Where the Lord parted our Red Sea! Nicaragua Honduras and El Salvador!!

 Nicaragua!

As morning broke, I awoke and found out that we were being watched by like three shady looking guys! It was probably around 6:00 a.m. It was starting to get light and we had been asleep for a few hours so hopped right up and asked the dude what he wanted. He didn't even move, just stood there and looked at me, and then slowly walked away. We broke camp and once again started the research process of finding out how to get through customs and on our way in Nicaragua. I went to the office first, fought off all the money changers as usual, and then got in line to get my passport stamped. While I was waiting I plugged in my phone to get it charged enough to listen to my tunes. I got stamped in and went and rode around until I found Dave and Nian. We talked over our situations and decided to find a shower and get cleaned up. We were all Black from road grime! Oh Shoot! I forgot my Phone! I ran back over there and....GONE! I ran around frantically for like five minutes asking who took it! Nobody said anything! I was heart broke. Seriously soo bumbed out! I asked two more people if they'd seen it and nothin. As I was walking out some guy walked up to the counter and said something to the guy that I asked first. He put his head down, walked over to a filing case, and grabbed my phone and charger out. Another prayer answered! haha We found a truck stop, got showered up, and after getting all our bike paperwork done and getting all sprayed for bugs we were once again on the road! We road up the West shore of Lake Nicaragua. The landscape and scenery were amazing. The only thing wrong with the picture were the BUGS!!! I looked down and my knees were Black from Bugs! I had bugs all over in my leg hair and just all over for real! Our visors were pure bug guts! Except for daves... he didnt have a visor!  That Sucks so bad!

Nians Bug Collection after only like 5 mins!

Nian Ran out of gas so Dave and I rode 5 kms to the next town, filled up, and Dave took a water bottle full of gas back to Nian. When they got back and got filled up I had bought lunch of American style fried chicken and Monsters! That is when we sat down and ate the BEST fried chicken of our lives! The owner overheard us say just that and responded to us in english. Turns out he lived in Silver springs Maryland. 10 miles from where I had lived for the last three summers. We finished our lunch and some old war veteran dude gave us detailed directions in english of how to get through Nicaragua the fastest. We cleaned the bugs off of ourselves and rode hard once again. Soon the dudes directions had taken us in a super big loop and were were headed back towards the road where we started. While somewhat lost we did pass through some super awesome Volcano mountains and really cultural small towns.  As we passed through one of them I thought. I bet there are missionaries in every one of these towns. Not more than 2 minutes later. Low and behold, Two Elders walking right at us! haha I locked up my brake and screeched to a halt. We talked to them for a bit, got better directions, and continued our volcano mountain ride down to the Pan American Highway. A couple more hours up the Highway and we were in the middle of a desert surrounded by Volcanoes. Our bikes were burning up and so were we! The first gas station we bought tons of water and got all fueled up.  Back on the road we busted it up towards Managua. Once there we stopped to pee and there was a stalled car. I hopped off and we all helped this dude push his suv to the top of the hill. As he thanked us and hopped in his car I noticed that he had a pistol in the back of his jeans. Guess helping him was the right decision. I never told dave and nian this but I took us on a long detour to keep us out of the city after I saw that dudes gun. The detour took us right past lake Managua which also had tons of huge Volcanoes!

 Volcanoes Across Lake Managua

It was such and awesome Landscape. After 4 or 5 more hours of burning up in the desert we were close to the Honduras border. About 50 kms from the border we stopped, got gas, and spend every dime we had of Funny Nicaraguan money on drinks and goodies. Another hour of riding and we were at the Honduran border.

Welcome to Honduras! ps i hate you Honduras

Once again the border crossing and customs area was super ghetto and full of fools trying to "help us" and change money. We simply told them the truth and that if they wanted to "help us" with our paperwork for free they were more than welcome. We were truly OUT of money! I had used my Safety $150 and we had spent everything else on junk food. Nian and I wanted to use the bathroom but couldn't because it cost money! We turned in our Nicaraguan drivers licenses and got ready to go in Honduras. 20 Minutes later we had our Passports all stamped and we were ready to go. Then some guy told us that we had to wait for the Motor vehicle people to get out of a meeting before we could get permissions to drive in Honduras. Then came the bad news. It was going to cost each of us over $50 American dollars to get the permission. The worst part about that is we were only going to be in Honduras for a couple hours. My GPS said that it was only 280 kms across. So we waited around for like an hour and fought with people about not paying due to our no money situation. Finally, the boss lady came out of a meeting and we were invited to go in and talk to her. Thats when we found out how big of trouble we were really in. The nearest ATM was 40 kms into honduras. We couldn't ride there because we didn't have permissions yet. We also couldn't go back into Nicaragua because we had already turned in our Nicaraguan drivers permissions. We were really jammed! She said that some guy would give us a ride to the ATM and back for $100 each! NO WAY! Not only was that too much money but also too time consuming. All the sudden dave says. Is this your money? He's got a huge wad of money in his hand. I would guess probably more that $1000 American dollars! He found it sitting on the floor in the boss lady's office! She claimed it and was even more ruthless with us! I was starting to get worried again that this was the end of the road!
NOW IT STARTS GETTING CRAZY!
As we walked out of that ladies office with basically no options, the wind started blowing very strange. I walked out to my bike and said "fellas, pack your bags us and get your rain gear on NOW!!" We got geared up for the rain in like 5 mins! It was strange because we had a crowd of like 20 people watching us that all knew our situation. Just before we were all ready to go The heaviest rainfall ever began to pound down on us! At that time, I knew that God wanted us to keep going and that he was opening up the gate to Honduras for us. I push started my bike, as I had been doing ever since my starter went out in Panama. Dave and Nian were right behind me and we FLEW PAST THE BORDER PATROL GATE!!!!  Rain so heavy we couldn't even see the road! Someone yelled as we blew past but there was no stopping now! The super heavy rain suddenly quit 5 minutes after we BLASTED the border! I was actually mad that it wasn't raining because that meant that the frequent road stops and patrols would all be functioning normally. We passed one after another 20 mins. I stood up on my pegs, saluted the officers with one hand, and honked my horn a few times with the other hand. They looked us all confused and never bothered stopping us!  haha We passed 5 more patrol stations using the same technique! We followed the Pan American Through Honduas getting lost here and there along the way of course. We all got ourselves some ultra energy drinks, got on all our cold weather gear, and heaed for the El Salvador border!!! That's when it happened, Stopped by a road block police patrol! Oh Shoot! I thought to myself. We all fumbled through our stacks of papers and showed them some random wet documents we had picked up along the way. And then acted like we didn't know what they were talking about! haha They really only stopped us because people were getting mugged and or murdered on the bridge just down the road from us. So in a way they were watching over us. They finally let us go. It was probably around midnight before we got to the El Salvadoran border! We got in the middle of a huge line of trucks and went as fast as we could as to avoid getting stopped by the Honduran exit customs. Worked like a charm! We all thanked the Lord for our safe passage through Honduras.

