We spent three days at Bocas, a bunch of tropical jungle covered islands off the northeastern coast of Panama. There is a large expat presence on the main island (El Colon) and a large number of backpackers congregate here. There is a party somewhere every night and the people remind me of the type of partyiers that hit Main St in Huntington Beach. Wild, crazy, obnoxious, drunk Americans. If you are into this scene then Bocas would be a fun place for you and you wouldn’t have to speak a lick of Spanish. There’s supposed to be some good surf but I never saw for myself.

We met a local Panamian girl who was very friendly and a lot of fun. We rented scooters (we just can’t seem to stay off of two wheels) and Marlen showed us a pretty, typical Caribbean beach on the far side of the island called Boca de Dragos. On the way back I stopped in the road (again no shoulders, just thick encroaching jungle) and turned off the motor so I could listen to the rich sounds of the jungle. It was just like the movies and it was a short and sweet little experience.

Madeline took us to a cave and we wandered in with our flip flops and flashlights. You need the flashlights but you regret using them when you see large spiders and other bugs crawling around near your feet. Or when you look up and you see clusters of bats hanging in the pockets of the ceilings, shivering and twittering at your light.

The time at Bocas was relaxing during the day but tiring at night. I was getting sick of all the partying and felt myself slowing down. It had been about four weeks of traveling and my body and mind were telling me that I needed to slow down to recharge.

We left Bocas on Monday and retrieved our bikes from the parking lot. It was great to jump back on but putting my riding gear back on was no fun in the heat and humidity. Back on the road, I got my riding legs back and relished the feeling of riding through the jungle. This was the kind of riding I had been waiting for and what I had envisioned whenever I daydreamed about this South America roadtrip. I wanted to ride through the jungle and here I was, doing it. The only thing missing was crazy dirt roads but I settled for pavement. We had mostly beautiful pavement that cut through beautifully colorful  jungle. I never noticed before but just the thousand different shades and shapes of green made the jungle a lot more interesting  to look at then the monotonous green you see on TV. But we had other colors, too, from the wild plants and flowers, some of which people planted in their yards and some of which were just wild.

We’ve had many interesting coincidences on this trip. We meet people and then run into them a few towns away, a couple of hundred miles away, or even a couple of countries away. My favorite coincidence so far is a two to three year old little brown girl with a bright pink dress that stood out brilliantly because of her skin. She was sitting on the bench ahead of us with her mother in the water taxi from Bocas to the mainland. She gave Roar cute little smiles and laughs during the whole boat ride. Maybe she had never seen a white Norwegian ghost before.

After the first couple of hours of riding away through the jungle, Roar and I stopped at a gas station at a junction for a short break and a soda. I returned from the bathroom to see a pretty little girl in a pink dress approach Roar, who was dressed quite differently from the boat ride in his motorcycle jacket and riding gear. Roar said como esta? and, with a huge smile, the girl stuck out her hand to shake his. I could hear the mother call out to her daughter to come back and stop bothering the crazy foreigner. I joked to Roar and asked if he was sure that he hadn’t visited Panama before about three years ago. No, seriously, it was a funny, sweet coincidence that we stopped at the same place and that the girl recognized Roar. As we sped off, the girl stuck her head out of their car window to yell some sort of three year old goodbye.

The ride continued to impress us as we climbed out of the jungle and into a cloud forest. The temperature dropped to a point where my legs got cold, which hadn’t happened to me since Guatemala. We even got a little bit of rain.

We rode down from the mountain, took some wrong turns (hey, you get to see more of the country that way) and arrived at our intended destination, David, Panama…..