Patience.. is a @#$%&.. haha

DAY- 93

2/5/2012

Woke up very frustrated, I hate not knowing what is wrong as well as not being able to keep going at the moment. A friend I trust a lot wrote me concerned that I had just been pushed through the line of people at the hospital yesterday, as I am as well. I grabbed a cup of coffee and went for a walk taking in the views and reminding myself how good I really have it, I am come on Fletch your “stuck” in Panama City boo hoo…haha I drank lots of water ate healthy all day and ended up going to the huge mall to find some new riding socks. My socks are beat and are too big and bulky. I found three nice soccer socks that help with wicking away sweat. There seemed to be a nice movie theater but I really didn’t want to watch a Spanish dubbed movie at that moment. I headed back to the hostel and picked up some food for dinner, rice, veggies, and tuna. I made dinner and just relaxed with a nice can of pina juice.



DAY-94

2/6/2012

I woke up and headed to the original clinic that I had started with and maid my .50 cents and waited for 2hrs to talk with the doctor again. I explained everything going on and she was still pretty sure it has something to do with my uric acid level, she prescribe a pill once a day to bring my levels down and I left. Lying in bed I realized I should just get a full blood test and whatever else I could. I headed back snuck into her office cutting the line and she gave me a few minutes of her time. There had been miscommunication between us over the last blood test she didn’t think I wanted full just Uric. So she set me up with two different full blood tests tomorrow morning no eating after 7pm. I headed out checked the time and grabbed a taxi to the mall. I found out that the movies are not dubbed just sub titled so they are still in English. I grabbed a taxi and went back to the mall. I watch Tower Heist not bad got me to relax and laugh. I walked around awhile looking at new cameras, I want to be able to take better photos and my camera is dying. The prices are barely higher than home so I may try and pick up a G12 or S90 both Canons, I also found a moto shop that has Shift Knee and Elbow pads for 20bucks each. Since I want to ride all dirt from Ecuador through Chile, probably not a bad Idea. I got back to the hostel around 8ish and just hung out did some research, emailed the lady who has been helping me with the sailboats. She wrote back saying she doubted there was space, then again saying there was space for me and the bike if I wanted it. Although now the boat isn’t leaving on the 10^th but on the 13^th. I wrote here telling here I have to wait for my results so without deposit if she could hold it just until the morning of the 8^th I will know if I can catch the boat. Surprisingly I just got an email back saying she is holding it until the morning of the 8^th so fingers crossed.

IT IS WHAT IT IS

DAY 92-

2/4/2012

When the evil lady at the hostel finally gave me my deposit back for the boat, she asked if I was going to another boat for cheaper. She didn’t believe that I was going to Panama City to go to the hospital.

I woke up around 7am packed up the bike said goodbye to Clay and headed toward Panama City. I got lost for a second then found my way into Panama, just to get all turned around and lost in the crazy city. It is a horrible lay out all roads going everywhere except the way you’re going. I finally saw the water and headed toward it, got my bearing straight and made it to the hostel. Check my Email got the right hospital to go to, Pacifico. No doctors but I could fork up 50 bucks and go see a doctor in the ER.

I sat with the doctor for 30 minutes, I got the feeling he had no idea what was going on with me. After an exam of my feet and legs he said it was not a blood clot, because the back of my legs would be in pain. My pain comes from my bones in my feet and shins. So he decided it was from being unhealthy, eating cheap, gaining weight, and being in one sitting position every day on the bike. He told me from now on to stop every 1-2hrs and walk around sit and then walk around some more get the blood flowing and then ride some more. I got back to the hostel called global rescue again check in and talked with them letting them know what the doctor had said. The paramedic I talked to took my info and went and talked with the doctor. I called back 30 minutes later, he said the doctor suggested I bed rest and walk around for the next few days and monitor myself checking in with them. The guy made the comment I can then decide if I feel up to keep going south or throw the towel in and head home!?!?! No way in hell I am going home.. I am three months into a 2 year trip. I just need to watch what I eat, exercise every day, and I will be fine. This is kind of a downer, but I will be riding soon no doubt.. Well for now I am going to take a nap… Now you know what I know..

CRAPPY :(

DAY 91 CONTINUED…

2/3/2012

About thirty minutes ago around 7pm I had to make the hardest decision of the trip…. I felt worse than I have been feeling for the past month today and yesterday. After consulting with a lot of people from friends, nurses from home who talked with their doctors, two doctors, and my Global Rescue Doctor. They all basically called me an idiot for thinking about getting on a boat tomorrow and being in the middle of the Atlantic for the next 5 days nowhere near help. Due to the fact they think there is a good chance I might have a blood clot. And a blood clot is not a joking matter so I am told. Luckily I get my deposit back and passport back from the captain and will be leaving Clay and heading back to Panama to go get an Ultra Sound and a physical to figure out what the hell is going on with me. I did not want to throw in the towel we worked so hard to figure out a way to Columbia and I am so close. But at the end of the day obviously the RISKS are not worth it. I will figure out a different way to Columbia, although I was just told that if I can figure this all out another boat with space for a bike is leaving on the 10^th. I am going to cut this short and go make some dinner and go to bed, feeling pretty crappy at the moment. Will update tomorrow after Hospital visit.