Once in El Salvador we used a different tactic on the customs guy. We just talked about how awesome El Salvador was, how excited we were to eat the food, and what we needed to see while we were there! Pretty soon were were good buds and he sent us along on our way. He mentioned something about getting permission for the bikes but we never saw another government building so we just kept on a going. The GPS once again took us on a sweet unneeded 1 hour detour. Soon it was raining again we we geared up and made good time through El Salvador! We did stop in one small town for Papusas. Sooo Delicious! We got to San Salvador around 2 or 3 am and soon we were again lost! After more Energy Drinks, Gas, and directions we were hot on our way. We flew through some territory that I assumed was really pretty but the darkness ruined all of that! At around 4 am we finally arrived at the Guatemalan boder! We rolled in there super confident and cool, sure that were were once again on our way!  There was a big bridge separating the two countries and that bridge was blocked by a gate and like 10 guards. We told em some story about why we didnt have our permissions to drive in the country and of course the didnt buy any of it. We begged them forever to let us through but finally we agreed to hang up our hammocks there and get some shut eye while they called the other border in the morning. The Bathrooms were locked so we went off of a 200 foot bridge. It was pretty funny! Soon we were all camped out and Sound asleep! This was honestly one of the longest, most eventful, hottest, coldest, and most mentally draining days of my life! 

On The ROAD HOME: Panama and Costa Rica

 Panama City

Sunday, April 28th, around 3pm we hit the road in Panama. We were feeling great as we headed North up the Pan-American Highway. Once again we were on some nice big freeways. Panama uses the US dollar as well, so it was cool to buy things in Dollar. About 200 kms up the highway we found ourselves lost in panama city. One of the most modern cities we've visited. I would have told you that we were in Florida. We circled around Panama City for a couple hours and finally found the way out of town. Soon after leaving the city we crossed the Panama Canal. That was super awesome! You can see how much work went into it. After Crossing the canal we road east, southeast for what seemed like forever! We headed back Northeast and after hours of riding we made it to the Costa Rica, Panama border. We were pumped to get into Costa Rica to find a nice campsite. As we crossed the border we were informed that customs didn't open until 7 am. Soo.... we found a couple of nice poles and fence posts right in front of the customs office and hung up our hammocks. We wrapped up in our blankets to keep the bugs off us, and at about 3 am the jungle sounds wisped us off to sleep.

The Panama Costa Rica Border

Monday morning we were woken up a little before 5am. There were people lined up at the border fighting to be one of the first people to get into Panama to go to work. We broke camp and jumped in line to get into Costa Rica. Little did we know we were almost two hours early. Finally 7 am rolled around, the office opened, and when our turn to get stamped into Costa Rica came around.... We had to go a mile back to Panama to get our passports stamped there. We had to wait another hour in line there and then we were back to the Costa Rica Customs office. Once again we made it to the front of the line, we were then informed that we needed our yellow fever shot cards or we weren't going into CR. The lady just told us that we were out of luck and that we had to go back to the city, get the shot, wait 6 days, and then we could enter the city. We were super mad. I went back up to the front of the line and asked if I could get a copy of the card faxed or e-mailed to them. They said that was ok so we got to work. I searched around for a pay phone and called my mom collect. "hey mom can you send me my yellow fever shot card. Jim... you don't have your yellow fever shots." Ummm... shoot. So what did do. We made one! I had my mom email me the shot card and we wrote in the yellow fever section. We copied it and I took it back to the CR office. Turns out Panama stamped my passport with the wrong stamp so..., Back to Panama, then back to CR. Finally they stamped me into Costa Rica. Then it took me 2 more hours to get my bike paperwork all finished up and done. Dave and Nian just got on the internet, found some shot cards, changed the names, printed em off and got stamped in like a charm! Around 2 pm we were finally on the road in Costa Rica. What a head ache!

