January 17, 2009

A "fishy" camp spot










We left Santiago around 7pm after taking care of some emails, buying a few groceries and researching for a good camping spot for the night. We normally avoid riding at night, but we had been on the roads in Costa Rica and Panama at night and it felt safer since there is less traffic with trucks.
On our map, we saw that the Panamericana had a section close to the Pacific coast only an hour drive south of Santiago. So instead of spending money for a place to stay in the city, we hit the road for a beach to camp.

One hundred or less KMS north of Panama city, we took a right turn down a dirt road to the beach. Passing threw massive hotels, we found a small access road leading us to the beach. " Perfect!" we found a spot - sorry to have disturbed some lovers making out on some fishing boat, they left us and we pitched our tent.

Angela told me when we arrived that the fishermans might come early to get their boats... I looked at the boats and said, " it doesn't look like those boats have moved in a long time!"

At around 3 AM, I hear Angela " wake up - Al ...wake up!!!" then I hear some guys outside our tent asking us to move our bikes.
All confused, I get out of the tent in my boxer shorts. " The fisherman want us to move the bikes" She was right, they did come to get their boats.
So there I am trying to move our bikes in my boxers in deep sand with 4 other guys. One of them screaming orders to the other fishermans, " Allez, Allez" Moving around at fast paste like if they were on a fishing race and there I am moving half asleep. Pushing their huge *Barco* to the ocean, finally they were off and we again had peace to sleep.

Our peaceful sleep wasn't long. At 5 am this time. The entire village was outside our tent waiting for the fisherman to come back and start selling their catch for the markets.
We got out of our tent. Needing to take our morning *PI* we didn't really have anywhere to go. Everyone watching us like they never seen a tent. Or 2 blond heads with motorbikes! We sat and watched the craziness of people screaming and running around with crates of fresh fish.
An hour later, everyone was gone. Angela could finally take her *pi* Packed our bags and hit the road to Panama City....

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