A year and three months passed before I decided to pick up my travels and complete my cycling trip.  I planned to return to Costa Rica, where I had quit a year earlier and finish my trip to Tierra del Fuego, the southern tip of South America.  I prepared my life, saying goodbyes, begging friends to look over my rental properties and renewed my old gear.  I nervously studied the weather systems knowing my late start would land me in the middle of the Costa Rican rain season.  I figured it wouldn't be so bad, I would just have to suffer a bit until I hit Colombia's more temporal climate.  A friend in California was starting a bike company and he built me a special frame for the trip.  We measured angles off my old tour bike, really a racing mountain bike, and my plush road bike, combining them to create a 700cc wheeled touring frame that could double as an off-road machine.  This would allow me to ride more upright and comfortably on the touring days.  Then by swapping tires and stem pieces and dropping my luggage I could attack the more rigorous trails.  I choose an an inconspicous flaming orange as the bikes color figuring I had already lost any chance of blending into South America with my blond hair and blues eyes.  I also liked the name of my new bike, Soulcraft.

On the flight back to Costa Rica I sat next to a retired military officer.  He eagerly explained that after two trips to Costa Rica his entire Spanish vocabulary consisted of the two words, food and beer.  As nice as he was I had met his type before and his manner rubbed sore the same spot as the others.  Having reached the end of his career he was considering a permanent move to Costa Rica to take advantage of the strong dollar.  I kept myself from suggesting that he might consider a loftier goal for the twilight of his life.  I turned to beg help with Spanish verb conjugations from the teacher in the other seat.

My friend Mauricio met me at the Juan Santamaria airport and dropped me at the combination hotel and Chinese restaurant across the street from his bike shop.  As I nursed a beer in the hotel restaurant to celebrate my return I chatted with Victoria, the hardworking daughter of the owners.  She llamented over an article that had appeared in that days paper reporting the discovery of rat meat in a Chinese restaurant.  The suspect restaurant was at least fifty miles away but no one cared to eat Chinese food and her restaurant had been empty.  I gingerly joked with her about any possible discounts available for guests who killed rats in their rooms and turned them into the kitchen staff.

Over the next five days I finished tuning my bicycle and purchasing equipment.  Manuel and Mauricio Quiros, the two brothers who own Ciclo Quiros treated me as family.  Manuel is the Costa Rican cycle champion, holding records in the 24-hour event and coast to coast.  Mauricio is a respected cyclist himself and coach for pro and semi-pro cyclists.  The two brothers keep a large scrapbook named the Libro de Oro or the Book of Gold.  It is filled with entries from the touring cyclists that have passed through the shop.  Each day I found a short while to open the book and live in the experiences and photographs from the other cyclists.  From their narratives I read about the beautiful places in the road ahead and tried to imagine the desolate, eleven-hundred mile Atacaman desert in Peru or the majestic Torres Del Paine in southern Chile.  I made an addition to the entry I had put in the book over a year before.  I lived in the cramped back room of the shop. Each night I pulled down a large steel security door and with heavy duty padlocks the size of a fist locked myself in.  Some of the nights as I tried to sleep I would notice a bug crawling on the floor that I hadn`t seen before. I added it’s face, dimensions, and number of legs to my mental catalog of creatures that might crawl over me that night.  The Quiros brothers are amazingly adept in their work as mechanics, and compensate for the lack of readily available parts with ingenuity.  Costa Rica is not like the US where you just reach for a new bicycle part of the shelf.  They say necessity is the mother of invention and I watched them work their art each day turning parts on the lathe, fashioning springs from wire, or creating whatever else was needed.  They aided in the fine tuning of my bike and helped me customize a bracket on the rack that holds my bags. We planed down the smallest rear cog in order to increase the range of my bike's gear ratio.  This allows me to still push a gear on the steeper Andean descents for the days when super fast is not fast enough.  Manuel and Mauricio are truly happy and genuinely enjoy their lives.  After my recent hard times in the states I felt both envious and joyful for their cheer.