 A Big Statue of Christ as we Climbed the Mountains In Costa Rica

Once in CR we just road HARD! Its a super pretty country but we didn't have time to stop and  see the sights. Next time I Guess!  We road a few hours through some hot jungle, which was amazing. We were headed North along the Pacific Coast. Suddenly, the road veered back to the south west. That took us up into some mountains and through some pineapple farms. We rode through a small rainstorm and stopped for gas a goodies in the small town of Cacao. As we left the town we hit a stretch of nice windy roads. We're having a blast flying up the mountain on awesome paved roads when all the sudden our bikes start running way crappy! :We were at such a high altitude that our bikes were choking for air. Suddenly it started getting chilly and started to drizzle a little. That was strange because just hours before we were all cursing the blasted jungle heat. Nian and Dave stopped to put on their rain gear. I reluctantly stopped and put mine on as well. I was under the impression that it would just drizzle a little and we'd be high and dry soon.

 Getting Our Rain Gear On Just Before the Coldest Rainstorm EVER!!

Little did i know, five minutes up the mountain road, Boom! An Ultra-Freezing rainstorm awaited us! I had on Three shirts, Two jackets, and all the other warm clothing I could possibly squeeze under my rain gear. Twenty minutes up the mountain road my bike was going 20 mph at full throttle and I was FREEZING!!! I would compare this coldness to the time I fell through the Ice. SOOOO COLD!!! The little mountain that I thought we would pass soon turned into one of the highest mountains in Costa Rica! We pinned our bikes, and rode as fast as we could (25mph) until we were out of the mountains. As we headed down the other side the clouds broke a little and we were able to see just how amazing the place was. We all stopped just before San Jose and told each other how cold we were.

Back on the road we were soon in the middle of San Jose. My GPS only had a couple major roads on it so I just kept us going in the general direction and followed the flow of traffic. Miraculously, we made it right through the city, during rush hour, with no problems. We did get put onto a nice toll road that wasn't cheap. So.... We begged  the attendants to let us through! It worked about half the time. haha It got dark and we rode until we were close to the Pacific again. We got some gas, got some wild central American energy drinks, and hit the road. The stretch of road from San Jose to the Nicaragua border was kinda sketchy! Lots of transvestites and truckers. Needless to say we didn't stop except for some roadside police checkpoints. The cops here were super cool. One of them gave me his address and wanted me to come back and buy his beach property.

 Looking for a Place To hang our Hammocks

Around 3 am we arrived at the Nicaraguan border. We were stopped by the border police and told that we needed to wait until 7 am for customs to open.  This campout was a little different than the rest. As we crossed the border the roads were dirt and the whole area was extremely gloomy and unkept. There was a huge parking lot full of trucks and a few people walking around. The wind started blowing and it was looking like it was going to rain. We arranged our hammocks under a little roof next to the customs office. I pushed my bike up under my hammock and tried to get some sleep. I woke up three or  four times throughout the night to keep an eye on some creepy people that kept walking around us. I didn't get much sleep but it sure felt good to lay down for a bit!

Sail away Sail away Sail away.......

There we were, all pumped up and ready to set sail. Somehow we ended up killing another day at the docks, but finally by Friday night we were ready to set sail! Right at sunset, we hoisted the sails and pulled out of the ports. It was amazing! Our bikes tied to the front of the sailboat, us getting some sailing experience, and eating the best food ever! (which was all cooked for us!) As we literally sailed off into the sunset Caption Pedro went below deck to get his GPS wired up straight. There was some pirate chick on the boat that just seemed to be getting a ride with us to the san Blas Islands. He had her hold the wheel. After watching her put us 90 degrees off course three different times I eased myself into the captains chair. I got the hang of it in like 30 seconds and had us due on course! Captain Pedro came up, looked at his instruments, and said, "wow, you really know how to drive a boat. You good to drive for a bit?" Of course I was. So he said, "Ok then, You're first mate! and I'm gonna take a nap for a bit."

Well a bit of a nap turned into him going to bed on the bench. Soo.... Dave and I drove the whole night until around 9 or 10am sat morning! Captain Pedro is one Unique guy. My spanish Swear word vocabulary increased 100 percent while were were on the boat with him! He truly took the Phrase "Swore like a sailer" to a whole other level. I was dead from driving all night so I decided to take a nap. Before laying down I dug up a spool of fishing line and a big metal spoon and slowly let it out behind the boat. I watched it for a while with no luck so I tied it off to a cleat and hit the hay for a few hours. I was soon woken up by Nian looking for my Pliers. Turns out Dave and Captain Pedro hand Pulled in a monster Tuna while I was sleeping!!

I was mad for like 4 seconds and then passed out again. When I finally woke up for good, dinner was set. TUNA! Captain had chopped it right up and fried it up for us. Seriously some of the best Fish i have Ever eatin! It was amazing as well because the one we caught was just big enough to feed all 8 of us really well! Pretty soon it started getting dark again which for my meant I was up to pilot the boat. This night me dave captain and Nian all took our turns at the helm.

After my turn I went and laid down right on the very tip of the bow and tried falling asleep. The moon and stars were so bright that I couldn't even keep my eyes closed. After two hours of Laying there awake, we hit a huge wave and my pad slid all the way over the edge and me half way over! Getting lost at sea is really low on my priority list so I got myself better situated on the bow and started drifting off. All the sudden  a strange noise and splashing woke me up. ? I Looked around for like 10 mins with out seeing anything. Then all the sudden, I look into the water with is all Lit up with moon and star light. 15 or 20 big whiteish figures right below me at the bow. One rose up and made a huge splash, Dolphins!