I will be healthy and riding again soon..
Fletch

Almost on the boat!!

DAY-90/91

2/2-3/2012

Grabbed a cup of coffee and headed over to the doctor’s office to talk about my results and figure out what to do…. Yup you guessed it the doctor called in sick she was not there, they told me Manana Manana. Oh well nothing I can do, headed up to the hardware store grabbed a cheap tarp and walked back to the hostel. Met up with Clay and started packing up my bike, guess I have to deal with it when I get to Colombia.

We packed up the bikes relatively quickly and headed out of town. We decided to take the most direct route not thinking they would be expensive. We got to the first toll Ninety cents; we rode pretty fast nice roads not a lot to see. We were making solid time came up to the next tool boot, $2.50 each man that’s kind of steep oh well that’s the last one; she told us that for 2.50 we would skip the next one. Fifteen kilometers down the road another one, I showed our receipt she nodded her headed waved us through green light lifted up the gate, Clay went no problem I go to and I get yelled at. I stop she says something I cannot understand and then waves me through (I think) I head on and she starts to yell and hits a siren thingy LOUD NOISES!!! Haha A cop starts to walk toward me I cut over to the side of the road and wait with Clay. The cop talks to us saying we have to pay, “but she waved us through” “No she didn’t”, “you have to pay forty cents”. Another worker walks out wanting us to pay, “Okay, here is forty cents” he just looks at me like I’m crazy he says no $4.50, “each!” “No no” I pay $4.50 the guy collecting looks at me shakes his head says something to the cop, “Ten more cents”.  They walk away, crap that just cost us almost 6 bucks each to ride 50km, weak sauce. We take a turn off for Portobello, we go straight into a town all the old guys on the stoops are yelling we missed our turn; we get turned around and are making our way down the coast. We get stuck behind a herd of bulls, with big ol horns no passing for now. We pull into Portobello I grab a sandwich and strike up a conversation with a lady from Wisconsin. She and her two kids were driving with her now ex-boyfriend from the states to Brazil to move there with him. She decided she didn’t like him anymore and decided to stay in Panama for now. She was a doctor and I told her about my feet problem, she told me to go to the clinic there that they were awesome.

        I walk into the clinic take me about five minutes to find someone to help me. He claimed he was a doctor no name or anything stating doctor just a pair of blue scrubs. I lay down pull off my boots even after explain my situation and my results and telling him I only have pain in the mornings. He squeezes my feet asking if it hurts, nope. He has I sit in his office, writes a prescription starts to hand it to me saying it’s a pain killers, I look at him like he’s an idiot??? What?? No I don’t need pain meds, oh okay he writes another prescription for itching cream, what?? No I don’t need that either, oh okay he just stares at me. I finally can show him my results, he looks all surprised saying my uric acid levels are way high even though I know they are not. The average is 3-7 mine is at a 6.5 High average, High is 9 and over. He writes a prescription tells me to take it twice a day 12 hrs apart. He tells me two bucks and pockets it, then takes me to the pharmacy. I get give a packet of 60 Vitamin C tablets to suck on twice a day and that’s it, $1.90. I go back to the “Doctor” Really all I need to do is take Vitamin C? “Yes and no more red meat, take it easy on beans, and not too many beers”. UGH Okay I get on my bike and head to Puerto Lindo.

        We pull into town and head to the hostel where we made one night reservations (first ones of the trip). Go and check in saying we are here and would love to meet the captain of the boat. She tells us that the hostel is full and I ask again if she had talked to the captain about us sleeping on the boat. We had heard others had to load their bike s day before you depart and you get to stay on the boat to stay with your bikes. When I told her this she just laughed and called the boat captain. Than standing in front of us she made fun of us for wanting to squeeze a free night out of the boat while talking on the phone to the captain. Very mean old Austrian woman, I talked to the captain we arranged a time the next day to meet in the morning and load the bikes. We asked if we could camp in the open yard, nope she doesn’t want the place to look trashy “ugh have you looked at his place” haha. We head out check out another hostel, a 12 year old kid is running it, and it is gnarly but we could camp in his yard for 5 bucks but no safe parking sketchy area. I head back to the hostel to make sure she wasn’t holding us our reservation and had forgotten, clay headed off to find camping. I talked to the husband who was very nice, there had been a miss communication she thought we wanted the next night and they were full because the seas were too rough and two boat loads of kids had to wait an extra day. Then they offered for us to camp?? I took it because I needed to unbolt my panniers and go through them. It was a safe enclosed area. Clay had talked to the marina and paid them two bucks to sleep in the yard.