One night I went to dinner with Gina, a cycling friend of the Quiros brothers.  She impressed me by throwing open her own car hood and filling the radiator and brake resevoirs before we set off.  Upon arriving at the restaurant we discovered just how limited my Spanish was.  I sat there linguistically lurching to and fro, watching Gina's contorted expressions as she struggled to understand my words, politely pretending to have some idea of what I was trying to say.  I became afraid to speak as my pronunciations seemed to cause her some sort of pain. Suddenly in the midst of one of my more uncontrollable verbal spasms Gina seemed to have had enough.  She broke into the Spiderman cartoon theme song, "speideerman, speideerman" making the motion of shooting webs from her wrists.   I watched taken aback at first and then laughed at the site of this "tica's" impression of an American cartoon character.  The Costa Ricans are known as “ticos” (the women are ticas) for the habit of adding the “tico” ending to their words to make thing “small”.  I also met Uli, a German, studying and teaching in Costa Rica.  We met one another during the evening social gathering that congregated in the shop in the evening .  He invited me to join him that weekend in the mountains at his friend's mountain cabin, which happened to be along my route.  I declined, refusing to ride in a car and considered meeting at the correct time as to difficult.  I hated giving up an opportunity to experience the homes and lives of local people.

On the morning of July 19, 1999 I shot a few photos in front of the shop with the Quiros brothers and slowly pulled my overloaded bicycle onto the road. Ahead lay the rest of Costa Rica, Panama, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia and Chile.  I smiled to myself as I peddled the first miles thinking of  how little I knew about the days and nights ahead.  I cycled down the smooth Pan American highway and crossed through the large city of Cartago at the foot of the Cerro Muerte or the Mountain of Death.  My goal was to arrive at the meadow where I had finished my journey the year before.  Watching my intermittently functioning cycle computer/altimeter I figure I climbed 6000 feet, sweating and wishing my legs were in better form.  I saw the days goal of reaching the meadow slip away a heavy rain began to fall and I was forced to throw my tent up on the muddy and uneven road shoulder.

I cooked a terrible freeze dried meal on my tiny stove and fell back into my damp gear, trying to wriggle my body between my bags and avoid the larger clumps of rock and mud protruding into the floor. Around one am I was awakened by something pushing at my arm.  I bolted upright, terrified, and frantically searched for my headlamp.   Finally I had it and the dim light revealed the silhouette of a large claw moving along the tent fabric.  I figured the end was near and my heart and mind raced while I imaged how I was to be mauled and eaten.  Summoning my courage I quickly unzipped the door and threw back the fabric in time to see a sloth lumbering into the brush. A sloth!  I sat back in my tiny refuge and laughed at my fear and reactions to the sloth.  Then I stopped laughing to consider just what exactly did I know about sloths.

The next morning I reached the meadow from where I had turned back over a year before.  I walked in between the trees and high grasses and searched to find the place I had pitched my tent.  I felt the memories of all that had happened in the last year washing over me.  I paced the large meadow for two hours reliving my past year at home, Calvin, work and my experiences with friends and relationships.  I had known that I was coming to this meadow for a long time and the expectation of some large revelation kept me from experiencing just that.  But my milestone was marked and I happily returned to the road, rolling over my first miles of untravelled highway.

I pedaled up the long shallow inclines and with each descent sunk into the thin misty fingers spilling over the mountain divide.  I felt an exhaustion that I knew well, it was my bodies objection to a second day of punishment when what it wanted was rest.  I steered my bike to a stop next to a weather hotel sign that swung from it’s remaining chain.  After a few minutes I heard car tires on the gravel behind me and I swung around to confront the worst my mind could conjure, but my fears were only that.  I immediately recognized the face of Uli, the German from the bike shop, who informed me that we were only a kilometer from the trailhead leading to the cabin he had invited me to in San Jose.  I was blown over by the good fortune of our timing.  We had accomplished by accident that which I deemed to difficult to plan.  I followed them to the parking area where I stashed my bike and gear in their car.  Along with Uli were three friends, cheerful Ticos, and we started the two hour hike.  We chatted in English and Spanish as we walked among the lush rain forest.  We walked on muddy trails and a thin mist swirled around us drawing us deeper into the jungle until we arrived at the home of the family Seelye-Smith.