Tons of em! I laid on my stomach over the bow for the next 30 mins trying to get one to jump up and touch my hand and watching em do all kinds of jumps tricks all around the waves the boat was putting out. After a while they all left and I finally got some sleep while dave and nian drove.

By the time I woke up Sunday morning we were only like 10 miles out of San Blas. I drove us most of the way in but Cap. Pedro took the help for the last little bit due to coral reefs and low water danger. Which is really funny and you'll find out why very soon!

We sailed ourselves between two paradisaical islands and Captain Pedro yell out, "Drop the anchor boys!" We did as we told which brought us to our new home for the night. As the boat stopped we of course all started flipping and diving off the top of the boat! The water was probably about 45 feet deep and we could see all the way to the bottom! So Blue and so clear! Turns out Captain had a big bag full of snorkel stuff! Of course we spent the next few hours diving around the reefs. There were so many amazing colorful fish, sting rays, and huge conch shells. After we felt how bad our sunburn levels we all headed back to the boat.

Captain was already busy cookin us up a huge meal! We all ate really well. After dinner captain took all of us over to and indigenous island while he stayed on the boat. It looked exactly what an island would look in my mind if someone were to say, "Ok, so youre on a deserted island." Just palm trees and a few indian huts. We walked all the way around the island which is when we got a great idea. Lets sleep on the island! Needless to say, Captain was soon dropping us off again with our hammocks, ropes, and blankets. We treked through the dark to the east side of the island. There we found two palm trees growing out over the water on a 45 degree angle. Dave and I shinneyed up Each tree and we tied all three of our hammocks up over the water.

Laying in our bunk hammocks over the water was unreal. Every star in the sky was out. Small waves and sounds of the islands are all we could hear. Really one of the most amazing campouts of our adventure.

We woke up with the sun the next morning. We rolled up our hammocks and met captain Pedro on the beach.

He took us back to the Night Hawk 2 and yelled for us to hoist the anchor. We were a short 10 miles from the port. We anchored off shore and went to the island immigration office for our visa stamped Captain Pedro came up to Dave and I and said, "Thanks for everything guys! I've never had such an awesome group of people on the boat. Here you go." He gave us each $25 American Dollars! haha He paid us for all our work on the boat! He then told us that whenever we wanted to sail the Caribbean that we didn't need to worry about money. Just call him and he'd take us and our friends for free! Way Awesome!

  Soon we were back on the boat and sailed around towards the port. Captain did a loop through a huge pod of Dolphins. It was pretty cool. When he looped around we got slightly off course. I was on the front deck uncovering the bikes when I felt a huge Jolt.. then BLAM!! Scraping sounds, and I'm laying on my back! The next thing I heard was Captain Pedro Yelling Puta!!!!... and Meirda!!!.... Over and over again! Just a slurry of Spanish swear words for the next hour! He and run the Night Hawk 2 right into a shallow coral reef!! Just when we thought the trip couldn't get any crazier, we're shipwrecked in the Caribbean.! Captain Pedro tried pushing us backwards with the dingy while Dave Reversed the motor turning back and forth. Soon and old Indian man showed up in a wooden log canoe. He dropped a huge rock for his anchor, tore his shorts off, and dove in wearing only some skimpy underwear and a snorkel. I grabbed a snorkel and followed suit. When I got under the boat I discovered that the Rutter was blocked by some rocks from behind, and the fin was completely buried under a bunch of rocks about half my size. So what did we do... The old Indian man and I would to a 1.. 2... 3.... Swim down, Grab a boulder, and walk it along the bottom away from the boat! It was pretty awesome! and Scary. The waves we're rocking the boat deeper into the reef. We were hurrying as fast as we could as the tide was going out. the ship would be left high and dry and if we were unable to free it fast. It took the old man and I about half an hour to move all the rocks. When I got back on the boat all I saw was madness. More Indians had showed up with bigger motorized canoes and boats. Somehow Captain Pedro had tied 4 motorized boats up to the back of the Night Hawk 2. They all floored it at the same time and it was crazy! Boats were crashing into each other, Close-lining each other, and Almost sinking! So crazy! When that didn't work Captain Pedro decided that we needed to get us and our heavy bikes off the Night Hawk. We untied the bikes and hooked em one by one to top of the mast.

We hoisted each bike up in the air, swung em out over the water, and lowered em into canoes! Once again, we all looked at each other and thought, "Is this really happening?" haha We put Daves bike, Nians bike, all our bags, and ourselves in one big canoe. My bike went with 4 other guys in a smaller canoe.

Once we were all off the Night Hawk, the four motor boats began pulling again, two dingeys pushed from the front, and captain Pedro at the helm full throttle backwards! The battled it for a few mins and The Night Hawk 2 was free!! We were a hundred yards away already. We heard Pedro yell a loud slurry of swear words and then, "I'M FREEEEE!!! haha So awesome!

We were already on our way for the main land. This canoe ride was super nerve racking! I was squatting on the bottom holding each side. The water was only like 6" from top of the canoe! Twenty mins later we were going up a river inlet with indians everywhere. The boat drivers took us to their friends "Port." We unloaded our bikes and were informed that we had to pay them $35 American dollars each bike. We only had the $50 dollars that Pedro had given Dave and I. So, we gave em $5. They were PISSED! I was ready for and Indian Fight. We tied our bikes up and told em, "Sorry, we don't have any money." After like 30 mins of arguing they finally accepted out rappelling rope as payment. We road down Jungle dirt roads though mud, mountains, and rivers for the next two hours. Panama's Mountains are soo pretty! After a wild mountain ride we made it to asphalt. I looked down at my GPS and..... Sure enough, We had made it to the Pan-American Highway! 7000 kms up the Hwy would put us at the Texas border! At 3:00pm Monday April 19th WE HIT THE ROAD FOR THE ULTIMATE RIDE HOME!!!

