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We had planned to leave San Francisco on Monday February 8th, but we wound up leaving on Friday Feb 12th owing to last minute mechanical issues… I won’t say whose bike was acting up, but it wasn’t mine or Larry’s.

Those extra four days gave me time to rethink my gear and try to anticipate what might be needed …and I even got to test-ride my bike fully-loaded which I never have time for normally.
But I still forgot, or didn’t think of, important stuff to bring… some of the gear I did bring was useless… and some things we only found out we needed when we were out in the field.

Money:

A few weeks before we left I sold my old Velocette which basically financed the trip – yea! I put about $3000 into my checking account and used my ATM/Debit card, which worked perfectly in all the countries 95% of the time. Some bank’s ATMs refused to dispense money, which was worrying and frustrating, but we learnt to relax and go try another bank, and sometimes we had to wait a day too. Oh yeah – go the the ATM before you run completely out of cash.

Contact your bank before you leave and raise your daily cash withdrawal limit – $300 max a day is a problem when you have to pay the freight company $900 cash to fly your bike across the Darien Gap.

I did carry AMEX Travellers Checks as I’m an old-fashioned kinda guy. They were next-to-useless, even in Panama, which is a U.S. tax haven and uses the U.S. dollar as currency. I couldn’t cash ‘em in banks or hotels. So …don’t bother with Travellers Checks.

I also carried cash: $500 in tens and $500 in twenties. This was a good idea, except a $20 note is too much for most situations – no one has change ‘cos they’re poor and have no money at all, except gas stations. I should have brought $500 in fives and $500 in tens.

Next time I’m going to bring lots of $1 bills as well – I’m thinking $10 worth for each day I’m away. This is for tipping, and giving away.

Thoughts on Tipping:

We really are extraordinarily rich… compared to 99% of people we ran into – and tips are a good way of spreading our first world wealth around a little.

We tipped the gas station attendants about $0.50-0.75 in local currency – and it’s always attendant service in gas stations.

We were tipping wait staff 10% typically and 15% for really good service.

And we were tipping hotel porters about $1 for every two bags they carried up for us.

Of course tipping makes friends. I always asked the hotel door guy his name and give him a dollar or two – he’s the dude watching our bikes, and he knows who’s coming and going.

I always tip immediately to get good service from the start.

Last off, but most important: we got a big smile when we gave someone a U.S. dollar.

Beggars and Crooked Cops:

I’m a push-over for a hard-luck story… but I don’t believe in rewarding people for bad behaviour.

We got pulled over a few times for inspections by local cops, and sometimes the underlings would say “five dollars” or maybe “twenty soles” when looking at your papers while their supervisor was out of earshot. We universally ignored them.

One time we got pulled over by some cops who were trying to say we had been overtaking across the double-yellow. Seeing as they had come from the other direction and we hadn’t been overtaking like that (at least recently), we folded our arms, shook our heads and spoke no Spanish. Eventually they gave up and let us go.

I did get my boots polished a couple of times by a kid on the street – just spreading a little American dollar around, and rewarding enterprise.

Of course sometimes you just gotta give a dollar or two away ‘cos some beggars are so wretched.

Finally – you probably will have to give the cops a few dollars when they pull you over for something you did do wrong. Our new-friend BMW Bob says he got pulled by some cops in Panama who demanded $125 for his infraction, which he negotiated down to $7. He advised keeping a $10 bill next to your licence just in case. In Ensenada a coupla years back I paid $20 per cop when I ran through a yellow light and a cruiser with two cops pulled me over. The alternative is to go downtown with the cops and see the judge – in which case $20 is cheap.

Quik-Dry Shirts, Pants and Skivvies:

I made the mistake of bringing cotton knickers, t-shirts and tops, which will not dry overnight in your room after washing in the sink. Bring quick-dry clothing unless you like smelling like a tramp.

Larry’s supreme trick was to wear his used skivvies inside-out and back-to-front. Yes, it is disgusting.

Of course you can tie your still-damp cotton underwear to your bike to dry them out as you ride along – but the object here was to get them clean, and the roads are filthy with sand, dirt and diesel smoke belching from buses and trucks by the ton.

Clothing Policy:

The basic plan is to have two separate outfits – riding gear and an evening outfit. Your evening wear, spare clean clothes, and dirty clothes, are kept in three separate plastic bags.

When you arrive at your hotel for the night, take a shower and put on your nice evening outfit – shirt, pants, socks, undies, shoes, top – everything. Hang up your sweaty riding gear to air out, and put your boots and socks outside your door… don’t worry, I guarantee no one will steal them (let alone get near ‘em). The next morning pack the evening outfit away and put your riding gear back on. Do not confuse the two or you’ll be dirty all the time.

So when your riding underclothes get too gross, put them into the dirty clothing bag, downgrade your evening undies to riding undies, and deploy a clean set for evening use. This way you can wear your clothing for several days and not get thrown out of restaurants.

Note that most hotels we visited did not have hangers – you may want to bring some flat folding travellers hangers with you if you’re that organized.

By the way I did bring a coupla long-sleeved tops and a non-riding jacket which I never wore. It was tough to gauge in advance how much of what clothing we would need to cover the extremes from cold, rainy mountain passes to blazing hot desert riding. In Guatemala, we priced out mailing a box of unused clothing back home and it was about $10 per kilogram – not bad, but we weren’t that bothered.

Camping and Sleeping Bags:

Before we left, Larry and Moe had insisted we should carry camping gear and be prepared to camp – partially to save money, and partially in case we were stuck in the middle of nowhere. So I reluctantly bought myself a small tent and bedroll, and as I packed them onto the bike before departure I thought – there’s NO WAY we’re gonna use this stuff. Many years back I rode thru mainland Mexico for a month, camped the second night in Arizona, and carried the gear for the next 29 nights unused. Well… guess what… we NEVER camped this time either. The good news is I bought my tent and roll from Sports Basement and they gave me a nice refund – thanks SB!
The reasons not to camp are: (i) your personal security is zero, (ii) I want a shower, a nice meal, and a soft bed at the end of a long day and that’s much more work when camping, (iii) you have to carry all that gear, (iv) we found decent hotels for $8 a night.

What I will take again next time is my compact 3-season down sleeping bag, and I’ll bring a small tarp I can wrap myself up in in case of an emergency. I will also bring a cotton or silk sheet sleeping bag to use when I have to sleep in fleabag hotels on crappy plastic sheets in 100degreesF – it’ll be cooler than my 3-season down sleeping bag was.

Maps and GPS:

Don’t bother with AAA maps – they’re not very good.

Go to a map store and buy a good detailed map of each country you’re going to visit. Don”t wait to buy one until you get there, ‘cos you won’t find anything.

I used a Garmin Rino 530 handlebar-mounted GPS unit, loaded with Garmin’s World map. This thing has become indispensable with our Baja wrecking crew, and these days if you don’t have one you’re not invited on the trip.

The Rino has a full-color map display and you can zoom or scroll with a handy button. It also shows on the map where your buddies are (!!) and since they have 5 watt walkie-talkie radios, getting lost or separated is quickly remedied. The Rino also shows date and time, sunrise and sunset, speed, altitude, temperature and compass, they can store waypoints and tracks, and can navigate you to a chosen endpoint. It will be your own fault if you can’t find your way out of trouble with one of these!

Note to Adventure Riders – buy yourself the latest Rino 530HCx, start playing with it ‘cos it takes practice to understand everything, and take it with you on trips.

Final Word:

The bottom line is to prepare yourself that everything you bring is disposable – if you have to get on a plane home with only your credit card and passport left, you’ll need to consider yourself lucky.