Central America Blog (In Order)
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Central America Maps and GPS Maps and other resources for the Bicycle Tourist
It's not easy to get good, detailed maps of Central America, and you need them if you're going off the main routes.
Edit 16 Jan 2011: The Central America GPS Maps Project is now online. Also, you may be interested in downloadable GPS maps from the Open Street Maps Project.
Note that this site has complete maps from the GPS track of our trip. You can see all of them under "Route Maps" in the menu. The Central America route maps and info are here.
For maps, we used the following:
- Guatemala: The Rough Guide Map of Guatemala and Belize. (Make sure to get the current edition.) It was generally accurate and indestructible. ITMB also has a Guatemala map which is widely available, but all of their maps are hopelessly inaccurate. Be very careful with any map, but with an ITMB map you have to always be suspicious.
- Honduras and Nicaragua: We had to use the widely available ITMB maps, as nothing else was available.
- Costa Rica and Panama: There is an excellent Rough Guides map to Costa Rica and Panama in one map.
Info on Sailing from Panama to Cartagena, Colombia, and other options
There is no road from Panama to Colombia, so many cyclists choose to find sea transportation, probably out of a purist desire to avoid an airplane. It is nice to have the continuity of traveling on the earth, although not necessarily cheaper or better.
It does turn out that while there are not regularly scheduled services to Cartagena, you can probably get there just fine. Trying to get there for free on a yacht from Colon is probably possible, but won't work for most people. However, there are a number of boats that make the trip, charging US$275 to $350, and there are hostels that arrange the connections. So if you really want to sail, you can probably do it.
Caveats: The trip is rough, and most people are seasick. Some boats do not provide food, so you need to provide your own. Some boats are disreputable or poorly run and you might get a scare or something worse. Some boats charge extra for the immigration paperwork in Colombia. Know what your payment covers.
In Panama City, the hostel that seems to do all the arranging is Zuly´s.
In Cartagena, the hostel doing the arranging is Casa Viena.