Day 44 - Dominicalito Bay

Sadly, it was time to pack up and leave the fabulous Dominicalito Bay and head for the Panama Border. We were up pretty early, excited to be getting back on the bikes and crossing our final border, with the exception of leaving Panama itself. We were still on track to arrive at Overland Embassy in Panama City on Friday afternoon to check on my paperwork and get the shipping a little more sorted out. My Title had still not arrived in Panama City, and when we checked, the tracking details showed that it had been received and signed for at the address that Overland Embassy had given us on Friday the 17th of May at 16:43. So I was expecting that it should be in Panama City already, but maybe it would arrive the next day, a Friday, which would give them a  week to get the Title couriered to Panama City, which was the plan. Overland Embassy’s plan, to be clear. Anyway, there was nothing I could do to influence the situation so there was no need getting upset about it. We cleaned up around the place, put our dirty linen in the wash, packed up the bins, which were primarily empty beer cans, and decided that as we hadn’t been charged to stay for our wonderful time in Dominicalito Bay, thanks again Aaron and Jacky, we would leave Adrian and the others a US$50 tip. An outrageous sum of money for us, but it really had been wonderful to chill for a few days and decompress. We were on the road by 09:30 in the morning with a ride of about 2 hours to the Costa Rica/Panama border crossing at Paso Canoas. We left Dominicalito Bay with heavy hearts, but the lush riding along the initial road to meet the main road, Highway 2, was great and we were pleased to take in this little bit of extra enjoyment from Costa Rica before crossing the border. The crossing went pretty smoothly and the guards we helpful and directed us through the various stages. At one point, whilst entering Panama, the chap was filling in the details of my bike from the Registration document and he asked me what Make and Model the bike was. I wrote down on a piece of paper that it was a Royal Enfield Himalayan, which he misunderstood and filled in the Make as being “Royal” and the model as being “Enfield”. I also noticed that he included the chassis number for the engine number but didn’t think too much of it, I was just pleased that I hadn’t been asked to show the original Title. It didn’t cost much, but the insurance for the bikes in Panama was a little expensive at US$35 for each bike, but there isn’t much you can do about that. We did get assistance from a guide, but as he didn’t hassle us or even put us under any pressure, we were happy to give him a US$10 tip. The entire crossing only took about an hour, which meant that our initial destination, a town called David, wasn’t very far ahead of us, only about an hour. As we had anticipated that an easy border crossing might mean that we could push a bit further, meant we had also looked at stopping for the night in the next substantial town called Santiago. This was a ride of about 3 and half hours, but Santiago didn’t look like the kind of place you want to spend too much time in as it was just a stop on the main highway to the capital city. The ride from the border was really boring. We both commented that it would be nice to stop and do some filming, or even just get a couple of photos. However, there was really only one occasion that might have warranted a photo of some distant mountains, but as we couldn’t find a decent place to pull over, we kept going. That should give you enough of an idea about how average the scenery was. We hadn’t found a place to stay in Santiago, and the satnav was just taking us to the central square. As we entered the town, which is separated by the main highway running smack through the middle of the town, we spotted a couple of other overland bikers pulled in at a gas station, so we made a beeline for them to have a chat, why not. It turns out they were both on Royal Enfield Himalayans, 2018 models as opposed to our 2021 models. The chap and his girlfriend are from France and have been on the road for 8 months, having started out in Canada and they are heading south for as long as they can. We swapped details, handed out stickers, and then carried on to the town square. It was not the most appealing town we had been in, just a mass of people and traffic. We found a place to get out of the road and the traffic and found that there was a place called the Travellers Hostel not far from our location. So, we headed over there, all the while thinking that we were getting into a very dodgy neighbourhood, which just got worse and worse the further we went. When we arrived, the 2 ladies who were running the hostel were extremely friendly, and welcomed us in, and even changed the mattress on my bed as the boss lady didn’t think that I should have a crappy mattress. They made us some lovely dinner and we had a couple of beers and chatted to another French couple that had arrived just after us. The mosquitoes were still out in full force, and it was still very humid, so we finished our dinner and retired to our room and the a/c for an early night.