Wheeling in Cerro Azil, Republic of Panama

jfrabat

New member
IT FINALLY HAPPENED!


After not wheeling for almost a year, I finally took the old girl out for a spin. The trail was fairly light, as many of the participants were taking part the day after in the Central American 4X4 Challenge (4X4 race). There were some cars coming from as far as Nicaragua and Costa Rica for the event, and the main purpose of the ride was to take some donations to far off communities, after which, we divided into 2 groups, with some running a light trail, while others went down to the river for some food and drinks (where I hear they stayed throughout the night until race day!).


The river was mostly gravel roads, with some ruts thrown in for good measure, and a good couple of rivers to ford for good measure (along with the expected river rocks along the banks). The only real injury was a broken axle retainer in one of the Toyota's (you'll see the Hillbilly fix in the video), but other than that, it was a lot of fun.


Most of the video was filmed by my wife, so excuse the camerawomen if the video has things in front or if it's a bit shaky! I love her, but she is not the best videographer! HAHAHA!!!


Anyway, some pictures first:


Here's the group (not all of us were here yet) at the top of a hill overlooking the area we would later explore:


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This thing was built like a monster; blown V8, and every accessory you could probably think of:


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You don't see many of these up North anymore, but they are quite common around here:


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This one was overheating in the climbing road (notice the hillbilly fix for the hood):


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You dont get many of these either:


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This is the kids receiving the donations:


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A shot of the whole group (the flag with 2 blue stripes and one white one is Nicaragua, and the rigs with the Pepsi colors on the hood are from Costa Rica):


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And the video of the whole thing:




Notice that on the first climb (the dirt hill), my suspension is all connected (swaybar and trackbar), but on the way down, I had disconnected it, so you can see a lot more articulation after that. Anyway, the day was great, with some clouds, but no rain, and the people were great. The Jeep behaved very well also (aside from a bad O2 sensor sending fuel consumption to the crapper!), and I had a blast with it!


Felipe
 

Man that looks like fun. Is that near where you live?

I like all the Toyota FJs
 
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