Twenty-one years ago Ruddy and Maxine left the US to "build a place to raise their children".  And they did it, constructing their home from rough lumber from the rain forest and sheets of corrugated metal and plastic.  They grafted their home on to a way station used in the building of  the road, which is now the highway, a hundred years before.  They arrived with their two daughters and over the years had three more and a son.  The lined the walls of their cozy cabin with paintings, completed puzzles and a library of books with worn spines.  A converted 50-gallon oil drum seves as a wood stove to heat the tiny and neatly cluttered home.  Outside the house they built sheds for the goats, a tree swing, and a small stream that meanders through the property.

Wendy and Marta, two of the daughters, treated us to their special brand of hospitality after welcoming us into their mountain home.  They loaded the table with spaghetti, soup and freshly baked bread.  They were fifteen and twenty-four respectively but they appeared older.  It wasn't their appearance but how they carried themselves that deceived me.  The pair of redheads served our food chatting about when "papa and mama" were due to arrive and the past and coming events for each member of the family.  After lunch we played checkers and traded stories under the dim solar powered bulbs.  Uli and his friends had to leave that afternoon to be at work the next day.  I felt really comfortable there and let it be known.  Wendy and Marta easily caught my hints and invited me to stay longer.  I passed four days with them and the other members of the family that arrived before my departure.   I laughed and spoke about the States and spiritual gurus of the 60's with the mom, Maxine.  She was a large, loving woman and I couldn't picture her in a city with her soft and idealistic view of the world.  I watched and helped with the milking of the goats, baking of the cakes and the weeks grocery list that was relayed over a temporamental cell phone.  I was struck by the emphasis they put on caring for one another and their ability to function as a family, with each member contributing in their own way.  When it was needed someone would venture to town to take a job to bring in extra money.  I saw the family caught between two cultures not having any ties to the US  and not fully being accepted as Ticos because of their appearance.  I imagine this played a role in the absolute closeness of their family.  I talked with them about the wonderful home they had created and they quickly returned the praise saying that myself and their past visitors helped to make it so.  They remarked that the two-hour hike worked as a great filter. "Only the sincere arrive here," said Wendy.  Having hiked the road twice, once more to retrieve my bike I heartily agreed.  On the walk out I thought about their family and the choices I would face when it came time for me to settle.  I too, have been attracted to the idea of making my world far away from the reaches of the others.  Each time as I consider the beauty of such a home my mind displays all the things I would miss.  Maybe that is where we fail, not accepting that for every road taken there are many more left behind.

At the highway I resumed my climb and reached the highest point on a road in Costa Rica.  A quick couple of self-timed photos and I was descending for two hours to the city of San Isidro de General.  Along the way I stared at the villages and vast scenery flying past.  I recognized various curves, farms and landmarks from a crossing of Costa Rica by bicycle that a friend and I had made 7 years earlier.  I wasn't so pure about my cycling then and recalled the middle-aged farmer who had housed us and then driven us to the highway stopping to visit his teenage mistress.  We had spent the night before with his family and in the morning we had playfully ridden his horses with the wife and children. I recalled how this "betrayal" had shocked my young American principals.

San Isidro is a pleasant town of 40,000 people, serving as a transport hub and center for coffee fincas, cattle ranches, and plant nursuries in the nearby mountains.  I checked into a hotel there, stretching my budget to pay about 2500 colones or about nine dollars a night.  I took the opportunity to clean my gear and threw my bike and cycling shoes, muddied by the afternoon's rains, into the large shower.  I couldn't help being soaked by the shower as I rinsed the gear and stripped my clothes to shower simuetaneously.  Wanting to vent the shower I reached to open the louvered glass window with the lowest pane.  I hadn´t seen a window crank and I suppose this appeared to be the easiest solution to my mechanic´s mind.  The glass promptly snapped and with the unexpected motion I jerked back my left hand back, firmly hooking the top of my left thumb under the crescent shaped break.  The resulting cut pulled back a large flap of skin below the knuckle and I stood momentarily frozen in wonder at the site of my bone.  Then came the blood.  For a moment I stood naked and bleeding, incredulous at my own stupidity. I pressed a rag against the gushing wound and dressed with one hand.  In the lobby I ordered the receptionist to get me a taxi to the hospital. In the receptionist area I stood in a long line with plenty of time to think of all the warnings I had heard against Central American hospitals.