SETTING SAIL!! Cartagena de Indias, COLOMBIA

Our new home for the next 4 days

The next morning we woke up and realized that we had slept right on the side of a major highway. I think we got a good three hours sleep. We headed into town where we were pleased to find that it was an old pirate town, full of castles, fortresses, and old rusty cannons.


Upon arriving in Cartagena we discovered that we only have a couple options to get to Panama.1. ride 200 kms through death jungle where only 1 man has succesfuly past with a two wheel drive rocon motorcycle. 2. try and get on smugglers boats and ferrys from near Gurilla Colombia, or..... Take a sailboat to the San Blas Islands and get dumped off right in the middle if Panama! hhhhmmm?? We got an amazing american style breakfast and started looking for a sailboat that would let us hitch a ride to Panama.  After sifting through all the harbors and ports some fisherman sent us over to find Pedro. We found em and after hours of haggling we had ourselfs a boat. Even if it did cost us Over a Million Pesos.

 Dave counting MILLIONS

haha not really that much for, a four day sailboat ride to The San Blas Islands and Panama, All the food you can eat, fishing, sailing lessons, getting the bikes across, a nice bed to sleep in, Basically everything I´ve ever dreamed of!

Part of the old Castle built to keep the Pirates out

Captain Pedro showed us the ropes around the ship and we headed into town. Only after we dropped off our sacks of all our filthy clothes of course! Cartagena is super awesome! Lots of the streets in the main old town are only wide enough for one car. I would assume that it looks alot like spain or france would. We just rode around for a few hours and saw the town for most of the night. After hours of good exploring we took er back to the ship and called it a night!ª

Downtown Cartagena

We spent the next day and a half getting ready to set sail. Turns out our boat was abandondened so we did quite a bit of repairs as well.  Night one we Loaded the bikes on the ship! Turns out its not exactly legal so we had to load em in the middle of the night. We pushed em out the dock, tied ropes aroud the front and back, Hooked the ropes to the mast, and then linched them out over the water and up into the boat! It was so Awesome! We tied em and tarped em to ensure their saftey during the 4 day boat ride. After all our hard work we all fell asleep on the deck. haha

The next morning we went out with captain Pedro and bought food for the 8 of us going over. Captain Pedro thinks alot like we do and we ended up spending over a Million Pesos on Food!! We were just throwing everything we wanted in the cart! It was a great time. We also bought a 50 gallon burlap sack full of Pineapples, another full of Mangos, and others full of other delicious fruits! I´m so Pumped for this! Our outting to buy food got me all excited for powell again. We finished up a few final repairs and right now we´re about to set sail! 50 hours from now we´re going to be in San Blas Islands. Monday morning we´ll be in Panama ready to get back on the road!

Wish us Luck!

The Pirates

VENEZUELA, COLOMBIA and some other pics

 Amazon Sunset by the Ecuator

Spotted Leapords

 This Guy really wanted to know what i tasted like

Another Sunset

And Another

Crossing the Equator

We would have spent some time here but as soon as we stopped a whole bus full of circus transvestites pulled up and unloaded. We saw the ....chickdudes walking over and we got a fist full of throttle and got outta there!!

Worlds biggest Moth. I checked

Right before getting detained at the Venezulan border for almost two days

The Venezulan High Grasslands... Amazing!

Waterfall in the middle of Venezuela.. There are thousands of these all along the way. Including Angel falls which is the higest in the world. Didnt have time to go there though.... 

Dave... feet up ridng off into a smokey venezulan sunset

Some of the biker gang that saved my bacon while i was almost broke down by myself in venezuela. I stayed at Vitaminas house. (Far Right) He`s so awesome! Worked with me all day to get me back up and running, Fed me, shelted me, and showed me a great time! 

Thanks again Vitamina!

As of the other day I was camped out sunday night at Vitaminas house. The next day vitamina and i worked hard to find all my parts and get the tornado up and running again. Not gonna lie i felt a little wierd riding around on the back of his cruiser bike. ha after several trips to the store, waiting for siesta to get done, and some rain the bike was up and running hot! dave called and we planned to meet at the columbian border at 7 or 8 am the next day. I tried leaving but they wouldnt let me due to rain, pot holes in the road, thugs, and of course rain. So i chilled at vitaminas place til 4 am and i rolled out as fast as i could! I made super good time due to more rain and some traffic. I rode as fast as i could stopping only for gas. I saw a dead person again. I hate that. Puts me in the dumps for the rest of the day. The last 100 kms to the Columbian boarder were super ghetto and 9 out of 10 cars are huge 70s rusty old cheys! so funny. At about noon at 5 kms from the boarder I caught up to Dave and Nian right before they were about to cross into Colombia. We got held up at the boarder again, interviewed, and 4 hours later we were on our way!

Welcome to Colombia!!

Once in Colombia  we road as fast as we could to the north east while it was still light. It got dark quick. We left the desert and the roads turned from horrrible to awesome so we kept on going. At around 2 am and 990kms into my day, we stopped about 30 mins outside of Cartagena, Colombia. I looked out in the field and beheld millions of fireflys lighting up the landscape. No moon, few stars, and fireflys tracing every tree, field, and hill side.  Truely a sight that flim cant capture. I wish everyone could have been there to share it with us. One of the most amazing acts of Gods great nature i've ever seen! It was so awesome that we road around til we found some nice trees, set up our hammocks, and got a couple hours rest. 

