From southern Mexico, Bridget McCutchen continued motoring down through Central America to what she describes as “one of the most difficult borders to cross” in the region, the tri-border between Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua. Together with her traveling companion, she decided to get there early, which turned out to be a great call when the crossing took more than six hours!

After a night in Leon, they rode on to San Juan del Sur in Nicaragua. From there it was on to Playa Grande for a night hosted by someone who’d heard of McCutchen’s journey and wanted to help out. It was quite the stay, they were treated to Christmas dinner, a rodeo, a surf lesson, and finally, they even managed to fit in a flight in a Piper plane over the surrounding volcanos.

Moving on they headed for Panama City, where they’d need to package up their bikes ready to ship them across the notorious Darien Gap to Colombia. The process went smoothly and on January 9, after only 24 hours apart, they were reunited with their bikes in Colombia.