In the emergency room my fears were realized. I sat next to people howling in pain while looking at the antiquated medical equipment, dingy walls and floors.  For a moment I considered getting good and drunk and sewing it myself. I thought that the hotel receptionist might help me but my name was called and I entered one of the operating rooms.  I had grabbed my dictionary and as the doctor sewed my hand I looked up the words for plastic surgeon and when that failed I looked up scar.  I knew they would put my hand back together but I didn't want to appear like the large numbers of amputees or terribly scarred accident victims I had seen since the Mexican border.  My doctor, I discovered was trying to learn English.  I struggled to make clear my concern over the quality of his work.  I was past being polite and with a combination of English and Spanish made it clear I wanted a good thumb when all was done. He anesthesized my thumb before putting in three interior stitches and five exterior.  My thumb was pure “Frankenstein” with the flap of skin unevenly sewn over it. It didn´t look great for my plan to ride hundreds of miles in the days ahead. When we were done, the doctor, Cesar, invited me to his house for dinner the next night.  I went and had a great time meeting his Cuban wife, Rosa and her mother.  They took me to the site of their new home under construction.  I saw in their eyes the pride of having worked hard to have made something in their life.  Unable to ride, I waited a few days for my wound to begin closing. Rosa cutely pushed out her lower lip and put on an pouting act when she found out I was leaving.  I said goodbye and promised to come back one day.

Three long days of riding in the rain ensued and I reached the Panamanian border.  I waited in the immigracion line and thought over the journey behind me.  The Tico hospitality had been so great I felt as if I were leaving a place totally full of friends.  The country had been tame by Central American standards and the people enjoy a standard of living well above countries such as Guatemala and Nicaragua.  The relative tranquility allows them to enjoy their lives and they take great pride in their dress and appearance.  They are proud of the country's great diversity of animals and plant life, which are protected with dozens of natural parks. These parks, the political stability of the country, and the affectionate people attract huge numbers of American and Western European travelers to Costa Rica each year.  I hope that the Ticos have the resources to resist the over running of their country and manage their resources.

Finally it was my turn to present my passport and the bureacrat passed me through with hardly a look.  I returned to my bicycle, snapped my cleat into the pedal and rode into Panama.

PANAMA

The rain season in Panama begins in March and continues straight through to the end of November so I had landed smack in the middle.  I had planned to cross quickly through Western and Central Panama to the Eastern region of the Darien, a 100 kilometer long jungle separating Central from South America.  I had studied the maps and books depicting this jungle region containing swamps, rivers and steep hills.  The few cyclists that had crossed into Colombia with this route had been reduced to removing their derailluers and crank arms, turning their bicycles into unwieldy luggage carts.  But now, with my late start, the weather made the crossing unthinkable.  Also the political situation in Colombia had reached the boiling point again and the guerillas were using the Darien as a refuge.  This group has a reputation for what the Colombians call "road fishing".  This meant sitting by the edge of a road and essentially robbing or kidnapping whatever comes into their path. Historically travelling cyclists have not been above this treatment. So I loosely figured I would make the crossing to South America by boat, hitching a ride from Panama City or Colon.

I easily passed Costa Rica and Panama's immigration checks and rode along the narrow, shoulderless strip of highway.  I watched families squatting over dirt floors in their one room cinder block homes with rusted metal roofs, capped by television antennas.  The sun was ferocious and occasionally I would pour a dribble of my precious water down the back of my neck.  In the distance, not far away, I could see the Talamanca Mountain Range with the 3400 meter Volcano Baru.  I was riding almost due east now, and the reorientation took some getting used to. I couldn't shake the feeling that I was headed in the wrong direction.  Due to the S-curved shape of the country you can watch the sun come up on the Pacific and set on the Atlantic.  For a boy that grew up on the Californian coast this was a lot to think about.