MUCHO LOCO!!

Ok this is going to be have to be a super readers digest version. no time to kill right now. bad spelling and everythig. so manaus was awesome! we spent like four nights at Edivaldo and Martas house. they are the best people ever. they treated us like kings! amazing people. everyone we met in manaus was so awesome! we went to the zoo  there which was super cool. it was raining of course so we were the only ones there. including the workers which were army guards as it is on a military base. we had more unsupervised fun with animals than we should have. i got the black panther to bite down on the cage and i touched his tooth! haha so awesome! we hit the road for boa vista (one of nians other areas) in the worst rain storm ive ever driven in. it hurt so bad. even when we were going slow. we road like 600 kms in the rain and found an empty tire shop to tie our hammocks up in. we camped the night, got up at 4:30 and road hard all the way to boa vista. the ride was awesome! we crossed the equator, a bus full of trannys showed up so we bailed quick). the rest of the ride was socool. lots of hugee parrots, dead gators, and other crazy animals all over the road.we came out of the jungle and into some savana looking planes. at boa vista we fixed my breaks, ate and decided to head north. 4 hours later we were at the venezulan border in another rain storm. By night fall we were in Venezula. we all ran out of gas, got gas, got our passports stampd, and road north into Veneezula. its so much different than brazil. GAS HERE IS SOOOO CHEAP!!!! I filled my tank for like 25 cents.. gas is 9cents a gallon!! pretty much free. everyone here drives huge trucks, jeeps, and classic chevy cars haha. we road like 100 kms into venezula where we were stopped by the military police. They were not kind. after a long dispute and process we headded back to the border to get more paper work done. we spent the night at the border and  went to the border the next morning. They detained us and we spent the whole next day working on meaningless paperwork!.... we were all kind of depressed. Finally at 5:55 pm they let us go after some hero brazillian guy from the highway patrol named Vladimir made us some papers that said we were legal with brazil. We were once again all out of gas and it turns out the gas stations close at 6. we didnt make it in time so we headed to the ghetto side of town and started anyone if theyd sell us some gas. we got led to three or four houses that usually sell black market gas and noone had any. Upon asking one house a young girl overheard us asking in broken spanish and lead us to her grandpas house. He had us kill our motors, turn off our lights, and push our bikes in his back yard. he turned out all his lights and filled our bikes up from some big 5 gallon cans he had. i guess its super illegal to sell black market gas. we were having a good laugh after gassing up and dave  mentioned we were from utah. a lady from inside then asked, "mormons?" haha well  yes... turns out shes a less active member! soon we were eating a feast with them and she drew out a map for us to get around in venezuela as my new gps only has basic roads on it. The family let us crash on their floor as its not a good idea to night ride in venezula. once again we saw the hand of God in our trip. what are the odds of getting lead to a lessactives house after all we went trough at the border. great experience. the next morning we were on the road by 5 am. we got rolled by some more military police after like 4 hrs of riding. they were going to haul us in and keep the bikes because we didnt have "internatioal drivers licences". after talking for like an hour we were all laughing and having a good time. they finally let us go and we hit the road once more.  The venezulan countryside is amazing. we went from green grassy planes, to jungle, to savanna, to desert. everything you can think of. we road like 10 hours, dave lost his wallet so we spent some time fixing that. 6 more good riding hrs and it was dark. we got lost in cidade guyana looking for a bridge. we stopped for some food and everyone was like.. get the HELL outta here! its so dangerious!! needless to say.. we dropped everything and split! haha forget getting jammed up by robbers.. three hours later we gased up and got more food. as we were eating a guy comes in with a knife and tells dave something. we didnt understand him well but he either said im going to steal your bikes or someones going steal your bikes. we dropped our food, jumped on our bikes and headed out of town. Once again the cops grabbed us on the way outta the city. I was actually glad this time becaue im 100 percent sure someone was following us. I'll admit, i was gettting a little nervous. The cops wanted money and were upset when they found out we didnt have any. Dave speaks pretty good spanish so he does most of the talking.. i understand well but speak just a little so everytime they ask me for money i just smile an say... Si.. and laugh a little. Then i laugh more cause its funny to see them get confued. The cops told us we were going the wrong way which i know saved our bacon. I honestly felt , and know, that someone was waiting to ambush us after we left the police checkpoint. We bunched up and road into the night on the right road. around 3 am i felt my  bike getting a little shakey. we stopped and turns out, my sprockets and chain are all the way worn out again. My chain was tightened all the way and slipping bad so nian and i took some links out with my leatherman and a huge rock while dave slept on the sidewalk. This took like an hour and a half. i tightened by chain up all the way and limped down the road. i couldnt go over 70 kms/hr or my chain would slip again. nian and dave were way behind me for some reason. It got light and i stopped at the police station. I waited there for like and hour and i figured they stopped to sleep. I wasnt tired so i limped on stopping at each city to see if they had a mormon  chruch or bike shop that was open. At like 10:30 am i came across  city with a church and i caught the last 45 mins of sacrament meeting. It was pretty awesome. No bike shop in the city so i  wrote dave on facebook, tightened my chain again, and kept going. I rode til like 5pm. with no bike shops open on sunday i was starting  to get nervous that i wouldnt make it to Maricaibo which is the bigger city that would for sure have my parts.  My chain was slipping bad again so i pulled off on some grass to snug it up. Two bikers rode past me and a lady on the back of one of them invited me to join them. I told them my story and they told me to follow them. Turns out they are in a biker gang. They took me to their mechanics house. They call him vitimina. Pretty soon i was all showered up and at a biker gang pool party/ bbq haha. Remind you i havent slept since 5 am the day before... 40 hrs no sleep! I passed out on a couch by the pool and woke up to an  angry man yelling  at me! We ate the bbq, they took me to a bar, they got wasted and i slammed coke after coke trying to stay awake! we left the bar at midnight and road the town! Once again, theyre wasted riding doubles, im deathly tired riding with sprockes grinding! ha They bought me some bomb venezulan steak sandwhich at like 1 am and they took me back to vitiminas house. around 2 am i finally went to bed. 45 hrs straight! Tomorrow vitamina and i are going to get me back on the road so i can meet up with nian and dave down the road!

