Had a bout of insomnia today. Awoke at 1:00 am and never got back to sleep. Crawled out of bed around 3:00 am, packed the bike and left. I actually prefer to ride at night, it is much cooler, and borders are much less crowded. The only drawback, cows, pigs, horses and goats tend to meander around the streets in the small towns,and they are harder to see. I had to apply some evasive breaking today, if I had been going 10 MPH faster, McDonald's would of had enough meat to add the McSeabiscuit to the menu.
Another day in the mountains. Great riding. Crossed the border into Nicaragua. It ended up taking about 2 hours. That has been the norm, 15-20 minutes to get out of one country, and 90 minutes or so to process the bike paperwork for the next country.
Today marked the first time during the trip that I was stopped by the police...twice actually.. Both times by roadside units. The first time they wanted all of the paperwork for both me and the bike. The officer looked over my paperwork for a good 10 minutes, which is kind of funny as he did not speak one bit of English (this is pretty common occurrence in my travels, they think they have me fooled if they look at it for a while. Once in Kazakhstan (former USSR), the police looked at my paperwork, nodding, looking over at me, pointing out stuff to his partner, etc, the only problem was that he had the paperwork upside down. D'oh!!!). After I got my paperwork back, the real reason for the stop became apparent. He wanted a closer look at the bike. The officer started asking about engine size (the largest bike I have seen here is 175cc, whereas mine is 1200cc), cylinder arrangement (BMW is horizontally opposed aka boxer style), how to work the GPS, etc. I obliged and within 10 minutes I was on my way. The second stop was more direct. There was a group of officers, and they never bothered asking for my paperwork, just went directly into curiosity questions about the bike, 10 minutes later I was on my way.
Another day in the mountains. Great riding. Crossed the border into Nicaragua. It ended up taking about 2 hours. That has been the norm, 15-20 minutes to get out of one country, and 90 minutes or so to process the bike paperwork for the next country.
Today marked the first time during the trip that I was stopped by the police...twice actually.. Both times by roadside units. The first time they wanted all of the paperwork for both me and the bike. The officer looked over my paperwork for a good 10 minutes, which is kind of funny as he did not speak one bit of English (this is pretty common occurrence in my travels, they think they have me fooled if they look at it for a while. Once in Kazakhstan (former USSR), the police looked at my paperwork, nodding, looking over at me, pointing out stuff to his partner, etc, the only problem was that he had the paperwork upside down. D'oh!!!). After I got my paperwork back, the real reason for the stop became apparent. He wanted a closer look at the bike. The officer started asking about engine size (the largest bike I have seen here is 175cc, whereas mine is 1200cc), cylinder arrangement (BMW is horizontally opposed aka boxer style), how to work the GPS, etc. I obliged and within 10 minutes I was on my way. The second stop was more direct. There was a group of officers, and they never bothered asking for my paperwork, just went directly into curiosity questions about the bike, 10 minutes later I was on my way.
Trip Summary:
Today's Leg: 262 miles
Total Distance Traveled: 4,201
Total Borders Crossed: 5
Total Countries Visited: 6
Total Times Stopped by the Police: 2
Total Times Stopped by the Police: 2
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