The Panamanians in the passing cars honked and shouted.  At first I couldn't make out if they were angry about my being in the road but it was soon plain that they were happy to see me.  Occasionally a car would slow down and the mother (the fathers do the driving) would ask me where I  was from and where I was going. My Spanish kept the conversations short.  Late in the afternoon, a small pickup truck pulled in front of me, and a man stepped out waving his arms.  I braced myself for a fight and tried to make out his fast, low Spanish.  I guessed he was trying to sell me something and I rudely told him I wasn't interested and began to ride off.  He insisted on talking and I suppose a few words sunk in. It dawned on me that he was inviting me to his home.  I noticed the bike racks atop his car as he thrust his business card into my hands with the telephone numbers of his home in David.  I later found out his name is Bienvenido, which appropriately means welcome.  I cycled to his house where his two sons Kelvin and Howard greeted me in English.  I lived with the family for the next four days.  They stuffed me full of food and related stories about the past cyclists that they had housed.  It turns out Bienvenido collects every cycle tourist he can from the highways in order to treat them to his wonderful brand of hospitality.  One day Kelvin and I piled into his father's truck to join him in his job as a fumigator.  I got a preview of the ride ahead as we traveled up the coast to a wealthy seaside mansion in order to finish Bienvenido's work there.  They immediately adopted me as part of their family and I was happy to be with people that understood cycling.  Both Kelvin and Howard had been national junior road champions some years earlier.  They proudly showed me their trophies and bicycles.  Bienvenido kept a baby toucan in the high-walled backyard and I enjoyed watching it as I cleaned my gear and practiced Yoga. It's bright colors and awkward movements gave it the appearance of a miniature clown as it stumbled clumsily and comically around the hedges.  I bade the family good bye after exchanging addresses and inviting them to the States any time I happened to be there.

Over the next three days I rode to Panama City.  The roads became a bit tougher and I climbed over the rough folds of the land leading to the sea.  Each day I welcomed the afternoon rain on my face and was happy to be exercising and living my days outdoors. I had a long hundred mile day to arrive at the Bridge of the Americas on the edge of Panama City.  I darted across the heavy traffic into the bridge's viewing area where I found a curious site.  There in the parking lot were ten gleaming Harley-Davidson motorcycles and atop them rode their Panamanians owners and their wives adorned in the latest Harley-Davidson merchandising. They wore the official leather jackets, boots, sunglasses and key chain fobs.  I had worked as a motorcycle mechanic in the States and knew the Harley brand to be of poor quality.  The engineering tolerances were slack in comparison to their Japanese and German cousins to say little about the actual manufacturing quality.  However, their marketing is brilliant and the demand to have one of these bikes in the States has driven prices to the limit.  People weren't just buying a motorcycle, they were getting an identity as well, that of a rough sort who went where the wind took him and as unpredictable as a rattler, or so the ad copy says.  These guys looked anything but unpredictable with their cell phones, beepers and bellies and I wondered what caused them to join this American phenomenon.  With there permission I snapped their photo and continued over to get a look at the bridge.

The Bridge of the Americas spans the Pacific entrance to the Panama Canal and I watched the giant tankers lining up to make the crossing across the three locks to the Atlantic Ocean.  Ships cross through the canal twenty-four hours a day traversing through the Miraflores, Pedro Miguel, and Gatun locks.  Each of the locks are doubled, allowing for two way traffic to "step" up or down to the level of the water body ahead.  Lines attached to small train engines running alongside the locks pull the ships along this incredible feat of engineering.  The ships pay according to their weight and the fees average around thirty thousand dollars.  I was awed by the idea that man had figured out a way to literally cut across the Continental Divide from one ocean to the other.  The canal is in one of its last phases of its ownership change, from the US to the Panamanians, with the final transfer having occurred on December 31, 1999.  The politics surrounding this change are touchy and due to the technology and operating costs many Panamanians want the US to continue its involvement.  As one cab driver would later say to me, "when we told Uncle Sam to get out we only hurt ourselves."

