Thur/Fri, March 4th/5th – Thanks to a couple of computer terminals and wifi in the hotel’s roof terrace restaurant and bar, we spent the whole day Thursday scouring the internet for routes around the Darien Gap into Colombia.
The Panama Cityscape from the Bahia Suites roof terrace
Wednesday, March 3rd – Today we crossed the isthmus of Panama, took pictures of the fabled canal and the first (or last) of its three locks, Miraflores, and entered the City of Panama with triumph and excitement in our hearts. This was a major goal of the trip, and a dream destination for many years. The road from David was a 4-lane highway which ran through many local towns, but afforded a quick 250 mile blast north-eastwards along the curved spine of the country. We’d booked a hotel, the Bahia Suites, the morning we’d spent at Laura’s B&B – and found it quite easily two blocks back from the main drag, Balboa, that runs along the margin of the city and the ocean. From the roof terrace of the hotel, we watched the sun set thru the Panama City skyline – a riot of skyscrapers, half of which are unfinished thanks to the economic downturn in Panama’s fortunes as an off-shore (a.k.a. unregulated) banking center. We wandered around and found a restaurant serving tipico Panamanian fare – typical Central American really – and afterwards we walked back along Balboa street, looking at the buildings, and talking about the city and the county’s history.
Tuesday, March 2nd - We enjoyed a good breakfast at the Quality Inn – a hotel of much better quality than we’re used to in the U.S. – and loaded the bikes in blazing sun yet again. We took a clean highway out of San Jose down to the coast and headed south-east toward the Panama border. Carlos had recommended this coastal route, and it was absolutely one of the prettiest roads we’ve taken – with only a few, low-key gringo beach towns – and super-lush vegetation all around. We passed through a huge plantation of palm trees growing an unrecognized fruit – a huge oval clump of red and yellow berries about two feet long – where’s google when we need it? We hit the border after the usual tropical late afternoon rain, just in front of the buses this time, so we passed into Panama with unusual ease. We headed for a town called David about 50 miles in, found the Hotel Nacional, and got some food and cocktails at the local casino which felt just like Vegas.
Panama is in the Eastern Standard Time zone, and, checking on our GPSs, we found that whilst we’d traveled 30 degrees of latitude southwards, we’d also moved 40 degrees of longitude eastwards over the last 20 days. Margin Note: Students of science will know that a degree of longitude varies from 1mm wide to 60 knots in length depending on the latitude, whereas degrees of latitude are all 60 knots long.
Minor road traffic delay
Monday, March 1 – Looking at the map, we had a relatively short jaunt to get to San Jose from Playa del C to visit friends Carlos, Ana and their three boys, so we chilled out by the pool at Laura’s all morning in the blazing hot Costa Rican sun. We ate some lunch, took a coupla snaps of the attractive beach, and rolled out at about 2:30pm. Traffic heading into San Jose got worse and worse, especially after we missed the cuota toll highway and took the ultra-twisty mountain road – and then it started raining to add to our challenges. I had good directions to the Quality Inn near our friend’s house, but the absence of road signs didn’t help either. Using “the force” we got there without mishap, showered and met up with Carlos and Ana for a truly excellent dinner. Carlos told us that Costa Rica has no armed forces and spends the money on infrastructure and social services – and the wealth of the city and country is visibly superior to its neighbors.
Pool at Laura’s B&B, Playa del Coco
Sunday, Feb 28th – Getting used to sleeping with the aircon on. The sun was already beating down on us as we loaded the bikes in the street outside the hotel. Getting used to clothing wet from sweat before we even leave in the morning. We headed south-east from Leon, and after passing thru some local towns, found ourselves on a potholed secondary road running down the coast parallel to the main highway. The plywood shacks by the side of the road betrayed the most profound poverty, and the ragged kids begging for coins really twisted my heart. As the road turned to dirt, we encountered herds of cattle, horses and cowboys, but few vehicles. I felt exposed for a while, a gringo concerned about banditos, but I rebooted my attitude and started to groove on being off the highway and away from its parasitic development. It was a great ride, but clearly Nica seemd the poorest country we’d traveled through.
Door of our hotel in Leon, with security
Saturday, Feb 27th – We arose at the crack ‘o dawn with a two-border-crossing day in front of us. The hotel cook arrived in time to make us a nice breakfast on the terrace to send us off in the correct spirits. As the saying goes, an army marches on its stomach, and we’re no different – especially Moe, who’s skinny and needs to eat like a humming bird. We liked El Salvador – seems like a nice little country with pleasant people …although the hotel security guard might say different – he got shot in the stomach with a shotgun in a robbery at another hotel in which two people got killed. We arrived at the notorious Honduras border crossing and got hooked up with a “helper”, who are called “Tramitadors”, who talk to the officials for you. All palms get greased at your expense – the only question is how much longer it would take to stand there yourself and not grease palms. We got through in about 3-1/2 hours at the cost of $200 – daylight robbery really. It then took about two hours or so to ride across the short stretch of Honduras to repeat the same joy at the Nicaraguan border – although this time we did it ourselves at a cost of about $60 including the mandatory vehicle road insurance. By then it was dark, and we had a hairy ride of about 50 miles through a rain and lightning storm to Leon – the road’s not lit and there were plenty of hazards, like a dead horse in the middle of the roadway for one. We got into Leon at about 9pm, worn out and super-hot ‘n sweaty. We found a hotel, got drinks and food, wandered around town – one of the old centers of Nicaragua – then collapsed into bed, spent.
Breakfast at Las Olas
The bikes in the courtyard of Jenna’s B&B
Friday Feb 26th – We got up at 6:15am – although I’d been awake since 5 thanks to a local cockerel – with a long way to go and a third world border to cross. We were on the road by 8 after a filling Jenna’s B&B breakfast, and took the winding mountain road south from lake Atitlan down to the highway CA-2. Central America 2 mostly runs along the Pacific coastline whereas CA-1 is the old Pan-American highway and runs through the center of the countries and their big cities – which we like to avoid.
Thursday 25th Feb – Despite our determined drive to get to Panama City, we decided it would be good to look around and soak up the atmosphere where possible and prudent – and staying at Zoe’s aunt Jennifer’s B&B in Panajachel seemed like a good idea. It’s right on the lake Atitlan, with three volcanos in near proximity providing background color, although they’re barely visible thru the cloudy haze up here at 6000 feet. We started the day with one of Jennifer’s should-be world-famous breakfasts – bread, jams, chutney, salsa, everything locally grown and freshly home-made. Breakfast is a treasured moment of our days on the road – we need the positive start. Today was very laid back… we walked into town and thru the market – lots of great looking produce. Moe got his hair cut. Larry and I took a boat trip on the lake and then bought some chain lube and a bicycle pump in town. And we caught up with our respective travel logs back at Jenna’s B&B. A margarita, a bottle of wine and a great home-cooked dinner sealed the deal – a happy, indulgent day exposing ourselves to life in Panajachel, Guatemala.