        We ran around town getting dinner supplies, made cheap cup of noodles for dinner and used the internet and went to bed.

Woke up this morning and headed down to Meet our captain Jebi from France to load our bikes. We waited at the docks for a little while then a guy all tatted out showed up in a rubber dingy and introduced himself. He explained that if we didn’t want to leave our bikes on the boat out of site over night that we can load them Saturday morning because we are not leaving now until Saturday afternoon. There are a bunch of passengers stuck up north due to the road closures. (Protestors shut down the highway) We found out that the Boat is over booked by 4 people. There are 12 beds and 16 paying passengers, although he said we can sleep on the ground with a mattress. He claims he has taken bikes but had no idea about our permits and getting those stamped out of Panama.. So we will see.  We also had to give him our passports and he holds onto them until they get stamped into Colombia; he is a surfer guy with just board shorts on taking everyone’s passports.. Sketchy? Not at all.. Just another adventure. The boat trip is going to be hilarious I think. To get our bikes onto the boat we have to load one at a time onto a small dingy, motor out to the boat and hoist them onto the boat with some type of rigging system. We shall see, I am excited and nervous all at once.  We walked around town picking up a few supplies for the trip and I did some research on line trying to figure out what to do about my legs.

THE WAITING GAME IS ALMOST OVER.. SO READY FOR THE BOAT

DAY 87-88

1/31/2012-2/1/2012



Alright I have been told my font is too small so now we will try this one. Is this easier for everyone to read from my past post? Hope so.



Woke up around 6:30am got ready and headed out the door for the clinic. I walked in had to pay 6bucks for my two blood tests, showed the receipt and sat and waited for about 5 minutes. My name was called I walked into a small office sat down, was asked which arm I chose left (bad call). She put searched for the vein poked in and missed, instead of pulling out and trying again she just twisted the needle around a few times trying to get blood, no luck. She pulled the needle out and put a band-aid on it, got a new needle out opened it up and prepped my right arm. One shot and she hit the vein in the right arm lots of blood for her. She filled up a little capsule and put a band-aid on it. Okay come back tomorrow morning at 7am for your results. Clay wanted to go to the mall look for maps for South America; I was down for a ride. We headed out I was ahead the road split into downtown I took it, didn’t see Clay I stopped and waited. A guy in a pickup waved at me and told me Clay was waiting behind me weird but okay. I headed back just in time to see Clay had flipped a U-turn, I was almost right next to him different side of the median hitting my horn nope he slammed brakes and flipped another U turn. I flipped around, didn’t see him and headed off on my won adventure riding through town. I stopped and walked into the fish market, SPLAT!!! Yup got shat on by a bird, on my shoulder, arm, and inside my helmet… SWEET!!! Haha I just laughed cleaned it up and headed back to the bike. I made it back to the hostel without getting lost; sweet the good luck has begun. Did some research of where I want to go once in South America looking for some epic dirt roads I am tired of Pavement. (Any suggestions would be rad) I hooked back up with clay and we walked to a fish market to get Cerviche (not that good, so pumped for Cerviche in Peru). We had a bunch of beers and made dinner at the hostel for a dollar each. Fell asleep and got eaten alive by mosquitoes second night in a row.

        Woke up headed right to the clinic at 7am…. Yup doctor not in till tomorrow… what? Crap we wanted to head out toward the Atlantic coast today. I talked the receptionist to ask the doctor on duty if my levels were high he said no then walked away.. haha I didn’t know if I need to stay to talk with the doctor, after a while of contemplating I decided to stay there was no reason not to leave we were just going to find free camping somewhere near the port. I got back and told Clay to head out without me and I would catch up with him soon. He said he wasn’t in a rush no big deal. So we then jumped on our bikes and headed out to look for a different mall to look for maps. No luck, we headed back toward the hostel I went home and Clay headed back out to buy a few things from a moto shop.

        We walked all around picking up last minute things for the boat ride.. Peanut butter, rum, crackers, and sunscreen lotion. I tore apart my bike and repacked everything. Checked over the bike made sure she was looking good, topped off oil. We both messed around online and with books picking out and finding new routes. The gnarlier the better, I CANNOT WAIT TO RIDE SOME SOUTH AMERICA DIRT!!!! We made dinner again tonight this time for 75cents each.. not bad getting better and we were both full. I walked around town for awhile; saw a group who is staying at the hostel playing music. I have met 4 different cars/ vans doing the South American stretch all parked outside our hostel waiting for a container.



Well thanks for riding along with me..

