Panama

3-19-24:  El Salto Waterfall to Panama City Outskirts

Overland Embassy suggested a few places to see while touring Panama but after examining them, all but two were way East in Panama and we were about 6-7 hours away from this site. We opted to stop at El Salto which was on the way to Panama City (our ultimate destination). El Salto was supposed to be a beautiful waterfall where we could camp either at the base or at the top and, hopefully, swim and cool off from these high heat & humidity days. We drove for several hours and arrived al El Salto – so disappointed.  Not only was there only a trickle of water coming from the waterfall, the “pool” of water at the bottom looked “bacterially dangerous”. No matter how hot and humid we were, we were NOT going to swim in that brown murky mess. We pressed on to the beach to try to find a cooling wind and waves after a warm ham sandwich. Such a good sammy  🙂

The beach turned out to be too far to make before sundown and we were winding our way through the mountains on a pretty drive.  We found an option for camping, but after trying to locate the owner with the help of Oscar whose family owned a restaurant along the road, we were told the campground was closed.  Oscar mentioned his uncle would let us camp in their parking lot along the road and even though we were in the mountains, the truck traffic was noisy.  Oscar did mention there  was a flat are they recently cleared of trees up on the hill above the house as they had plans for building a few cabins to rent.  Well, Edel’s and Matt walked up to check it out and were more than pleasantly surprised to find a secluded area with a fun 4wd road leading to it.  We jumped at the opportunity and it was fun to watch as Oscar’s younger cousins filmed the rigs working their way up to the camp spot.  The video below is of us going down.  Hats and bracelets made the fellas day.

3-20-24:  To The Beach (We Hoped!)

We got a good start to the day and drove to the Delicias Del Mar Rio Hato restaurant and was told that we could camp on the beach or in the lot there. Unfortunately, after imbibing on some fried shrimp and calamari and washing them down with icy cold beers, we were told that the beach is too dangerous to camp. It was late afternoon and there weren’t a lot of other options for miles. After much discussion and exploration we made the decision to drive to the outskirts of Panama City in La Chorrera and spend the night in the yard of the familiar Romero.  While we never, ever drive at night, there really wasn’t a choice here so we pushed off. Ya know…how bad could it be?

Well, words can’t describe at how bad it was. While the highway toward Panama started off paved and well marked, that quickly deteriorated and we were introduced to the largest construction project in Panamanian history with road closures, lane changes, on-coming traffic and with no signs, lane markings or even cones. Add to that walkers, bikers, vehicles without lights and you get a real world video game that put us on the edge of our drivers seats for about 3 hours. Not for one second did the challenges let up. It was some of the most challenging driving we had down over our 60+ years on earth. Wow!  After arriving at the Romero house, Romero wasn’t there but a cousin was. He had us park on the front lawn where we popped our tops and tried to cool off in the late evening  breezes. The local high school marching band was practicing and until 11:00pm, after practice, they all walked by and were checking out, laughing and enjoying the rigs that were camped out on the lawn. We were ready for our final push into Panama City after we awoke the next morning but, much to our surprise, the trailer was badly listing to one side and its mud flap was ripped off. The roads were a bit too much for our overloading trailer. We were going to have to address that in Panama City.

Panama City to Darien Gap

3-21/25-24

We arrived at Overland Embassy, a relatively new business that facilitates the shipping of vehicles across the Darien Gap. We’ve been in touch with Alejandro for months and have our spots reserved to store our vehicles and trailer and ultimately ship them in early June over to Columbia. While it’s not inexpensive, the benefit is having someone who knows the ropes and has the paperwork and agent contacts to streamline the process and ensure vehicles get shipped without worry.  We were welcomed by the team and first on the agenda was getting our rigs serviced. Alejandro drives a Defender so he escorted John and his Defender to his favorite shop in town.   John met with Christian to share his wish list of services items needed for the next leg off the journey.  Matt went to the Toyota mechanic down the street and met the lead mechanic about some work that Matt was going to have done to the transfer case. They were also going to oversee the repair of the trailer’s suspension which apparently was needed as one of the leaf springs had snapped.  Once we met with the mechanics, we did a cursory cleaning of the interior of the vehicles and tried to grab as much extra gear out of the vehicles and trailer that would not be needed for South America. Each of us had suitcases and duffels filled with gear that we would carry home on our respective flights.

We rented an AirBnB apartment in the heart of the Old Panama City – Panama Viejo. It was great to have a place to call home for a couple of days to do laundry, relax experience air conditioning and get ready for our short 8 week transition home. While having a big rig in a city is not ideal, Matt was a trooper and found the only parking spot that would fit his truck –  about 8 blocks away from the apartment. Not only did he have to endure a 2 mile walk in the heat and humidity but also had to navigate low ceilings and security cameras in the garage. One camera captured the wrath of the Sequoia head on. Once back at the apartment, showered, cooled down and relaxed, John and Matt headed out on the town. We hit one of the local rooftop restaurants which was hopping mid-week. Matt trained the waiter on how to make the perfect cocktail which was 8 parts vodka to 1 part soda. Dinner was delicious and our plan for the following day was to take the Pan American Highway to its endpoint at the Darien Gap.

3-22-24:  Darien Gap Territory

Over early morning coffee, we mapped out the drive to the Darien Gap…the end of the road in Panama and it was about an 8-9 hour day. We pushed off a little later than we wanted as we stopped into Overland Embassy to cover off a few more details. The trip to Darien started off as planned but some road closures and missed turns delayed us even further. Then, the road turned from paved asphalt to a potholed-strewn, rutted mess….and then there was no road. For four hours, we bounced, twisted and turned down the “road” and finally entered the Darien Gap Territory. We stopped for some obligatory photos of the signs and high-fived one another. We then pulled a U-ie and bounced our way back to Panama City. The least we could do when we finally arrived in the early evening was to celebrate our victory with a Greek Dinner of Lamb and Saganaki. Yum.  Oh yeah, that lamb had been roasted for 8 hours on an open wood fired grill…just saying.

3-23-24

John departed Panama City at 6:00am with 5 bags of clothes and gear.  Matt stayed on to drop off his rig and the trailer for repairs on Monday.

3-25-24

Matt departed looking as homeless as John did with multiple duffels and bags being dragged through the airport

We had a blast on the 1st leg of our journey covering almost 7500 miles.  We saw awesome sights, experienced multiple cultures, ate delicious food, avoided any real trouble or issues and most importantly met some wonderful folks who made the trip special.  See you all in June in the Colombia Section.

Cheers