I wanted to get a feel for the rawer side of Panama City and I headed over the bridge and into the old town of San Felipe.  I took a wrong turn among one of the narrow alleyways and found myself in a  mostly black ghetto.  The children dropped the sticks and trash they were using as toys to stare.  I imagined myself from there perspective: this blond-haired blue-eyed gringo cycling with bags bursting with goodies amongst these desperately poor people.  I felt the hairs on my neck stand as I noticed three rough looking teenagers staring at me.   But nothing happened and I slipped safely back onto the main street.  The area of San Felipe is composed largely of black descendants of the Jamaicans, Bajuns, and Trinidadians who were brought to Panama as cheap labor for the banana plantations and canal projects.  They inhabit the slums of Panama living in dank apartment buildings with balconies crowded with drying laundry. Later, in order to be a bit safer I switched hotels to the district of Bella Vista, close to Panama's infamous offshore banking district.  I noticed on the hotel register after a few days that I was paying considerably more than a few of the other guests.  Afraid that I had missed something in the Spanish conversation I inquired politely as to the reason.  “They only stay a few hours”, came the reply.  I combined this new information with the presence of a seedy lady who had been lurking outside my room, asking for money and the odd comings and goings of various couples.  I brilliantly deduced that I was living in a whorehouse.

This time I moved to the home of Alberto Palleroni, an Argentinian living on the closed US military base named Albrook.  I had met Alberto through two American girls I bumped into in a restaurant. Alberto is the manager for a project to conserve the Harpy Eagle, the national bird of Panama.  The first night I had dinner with Alberto I listened to him talk about his life in easygoing, understated style.  I liked his playful manner and impressive list of travel destinations derived from following his obsession of working with birds of prey.  Alberto had been to virtually every country in the world in between earning two doctorates. Also in his travels it appeared that he had climbed every rock that came into his path while running about on motorcycles. I relished meeting someone who shared my passions.  We passed part of each evening talking over cigarettes and scotch, lamenting the loss of the wonderful women we had loved.  Alberto was a great listener but he was a better speaker.  He elaborated on men and women's behavior - reducing us to our animal origins. He paused long moments refining his thoughts about the evolutionary roles each sex played and reasoned our aching hearts.  We spoke about the "next one", the puzzle never to be unlocked and how she might entrance us with her look.

Alberto allowed me entrance into the world of Panama you wouldn't see as a Hotel-bound tourist.  He sent me with his assistant and visiting Spaniard, Mercedes, to the jungle station from where the Harpies were fed and monitored.  We spent that night at the station, talking with the guard, a Kuna Indian named Fernandez, who was learning English.  The next morning Mercedes and I walked in the jungle getting views of sloths, monkeys, outrageously formed insects and the Harpy Eagle.  The eagle was for me the most interesting of the creatures.  With its giant claws and hairdo like that of a eighties British rock star it struck me as an impressive bird.  As part of the conservation project the birds were fed a selection of road kill found by the assistants. Some of the Harpies had adapted to bringing down their own prey, usually sloths or monkeys.  Alberto said their claws are powerful enough to slice through inch-thick plywood and that a man's arm presented no obstacle.  We learned during my stay that someone had killed one of the birds, probably by shooting it. I couldn't understand how someone could commit such an act!

One night we went to an engagement party for two British journalists living in Panama City.  I was briefly introduced to the British ambassador to Panama who seemed to perpetually hover over the bar.  I also met writers for Reuters and the Associated Press as well as businessmen involved with the trade in the free zone in Colon known as the Zona Libre.  This is the second largest duty-free port after Hong Kong. I asked one of the AP writers about the political situation in Colombia and he referred me to the AP journalist working in Colombia, giving me his email address. This contact would later write and urge me to pick a route other than Colombia, citing several recent kidnappings and clashes between the guerillas and the military.

One of the brightest memories of this part of my trip was Che, a small owl that lived in the house of Alberto.  Che, named after Che Gueverra, was six inches tall and the color of strong cup of hot chocolate.  Che would follow us as we moved about the house.  You never knew when he might dive bomb you, but when he did it took years off your life. This brought a previously inexperienced thrill to late night bathroom trips.  The black pupils of his large, yellow ringed eyes were constantly changing dimensions as he swiveled his head in order to absorb his environment.  I found myself time and time again in the wonder of his existence as he perched on my shoulder or the edge of the computer on which I was typing.

