DRIVING FORWARD FOR FRIENDSHIP - MSJ OLD GIRL AND THE 'PANAMA TO ALASKA'
Panama to Alaska Rally May & June 2008
I spent two exhilarating months this year driving from Panama to Alaska with my husband, Robin. We were driving an Aston Martin DB6 MkII (1970) and were in a group of sixteen classic cars and three 4-wheel-drives. We have travelled with this group before and were looking forward to spending time with old friends and meeting some new people.
Travelling in a classic car puts some constraints on how one can travel as they enjoy open roads rather than traffic jams and motorways, and they need to be serviced more often than modern cars. Thus, we tended to travel on quieter roads and had regular days without driving so that cars and drivers could recharge their batteries. This policy led to some interesting situations. It was decided that we would cross from Panama to Costa Rica by a quiet northern border crossing. In fact there is no road across the border there and we had to use a railway bridge with the car wheels just outside the rails. On the whole we did not have anyone travelling ahead of us, but in this extreme case someone did go and measure the width of the railway line and declared it narrow enough. We managed very slowly but our leader, who was driving a smaller Austin Healey, found when he arrived in Costa Rica that he had a large hole in one of his tyres, caused by a bolt sticking out of the rail.
The date of our trip was determined mostly by the expected weather. We wanted to be in Central America before the rainy season and in Alaska before the worst of the insects and the holiday period, but late enough for it to be fairly warm. The rainy season was expected to start soon after our departure from Panama. In the event we had a severe rainstorm on the first afternoon and then didn’t see another drop of rain until we reached Canada! The start was particularly interesting for me as, when we arrived in Panama, Robin turned out to be suffering from vertigo. The doctor who travelled with us said that he was not fit to drive, and I had to fetch the car from the docks (and clean it) and drive for the first two days. It was exhausting! It is lucky that I was able to drive the car at all. We had made sure that I was familiar with it: it is not too difficult as it has a few refinements such as power steering. The other drivers looked after me if they knew that I was driving, which was kind. We had radios (very short range) and comments, some kind and some teasing, kept me going.
I had never been to Central America before and had a few preconceived ideas, but only the good ones turned out to be true. For example, I thought that Mexico City would be a large slum with a few old colonial buildings, probably dirty, at the centre, the rest having been demolished to make way for ugly new office blocks. There were indeed some ugly buildings and slums, and poverty was evident when we travelled by bus and underground to the ruins outside the city. However, when we travelled by the more appropriate open-top tourist bus we saw many streets of elegant housing, interesting sculptures, large squares and beautiful Spanish churches, and the cathedral next to the Aztec ruins. We enjoyed roof-top cafés and restaurants as well as terrible tourist places. The legendary smog meant that we could only see the nearby volcanoes in the morning. So it was a mixture but, on balance, I was very pleasantly surprised.
We were able to visit many of the Mayan ruins in Central America as well as spending some time in pretty towns along the way. We even had a day by the beach. We generally drove for three or four days, trying to keep the mileage down so that visits could be made to places along the way. We then had a day off in an interesting place. Sometimes the planned sightseeing time was spent on car maintenance or repair. Every night the car had to be cleaned and checked over. We also kept a diary going on the internet and I was responsible for editing the group’s ‘blog’ as well. Since we felt that we were very lucky to be able to go on a trip like this, we also supported a charity (Practical Action) by sending postcards to friends who then sent off a donation to the charity. There was a fair amount to do each evening before we could relax, and it was clear that this was a rally and not a holiday.
The roads we encountered were exactly as you would expect in the USA and Canada – in good condition (apart from frost damage as we got further north) and largely quiet. In Central America they were mixed. Some were surprisingly good, but we encountered one dreadful patch where workmen had been blasting the mountain to improve the road. There were huge clouds of dust and it was dusk by the time they allowed us through. That was an interesting experience for those who had not done many long-distance rallies before. Luckily, it was the exception. Another challenge was the mountains. We crossed from the Pacific coast to the Caribbean a number of times, crossing mountains each time. In places the roads were steep, narrow and full of bends and slow, heavy lorries caused us to have over-heating problems. A larger radiator is on the list of improvements for the car! I have never seen as many speed bumps as we saw in the villages in Mexico. Again, slowing down each time caused the Aston to over-heat. They were vicious in size and shape and badly signed too, and caused some structural damage to the cars.
Three of the cars failed to finish. One had engine problems that could not be fixed, one was involved in a minor accident that caused a major problem and the third deposited all its clutch fluid in the car park on the last night before we arrived in Anchorage – what bad luck. The last day was a slight anticlimax. The weather was awful and we could not see the beautiful Alaskan scenery. Robin did, however, see a grizzly bear cross the road and we had a delicious lunch at Macdonald’s! There was a great sense of achievement though, and we are now considering a drive round the Mediterranean in 2010.
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