piped animal grunting through loudspeakers laid on by the authorities. Part of what one friend termed Costa Rica's...
Los Planes
Peter Murtagh at Camp Los Planes, Panama. The defunct army camp at Los Planes, some 460 kilometers west of Panama City has a new lease of life. Notwithstanding the fact that many of its timber clad buildings are literally falling apart, the former military base in the...
In the crater of an extinct volcano, there’s a touch of West Cork
Peter Murtagh in Valle de Anton, Panama. Having air freighted myself and the bike across the Darién Gap and explored some of Panama City and the canal (see Tip2Top.ie), I got out of the city after a few days and headed west -- the short term goal being Costa Rica and...
My first genuine shakedown
March 11th, 2023 in Playa Las Lejas, Panama. I had my first shakedown yesterday. It was the real deal. It was done so nicely, I hardly even felt it. This is what happened. I was riding west, along Panama's Highway 1, the Pan American, heading towards the border with...
Panama’s Canal: ‘A human triumph and one of the great stories of all time’
March 8th 2023, Panama City. This is an interesting place. Some random thoughts. In the core of inner city Panama, there are at least three distinct cities. The first is the big, brash, reaching for the skies modern city with its gleaming, glass facade skyscrapers...
Crossing the Darién — finally!
March 7th 2023, Panama City. Anyone travelling across the Americas by land, north to south or, like me, the other way around, faces a major obstacle in the middle. It is known as the Darién Gap -- the gap being the fact that there is no road linking South and Central...
There’s gold, and a lot more besides, in them there hills. . .
Puente Linda, February 28th 2023. After my few days with the migrants in Necocli and Capurganá, I made a dash for Bogota, feeling that it was time to progress my own journey into Central America. The road south from the Gulf of Darién was good and passed through some...