CLINIC

TOOK HER BOTH ARMS TO FIND MY VEIN AND THEN GET BLOOD

NOT TO BAD OF A PLACE.. 6.50 FOR A CHECK UP AND BLOOD DRAWN

TEXAS COUPLE COMING FROM THE SOUTH HEADED HOME

I JUST GOT POOPED ON BY A BIRD WHEN I WAS WALKING THROUGH FISHMARKET!

PANAMA CITY CATCH UP!!!

DAY 82-86

1/27-30/2012
              We were on a mission to figure out a different route to get to Columbia than paying for a sell boat. Clay headed into town to figure out what was going on with his bike, hoping that all he needed to do was replace his sprockets and chain. I walked along the river and made it from old town to banking area which was a nice morning walking around town. We grabbed lunch and a taxi when Clay got back without luck until tomorrow for his bike. We headed to the Sailboat ports to see if we could talk our way onto a boat for cooking, no luck. But it was a nice day of bouncing around the out skirts of town. On our way out of our hostel the Taxi driver told us not to drive into this ghetto looking area then he made a gun with his hand and went bang bang bang bang. Ugh what? Yeah we already drove through this area, that’s where Clay almost stopped because we were lost and I blasted past not about to stop and we made it out fine. Nick a Canadian rider said he was riding through and got hit in the head with a soccer ball form a balcony, haha. 

Getting back to the hostel we shot out a couple of emails to a few captains and hostels that help set up sailboats and bikes for Columbia. We went through our Pros and Cons for how to get to Columbia;

My two options.
First one is the usually chosen one, pay $850 get on a boat on Thursday February the 4th and be there on the 8th, riding through Columbia by the 9th, everything included and paper work.
Pro's: Get there quickly, hassle free, they do all of the paperwork, one boat, pretty straight forward, party hostel on the water, get on my way toward the Southern Tip before it snow without having to rush to much.
Con's: Everyone does it, not that much adrenaline, $$$$$$$$$$$, to straight forward

Second head down the East coast catch a Cargo to the border of Panama/ Columbia catch two more small boats until you land in Turbo Columbia.
Pro's: ADRENALINE, adventure, not many do it this way, the unknown, cheap
Con's: Could take up to three weeks thus making me rush through a country so I can get to the South before it snows, could get stuck somewhere, could be a huge headache with my horrible Spanish, have to get allot of paperwork done, can't get it done till Monday so I won't start looking for boat until earliest on Tuesday.
        Had a few beers and great story telling time with Joel from NZ and Nick from BC, trading stories of our adventures so far. We headed to bed. We were tired of stressing over it and knowing that the small boat way could save money it could take easily over 4-5 times as long. So we finally said without knowing what the other was going to do that we were going to catch this Sailboat through the islands of San Blas leaving on the 4^th.  Clay woke up early and headed back to the Kawasaki shop, I headed to the clinic in town. No doctor in until Monday so I headed into town and Western Unioned 100 bucks each to the captain to save our spot on the boat. We ran all around picking up a few odds and ends that we needed for the trip. One day we jumped on the bikes and headed out to find the Panama Locks, we got lost and turned around a few times but finally made our way. Not going to lie they were a little smaller than I had expected. They were amazing and we lucked out to catch 12 sailboats four groups of three tied together come through get water dropped down and then pass through the lock and out toward the Pacific side from the Atlantic. For the big cargo boats to get through it cost them over 100,000 bucks... crazy!!! We went through the Museum, so amazing that not too much has changed of the mechanics of how it works pretty brilliantly simply. I promised my brother In-law Kyle that I would go to a Pizza Place in the city for him. He lived here when he was a kid and has come back a few times to visit and swears that the pizza was amazing. I would have to agree hands down the best pizza in Central America. The place is called Napoli and if you come to Panama there are two go to the one in the city (the banking area) fancy but so so delicious. We had one huge pizza there specialty and a small chicken one and each paid 7 bucks and were all full!! We walked across to the Casino I lost to bucks and then we haggled with 7 different Taxi’s until we got a good deal back to our hostel.
            Clay and I headed back to the Clinic this morning, he was having trouble with his eye and my feet were still messed up. Basically for the past two weeks my shins swelled up then my feet swelled up but it comes and goes and is very itchy at times. But the worst part about it that every time I lay down I get up and it hurts a lot to walk for the first 5 minutes or so like horrible arthritis. We paid 50 cents got checked up and Clay paid an extra 2 bucks for drops and was good to go. She thinks for me it is uric acid levels form eating unhealthy cheap street food, lots of beer, and not a lot of exercise since I sit on a motorcycle most days. I have a blood test tomorrow morning will get the results back Weds morning and make my way to the East coast to get my bike loaded on the boat by Friday. (Wish me luck!!) I had my last dinner at 7 can’t eat or drink anything other than water until the test in the morning.. No beer for me tonight…. Oh well..  I really like the city, safe but at the same time places you never want to go (already went there but we won’t talk about that…haha)