Meet the riders (Volcan Baru Adventure E2)

Alright, we made it to Boquete and I met up with Gary, who lives up here, and Giovanni, or Jose. Jose is a friend of my wife. They went to school together. They're both doctors. So if we break ourselves, he's a good guy to bring along. This motorcycle is a Honda Tornado. It's 250cc and has very bald tires. So he's going to ride with us for a while and then probably turn around. So we may be patching him up. We'll patch your tires, you patch us. That should work fine. And Gary, this is a two-stroke, right? It's a two-stroke, 175 DT Yamaha. It's got good power. It should make it alright. So he will probably do better than most of us. The thing is, my bike has a lot of power, but it's so heavy. There's a big trade-off there. Your tires aren't very steep. Well, it's really difficult to find knobby tires of this size. I drove around Panama City all day looking for knobby tires. Jose has only owned a motorcycle for six months and doesn't have any experience off-road. With his inexperience and bald tires, I know he isn't going to make it far. But I figure I'll let the mountain do the convincing. Gary's little two-stroke will be hard to beat. My KLR 650 is powerful, but very heavy for serious off-road riding. I worry it's going to spend as much time on its side as it does on its wheels. Riding from Las Olas to Boquete takes just over an hour. Already I've gained enough altitude to leave the palm trees behind and watch as the pine trees blur by. 85 degrees at the beach is now 74 in the mountains. In the distance, Volcan Baru rises into the sky, silently waiting for three challengers to attempt its heights. Well, we made it to the end of the asphalt. There's a big sign here that says Volcan Baru this way. And at the top of this mountain, there's equipment. There's radio antennas and TV antennas. So there's a road there, and it must be somewhat maintained because they've got stuff up there. But you look at it, and you think, they sure don't work very hard on this road. Jose's only been riding a motorcycle for six months, and he's never really been off-road. So he thinks he just wants to do this little part and then head home. But this road looks pretty messed up, and this is the nice part. Yeah, it don't get no better than this. Right. This is the entrance to the park. This is a national park that we're going into. It costs $5. I've been up here a couple times. This is the first time the ranger's been here, so this is like the first five bucks I've had to spend to come in here. But that's okay because you guys really do a good job taking care of this road. And so it's good to know that my five bucks is going towards a good cause. This is also for if you don't return, they know who you are. There's no change. I just gave him five bucks. Well, Jose is having some bike problems. His motor doesn't have any power trying to get up these hills. And this isn't the best place to learn how to off-road anyway. So he's going to head back. Just riding from David to Boquete is a pretty good ride anyway. Thanks amigo. Jose got knocked out of the ride pretty quick. But it's smart to turn around when you hit terrain you're not comfortable riding on a bike that isn't suited for the purpose. Gary and I continued together up the dirt road, which quickly changed from bad to worse. Next time on Half Throne. What's funny is I'll sit down at the bottom and go, okay, there's the line that I want to take. I'm going to stay on this side. I'm going to cut over there around that big boulder. And then I get on the bike and hit the gas. All that goes out the window.