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...

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...

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...

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...

February 27th, Capurganá, Colombia. Every morning as the sun rises over the Caribbean, hundreds of people gather on the beach at Necocli, a small town on Colombia's north coast. Surrounded by suitcases and black bin bags containing all that they have, or all that they...

February 20th 2023, Cúcuta Well over seven million Venezuelans have fled their homeland in recent years. For a country of some 30 million people, that's close to a quarter of the population upping sticks and getting out. In effect, Venezuela is bleeding people, mostly...

Cúcuta market, February 18th 2023. "Where are you from?" the car passenger shouted at me out his window, smiling, as we were both stopped at traffic lights."Irlanda, Irrr-land-ah. Ireland," I shouted back."Amazing! Amazing! Welcome to Cúcuta," he said and, with that,...

February 11th 2023, Ibague, Colombia. The square is dirty and black and filthy and it gets to look worse as the dusk turns to night. It's a square that goes nowhere. That is to say, it leads nowhere. You don't drive or stroll into this square, marvel at its beauty or...

February 10th 2023, Rosas. They lugged their belongings in plastic bags and in shopping bags, in pillow cases and cardboard boxes, and in those weekend break suitcases with the little wheels, utterly useless in the circumstances but what can you do? There was...

February 8th 2013, Ipiales, Colombia. "What do you think," I said to the Ecuadoran customs officer in military-style uniform sitting under the little canopy by the roadside, "he gave me 86,000 Colombian pesos for $20. Is that good?" The customs guy took out his...