We are in Panama City!!! Stay tuned, we will post the rest of the story about our Colombia experience very soon.  To quote Charles Dickens, “It was the best of times; it was the worst of times.”  Suffice it to say that our time in Colombia took us from the brink of giving up the trip entirely and returning home, to experiencing some of the greatest moments of our entire two-month adventure.  As we’ve reflected on our last two weeks, the three of us all agree that ultimately our time in Colombia has been the best of the best.  What started as just an unusual motorcycle ride has now turned into truly the trip-of-a-lifetime!  Stay tuned for the details, they’re forthcoming in the next few days!

We arrived in Panama yesterday evening on a flight from Bogota, Colombia.  As I write this, we’re at the cargo area of the international airport, sitting in an office (we’ve literally spent days and days sitting in offices on this trip), waiting on the paperwork to get our Harleys out of customs.  Our bikes arrived on a cargo plane very early this morning.  So here we are, within walking distance of our bikes, waiting….waiting…waiting!

We hope to be back on the Pan American Highway soon, driving north across the Panama Canal to Costa Rica, Nicaragua, El Salvador, and so on.  When they loaded our bikes in Bogota, my trip odometer read 7,868 miles.  We had planned for 10,000 miles to make it back to Kansas City.  Looks like we’ll blow through the 10K mark somewhere in Mexico.

But even this early in the day, we’ve had some serendipitous moments. As we left our hotel for the airport this morning, we met a man and wife team from New Zealand, who were on their way to the cargo area… to pick up their BMW motorcycles!  We shared a taxi ride and got better acquainted. Their names are Jo & Gareth.  Believe it or not, this couple ride almost full time around the world, and have ridden their bikes on every continent, even the Antarctic!  We were humbled, to say the least, realizing our little 10,000+ mile adventure was a Sunday afternoon ride compared to their travels!

And guess what?  They encountered the exact same challenges in Colombia that we did with customs.  So we are not alone!