Pray for me! hahaa

PEACE!!

Mid-Trip Cruise

So we may have gone on the most interesting cruise ship of all time! After finishing our death ride through the middle of the trail we caught River boat in Santarem and headed up the mighty Amazon. This wasnt your averege cruise ship though. We made friends with the captain and boared the ship a day early. Instead of having rooms this cruise had thousads of hooks and one big open floor. there we´re 10 or so hammocks hung up on the second floor so we followed suit and placed our hammocks three feet apart and spread all our muddy packs, rain gear, tarps, and dirty clothes over our ten foot territory. We slept great the first night in the port. We woke up early to go see the city which was supposed to have "the most amazing fresh water beach in the world." As we were on our way we stopped for some breakfast and to wash our bikes. Lo and behold, here came our arch nemisis from this whole trip, Rain!!! And how it rained. Seriously, the roads became rivers in the matter of 5 mins. We waited out the rain for like an hour, grabbed our now clean bikes, Nian and I bought some food, and headed for the boat to meet Dave with our tickets.

Upon arriving at the boat we were greeted by 4 policemen that were very unhappy with Nian and his broken licence plate. They started giving us some serious guff which was not good because our boat was to leave shortly. I soon learned that three of them were in an english class and we were soon laughing and having a good time talking about guns. Needless to say we made our boat. We lifed our bikes onto the bottom level of the boat and then hoisted them down into the gallows for the two day ride.

As we boarded we discovered that a few more people had joined us for our two day river trip. By a few people I mean like 350 more people! We pushed our way through a colorful rainbow spiderweb of hammocks and people and finally found our stuff. Nian´s and my hammocks were now a foot apart, and a family of 7 had squeezed in between Dave and I. The lady right next to me was way bigger than I am and her 90 year old feeble mother was right next to her. Our stuff was all over the place getting trampled. We all looked at each other and thought to ourselves...."awesome".... Here we were ready for a confortable boat ride up the amazon and suddenly it felt like it was packed inside a crowed city bus. We all laid down in our hammocks and sort of settled in for a long ride.

Nian and I fell asleep. We woke up with people jammed up touching us on both sides of us. I was honestly shocked with the situation. It was like 7 pm and everyone was hustling around for dinner. The three of us went up to the top deck and enjoyed our dinner of cookies and guaraná.

After a while I found out that somepeople could go down to water level and sleep around the cargo so I jumped right on it. Down on the cargo level the whole back was full of crates of Mangos (which we were free to eat i guess) (and were DELICIOUS), bananas, mamão, lemons, many other fruits and vegis, chickens, and a dog. The front of the boat was open and quite fresh. I hung my hammock so I could lay there and watch the Amazonian jungle pass by. We spent almost the whole first two days searcing for sloths and jaguars but we mostly saw cows, chickens, and river people. Still very interesting. The river is almost overflowing so the shorelines are full of trees falling in the river and the effects of erosion were everywhere.

At most times along the two day trip we were surrounded by fresh water dolphins that ranged in color from black, to grey, to blue, to pink. We also saw some pretty amazing sunsets, sunrises, moonsets, and moonrises. All of which occured over the river. Night one I dont think any of us slept at all. Turns out I had hung my hammock under a night light. Dave and Nian both got up to go to the bathroom and were confronted by an unfriendly scene. The guy with his hammock right next to the bathroom door had thrown up chuncks of dinner and rice all over the place. The guys found out that it was throw up by walking though it. The worst part is.... Dave was barefoot. I still think Nian was grossed out more. The whole next day we spent sleeping, playing cards, and watching the jungle pass by. Night number 2 was a lot more relaxing. We arose the next morning and soon we were pulling into the port. A few mins before desembarking our friend rain showed up in full force and made things complacated again. We rigged a pully and hoisted our bikes out of the gallows of the boat. Lifting them out of the boat was a lot eaiser that we had expected.

Upon arrival in Manaus we got some lunch and took care of some bike repairs that were nessary after the Shortcut trail ride. Once repaired, we road an hour or two to the other side of the city and found one of Nians old mission areas. We visited a couple familys and the second one we visited invited us to sleep there.

