Panama City

We made it into Panama City, yesterday afternoon (10-25-07), via over the Panama Canal (very impressive), and found the BMW dealership to get myself some new break pads. A gentleman from Panama driving a brand new GS1200 came up to us speaking English, and asked us to stay at his hotel in downtown Panama City for the motorcyclist discount of $10 per night. So without a do, we went to his hotel, and it has been very accommodating.
Today (10-26-07), we went to a travel agency that deals with shipping cargo out of Panama, and arranged for our bikes to be air freighted into Bogota, Colombia on Monday morning. It is going to cost us $550 US cash to ship the bikes, plus a couple hundred to fly ourselves over. As you can see, this is our most expensive part of the trip...besides the apartment in Buenos Aires that we have for the month of February (do I have any takers yet?). It is nice getting all of the cargo shipment arranged using an agent, because it could have been hell dealing with it ourselves at the airport. I am looking forward to reaching S. American ground.