It was time for another good bye and I wished Alberto, Mercedes and Angel, Alberto's great housemate and research assistant, luck in their work to preserve the Harpy Eagle and with everything else in their lives.  It was only a day's ride to Colon but I tried hard to turn it in to two.  I made a wrong turn, foolishly ignoring my compass.  I discovered I had made a large loop and was back on the edge of Panama City after having ridden for hours.  I still couldn't absorb the idea that I wasn't riding North to South. I cursed myself as this was the first sizeable wrong turn I had made in the seven months of riding from the States.   On the edge of Colon I unfolded the tiny blade of my Swiss Army knife leaving the handle jutting out my handlebar bag for easy access.  I wanted to be ready for anything and I was constantly alert as I pulled into downtown Colon.  It wasn't unlike other Caribbean port towns, just dirtier with trash spilling out into the streets and the buildings further into their state of decay.  Colon is a depressing city with a desperate feel and I constantly stopped to look behind me as I carried out my errands on  carefully selected main streets.

I spent the next six days haunting the port of Coco Solo and the Panama Canal Yacht Club looking for information on a boat headed to some part of Colombia.  One day in a sweets shop I encountered Annie, a Colombian who had left her country in order to find a better life in Panama.  Looking at Colon I wondered what the city looked like that she had left.  She took me to a party one evening for the Colombian refugees and we danced in the city park taking sips from the local cheap liquor which looked and tasted a lot like rubbing alcohol.  All the night Colombians approached me inexplicably wanting to share their stories with this foreigner who didn't speak much Spanish and now with the effect of the firewater understood even less.  We had a good time underneath the glaring metal halide lamps over the park and the pulsating rhythm of the Colombian music booming from the tower speakers.  In the taxi ride home Anni invited me up to her room, I declined, feebly explaining how tired I was. The truth was nothing in this town excited me and I just wanted to leave.

I was frustrated by the lack of boats and the amount of time I had been looking.  I started to ask just about anyone I came in contact with, even dragging friendly taxi drivers into boat freight companies to help explain my plight.  I felt in the back of my mind something bad creeping up on me, and I knew it was Colon. I wanted to get out before it got it's chance.  Talking with another American one night he related how his boat captain had kicked him off citing his incompetence.  In his first night in town he had been jumped walking out of bar but had been able to overpower the attackers.  I silently vowed to continue my practice of avoiding bars and walking in the light on my frequent journeys at night.

One day while seated around a table of "cruisers" - people who made a life out of living on their boats - someone suggested that a man named Dominique had a boat for hire.  I wasted no time finding him, and sat him down over a beer, quizzing him about his experience and the seaworthiness of his boat.  He had questions too, and I took it as a good sign. I like people who are cautious entering into new relationships. He asked me about medical conditions that I might have, if I was taking any medicine, and if I had experience on the sea.  Satisfied with my answers, we discussed the price for a crossing to Colombia.  It became apparent that it was going to be to expensive without some other travelers to offset the cost.  I had encountered a Swiss girl, Andrea, and a Frenchman, Samuel, looking for a ride to South America and I set off for their hotel.  They had been looking as long as I and were curious to hear the details.  I introduced them to Dominique the next day and we had a long conversation over the immigration details, food shopping, the preparation of my bicycle, medical questions, and the condition of Dominique's dingy before we got to talking about the dollars.  Seated inside the cramped quarters of Dominique's 27-foot boat, numbers volleyed back and forth and when it had boiled down to the lowest number Dominique could offer and the best we could do there was still a gap.  I imagined sitting in Colon another five days probably only to eventually take a plane if I wasn't bled dry by Colon in some other fashion first.  I volunteered to make up the difference in the price out of my pocket still relatively flush with my savings for the months ahead.  With everyone agreed, Dominique suggested that Samuel and Andrea pick up the larger share of the duties on board in order to balance out my picking up the extra cost.  I quickly declined that idea, knowing that the memory of my having paid a little more would quickly wear thin and  the arrangement would bear resentment.  No, we are a team I thought, equal each of us, and everyone joined hands to celebrate our forthcoming sail into a new adventure.