We sailed along the Pan-American from Dominical to the Panamanian border at Paso Canoas. Finally this was a border crossing that wasn't totally vile and that somewhat made sense. We paid exit tax, got us and the bike stamped out, then moved forward to the Panama side where we got us and the bike stamped in, then a quick spray at fumigation and we were out. Just over an hour and we were out of there not wanting to kill each other or anyone else. So civilised! We headed for the mountain town of Boquete, an hour and a bit from the border. But as we were pulling into David, Panama's second biggest city just 40 minutes from the border, the bike spluttered and died quite dramatically. We pulled into a side road and let her cool down for a bit, and managed to get her started again. But thirty seconds later, on the massive 4 lane highway, she conked out again. Tom managed to drift us to the side of the road as traffic zoomed past us inches away. He kicked her going again and we managed to get about one hundred meters before she died again, luckily just by the entrance to a supermarket car park. This is where we accepted that something was really wrong. Tom took the side panels and the headlight off and checked all the normal stuff to no avail. He then checked our new ignition coil, which was emitting molten plastic from the bottom...
Around this time a storm hit, and I guarded the bike (luckily under a bit of shelter) while Tom went in search of wifi in order to consult our trusty mechanic, Rod. Rod took one look at the melting ignition coil and confirmed our fears that the new coil that we'd fitted no more than a week ago was a dud. Damn. We thought it was a little bit too good to be true finding the part when we}d had so little luck elsewhere, but sometimes it's nice to be thankful and hope for the best, rather than be pessimistic. Even if it gets us into these kind of situations! Luckily Tom had kept the old coils and wires just in case. Once fitted the bike roared to life again happy as Larry! After four hours of sitting in a car park we were ready to move on, problem solved (for the time being). We gave up hope of getting to our little mountain town and settled on staying in very hot and very noisy David.
It wasn't until later that we realised quite how lucky we'd been. If it had happened even ten minutes earlier or later in our journey, we'd have been on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere with no shelter and no way of confirming what was wrong. So rather than feel sorry ourselves for breaking down, we were pretty grateful that it hadn't been a lot worse, especially considering how busy the highway we were on was, and how fast the other vehicles were going. We stayed at Purple House Backpackers, which was the cheapest we could find and was certainly true to its name. I have never seen anywhere so purple. I'm talking walls, curtains, furnishings, crockery, kitchen utensils and even the dog´s collar. But it was very quaint, and we enjoyed sitting in the living area watching a movie after our hectic day of border crossings and break downs. The next day we decided to just head off down the Pan American and see how far we got. There wasn't much to see between David and Panama City unless you deviate quite a way from the Pan American, so we thought we'd just ride all day and stop when we got tired, completing the journey to Panama City the next day. The bike ran like a dream (making us wonder if there was ever even a problem with the old ignition coils in the first place?) and by around 5pm we were ready to stop. We saw a town on the map a little way off the highway so we pulled in in search of a hotel. But as we entered through the security-guarded gate, we realised this wasn't your average Central American town. It had no character whatsoever, there were weird half-finished high rises poking out of the ground, and rows and rows of absolutely identical houses mixed in with the ginormous mansions. The only hotel was a resort and golf club, and I reckon we'd stumbled upon a very newly built 'expat town'. Overall it had a bit of a creepy vibe so we got out of there to see what else we could find further down the road. All we found was more cookie cutter pop up towns, and massive shiny malls. It certainly didn't feel like we were in the Central America we know anymore, and we came to realise that our only choice really was to push on to Panama City. It was quite a sight! On the whole we had been avoiding capital cities up to this point, on account of their hectic nature, inflated prices and increased crime levels. We had to visit Panama City as part of the process for sailing our bike to Colombia, and I have to say I´m very glad we did. So different to anything we´d seen so far, it was pretty awesome riding over the Americas bridge, looking down at the night time activity of the Panama Canal below whilst shiny tower blocks loomed overhead. I managed to navigate us through the city traffic fairly well, and luckily we had preselected our hostel for Panama City so headed straight there.
As we pulled up she conked out again. But not because of any particular problems, just over-heating and a long day. We both felt ready to conk out too! The hostel had two beds left (thank goodness) and it's safe to say we slept extremely well in the spotlessly clean, air conditioned dorm at El Machico hostel in Panama City's banking district. We had covered 443km, our longest day so far by a long way! But it was good training for the kind of riding we'll need to be doing in South America, and overall was actually a pretty enjoyable day. Now it was time to explore the big city!