We all took bucket showers in front of their house, laid down on mattresses and were soon fast asleep. After almost two weeks of only sleeping in hammocks it was great to sleep on a mattress! We are all completely out of clothes, we all have a rancid plastic sack of wet, muddy, sweaty, dirty clothes! Tomorrows tasks... 1. Wash clothes, 2. Find some Jungle to explore! 3. Relax for a bit..... We´ll be in touch..

i´ll put up some more pics later

Love you all

THE GUYS

Mid TRANS AMAZON Highway

 Transamazonican Sunset... Absolutely Amazing

Sorry its been so long since the last update. There aren´t to many wireless internet places in the middle of the JUNGLE! Last time I wrote it seems like we were leaving the last little strip of asphalt of our super long trip. We got me some a new chain and sprocket set. Somehow I burned though a set after 2 weeks of hard riding.? After getting the bikes tuned up a little, we hit the road once more. It was pretty much dark so we did our best to put some distance behind us. We road a few hundred Kms down the Transamazonica dirt road highway when all the sudden, we started to get the feeling that it was about to open up and pour rain! Around 10 pm we found the nearest bar/restaurant/truck stop. Soon we had made friends with the owner who kindly invited us to hang our hammocks up under his balcony where his pool tables were. He let us shower, we ate there, and surely enough, it poured rain!

One of our Camps Along the Transamazon Highway

The Whole 3000 Kms was riddled with these rickety wood bridges

Walking on Water... I just want to be like JESUS

We Slept great in our hammocks and waited til almost 9am for the rain to slow down some. The downpour became a drizzle so We finally decided that it wasn't about to stop all together. So, we wrapped everything we owned in plastic and hit the trail. Everything was awesome except for one minor mishap. My rain gear was nowhere to be found!   I put on this bright purple poncho that our friend Liam had given us and we road out. After like an hour of riding hard down the muddiest roads ever! I was super soaked and muddy! We came across a small town where I set out looking for some rain gear. It was Sunday so everywhere that sold raingear was closed. I was set on finding some gear and after like an hour of searching I found a moto store with the back door open. I bought the only thing they had, found a gas station, showered the mud off, and we were in business back on the road!

 One of the Nicer Stretches of Road (we're barely muddy it got so much worse!)

Who needs a bus? Not these 30 People!! haha

We Made friends with some River People.. I guess they didn't realize Dave and Nian are almost double their size.. The Canoe was about 3/4 of an inch out of the water!! ha

We road way hard through mud and rain all day on Sunday. These roads were nuts! If there wasn't pure jungle on both sides i would have guessed that I was on top of the mountains above Fillmore. The roads are identical. Every time we would stop for gas or food people would tell us that we were out of our minds. ``you're crazy! what if you break down out here? there´s no stores to fix your bikes! you dont ride at night do you?`` ``yes`` ``NO WAY You're crazyyy!!! You're going to get robbed!``  Every time someone says this we look at each other and smile. We road through Jungle, rivers, Fog, mud, broke down some, fixed our bikes and finally Sunday night we made it to Araju. We rolled into town, found another gas station/ restaurant  that let us hang our hammocks up inside. We took a shower at the gas station, and set up camp. We went into town and it was pure craziness! We rode down main street along with like 500 of the towns youth on our bikes. Everyone goes to the main road every night and just does laps up and down main. It was crazy. I felt like I was in a Motocross race. After taking some mains and getting some food, we took it back to camp and got some rest for our big day tomorrow.

Rain Forrest Farm.. Amazing

The next morning we spent getting ourselves ready for ``THE SHORTCUT!!`` We got Dave a new chain and sprocket set, got some food, relaxed for a min, and headed down The Shortcut.

Look how small Dave and I are next to these trees.. They're HUGE

The Shortcut is a 200 km dirt road without stores or homes that goes Right Through the Middle of the JUNGLE!! Taking the shortcut was going to save us almost 200 kms to the river so we took it of course! People in town said that it was a rough road but we´d fly right across it with our bikes. We had no Idea what we had signed up for! We busted out the first 100 kms no problem! A few big puddles, a few trees across the trail, and a few slick spots but we had made pretty good time. We took a break to oil our chains and rest our butts. When we turned our bikes off we were surround by howler monkeys. They were screaming like gorrillas all around us! Pretty nuts! and really creepy

This Tree Was so big they just piled dirt over it instead of moving it!

Full Throttle to not Sink in the QUICKSAND

Rowdyest Ride of my LIFE!

Then we set out of the second part of the Shortcut. The next 20 kms took us over 4 hours to cross! The road was 40 yards wide and pure mud and quick sand! Some of the puddles were over 5 feet deep! There were trees across the trail that were over 6 feet in diameter across the trail! It took all three of us to help each other creep, lift, push, pull, and drag our bikes across this swamp! It was so bad we all just put on our swimsuits and drove right though the middle of it! After 7 hours we finally made it to the other side of the Jungle and to Santarem where we were to get the riverboat down the amazon to manaus.

 

Mud So deep We had to push each other through it!

Muddy ol Dave

From my house in Orem to our farm in Fillmore is almost exactly the same distance as The Short cut! I have never even thought of riding my motorbike from Orem to Fillmore. It seems so far once i think about it. I guess after riding over 12,000 kms (almost 8000 miles) we´ve lost any feeling for distances.

About 150 Kms Down the Shortcut

Another Sketchy Bridge

Nian was so Pumped to See Asphalt

As we got to Sanatrem we searched out the river boat. We worked our way onto the boat where we made friends with the captain. He said we could crash on the boat that night as it didn't leave til the next afternoon. We hung up our hammocks, showered the mud off for like 30  mins each, and crashed out! We´ve logged over 3000 kms this last week and have defiantly felt it! Now were going to take a 2 day boat ride up the amazon to manaus. It will be nice to rest up for a bit!

MOTO TEAM... OUT