Well, I have come a long way since my last journal entry. In Guatemala City I got all my documents together on Nov 1st in the afternoon. It really wasn't worth setting out in the afternoon since it gets dark a bit before six. I only got a few hours of traveling in but I didn't think I could keep staying at that hostel in Guatemala City. I met a great guy there that broke the frame of his new BMW 1200 GS. He has had a few problems trying to ship it back to Canada; it has been last six weeks. He's the social type and by then he knew everybody at the surrounding bars, and they knew him. The best bar near the hostel was called ‘Rattle and Hum' which was run by an Aussie guy. It was a fantastic bar that brought in a lot of people. I drank too many beers there for three straight nights and didn't think I could do a fourth. Thus I left the hostel in the afternoon and made it half way to the Honduras border.

I crossed to Honduras ok, only about four hours to get through the process of checking out of one country and entering another. It was raining the whole way but I made it to Zambrano by the afternoon. My friend Jorge runs a hotel there but I didn't know that that he gave up on it. From writing emails to Jorge I knew he had plans that night and wouldn't be around but figured I would see him the next day. I showed up and rang the bell thinking there would be other guests and staff there to check me in. But nope. A guy who maintains the area around the hotel had to give Jorge a call to let me in. Jorge said he would be over in a few hours and I felt bad that I ruined his Friday night plans. He didn't know I would be arriving that day. 

Jorge built the hotel himself. It's not really a hotel at all though, more of a massive 15 room mansion. The place was amazing. It's on a beautiful green countryside near rivers and waterfalls.  Many rooms had large balconies with hammocks and couches. The architecture was fantastic. 

I met Jorge in Antigua, Guatemala in April during Semana Santa (Easter). He introduced me to Andrew, who I'll be taking a trip with to Africa next year. Jorge is probably the most pleasant person I've met and he seems to get along with everybody he meets. I hung out with Jorge on Saturday in the capital, Tegucigalpa. 

I left on Sunday morning to Managua, Nicaragua. No problems at this border either. In Managua I could not find a hostel or hotel. I had to ask a Taxi driver and he pointed me in some direction and I soon found a hotel. It was an ‘Auto Hotel', basically a sex hotel that charges per hour. I was soaked from driving through the rain all day and ready to settle on anywhere, so the sex hotel it was. It was only fifteen bucks to stay the night. When I entered the hotel room it turned out to be quite shocking, but I wont go into any detail here.

From Managua I ended up making it within a few kilometers of San Jose, Costa Rica before it started to get dark. I was ready to settle on luxury after the crappy hotel the night before. It was pouring rain as I pulled into some four star hotel. They took my bag up and let me park next to the managers parking space right near to the entrance of the hotel. It was a beautiful place with restaurants and casinos inside and my room was massive. However I don't think it was worth the three hundred bucks I spent for the night.

The next day was just bad luck. In the city, San Jose, the street signs are either nonexistent or misplaced. I ended up going the wrong way on a one-way road and had to jump the curb to get back in the proper lane. The tires slipped on the curb ant the bike went down. No major damage to the bike was done but there are many scratches on the plastic and I no longer have a right front blinker. I cursed myself at my stupidity, picked up the bike and kept riding - this time in the correct lane. 

It was an interesting trek to the border. I had to go through fog so thick I could only see the road about ten feet in front. I was only going about twenty but it was a mountainous road with lots of twists and turns and twice I almost ended up in the ditch. Cars coming the opposite direction could only be seen a split second before they went by even with their headlights on. 

At the bottom of the mountain I read a sign that said the border was still 94 kilometers away, but didn't read that I was supposed to turn left, I kept going straight. For eighty kilometers I kept going straight. It was a great road and larger than most highways I've been on, therefore I thought I was on the main highway. The overcast sky kept me from knowing I was going north instead of south. After eighty kilometers I read a sign that named a town I knew was just southwest of San Jose. From San Jose to the Panama border it should only take four hours, I did it in a full day. 

I'm at a hostel in Panama City now. I have found a boat that will take the bike and I to Colombia but it leaves on the 15th. Wayne, the other biker I met, will be here on Saturday or Sunday and he knows a Colombian captain that might leave sooner. Either way the boat ride takes 5 days and stops at the San Blas Islands along the way. There's no way I'm going to make Buenos Aires unless I stay until February or March, which is a bummer. I think I'll only be able to make Lima, Peru by mid December. I have friends in both Colombia and Peru so I wouldn't mind spending extra time in these places instead of racing to Buenos Aires. I'll see if I can store my bike in Lima and finish the trip another time on the same bike. I guess I'll be back from Africa by August/September '08.