Santiago to Panama City (July 15 - July 22)

Up Ahead, there is something, go and find it!

As this trip develops and continues to not have a near end, I can't help but wonder why am I living like this and why did Louie and I decide to do this trip? Personally I have plenty of reasons and one in particular I would like to write about in this post.

Where we have ridden the past few days

When I was younger, my  family would go on hikes for the afternoon. These were enjoyable but they always ended before the trail finished. Usually about 45 minutes in my brother or sister would complain and want to turn back. My parents would give in, and we would be back to the car in less than an hour. It always left me wondering where the trail leads to and where it went. I just wanted to see what was around the next curve, or what was the view like from the top of the next hill. On one hike on the Pleasanton Ridge, I remember gathering a few of the faster hikers in the family to go as far as possible in set amount of time before returning to the slower group. On that hike we had just enough time to hike to a gate. A gate I had only seen from a distance on previous hikes and had always wondered where it would lead to afterwards. Finally I was content I made it that far and was excited there was more to explore beyond the gate. Of course that would have to wait to some other day.

That sense of seeing "what's around the bend" or "what is it like when you get to the top of that hill" is very much alive on this trip. Both Louie and I each day set out on roads we have never been on and don't know much about other than that they lead us to the next city we plan to go to. To be honest it has been hard not knowing much about the elevation profile of the route we choose, but when all is pedaled at the end of the day, there is something magical about looking back on all the kilometers traveled that day and know that we rode each one of them, with no knowledge of what was next!

These past few days on the trip have been a bit more relaxing since our ride between David and Santiago. We took a nice rest day in Santiago to take a day off the saddle. Louie and I caught up on some rest after being kicked out of the bomberos station early in the morning after a restless night of overachieving volunteer firefighters doing drills through the night. Having set up our tents/mattresses in the truck garage, we were about 30 feet from a busy intersection so the noise of cars/trucks kept us up as well. Fortunately the following day would consist of minimal to no riding, so a poor night’s sleep was not a big deal. 

Accommodation during this trip has been a game of balance. We can either stay somewhere for free and not sleep in the best of conditions or pay for a hotel room and sleep better and more comfortably. The good side about those free nights of accommodation are that they are more memorable than a hotel room. Those free nights have provided us with more interaction between us and the locals, resulting in an overall better experience during our travels. On the other hand, we typically pay for a hotel room only if we need to “recharge” our batteries (health) or if we really can't find any free lodging in a town.

During the first full rest day of the trip, I picked up some bolts from a hardware store to fix my overpacked, Ortielb pannier bag that broke on me. We also connected to a few 'Internet Para Todos' WiFi hotspots in town to set up our office space and "get some work done" so to speak. This wifi can be found in any major town in Panama and is free to use. Usually we can find wifi at any major hostel or bomberos station, or at a coffee shop. We try not to be too "connected" but there are elements of our trip that requires us to plan ahead (ie. the Panama to Colombia boat crossing) that require internet. I snapped a selfie of Louie and I working one morning at a place so you can get an idea of what our workspace looks like.

An example of us setting up the office at a restaurant table.

While having dinner in Santiago, we started hearing loud bangs. Louie and I would have been worried by this but nobody else around us seemed to be. So we continued eating, and then there were more loud bangs. I started to joke with the restaurant owner about it being gun shots. Partially due to the "hyperness/excitement" of not riding that day, we pretended to duck below the restaurant counter using our books and laptop as protection while yelling "Peligroso, Peligroso" (Danger! Danger!). The owner declined this idea of "gunshots" but had quite a laugh from seeing two gringos with a little humor. I then decided to take a look outside to see some amazing fire works lighting up the night sky. Super neat to see! We had only wished we had gone out to see more rather than playing a prank on the owner..

The restaurant/foodstand owner ignoring our "peligroso" non-sense

The following day we biked 100 km to Penonome. It was a solid day of riding, and with our off day the day before, we felt good to be back on the bikes. Besides a strong head wind during the last 30 km that slowed down our pace significantly, we were happy to have pushed ourselves physically rather than settling for a closer city  to spend the rest of the day and night. 

Lunch time!

We hung out in the Parque Central for a bit while Louie filled up on his new favorite drink, Chicha de Maiz (Corn Drink), and I was able to trade 3 mangos I found earlier on the side of the road for a mango drink and took the juice stand bike for a spin.

Matt pedaling the drink cart around the park. No sales but a few smiles!

Park bench office for some reading, relaxing and chatting

The park was very busy that afternoon with so much going on. There were local skaters and BMXers busting out some tricks, two parents teaching their 5 year old to roller skate, school kids using the "Internet Para Todos" for their laptops, kids practicing their musical instruments, and the policia hanging out on the balcony of the police station overlooking the park to make sure everything was in order. It's very interesting to see how popular the park is in these Central American cities. It is always centered in the downtown part of the city and its very lively and animated.

During meals, we have both been realizing that there is way too much sugar in the drinks we have been having. For example, the night before I had a 12oz can of Manzana Jugo (Apple Juice) and it had 50 grams of Azucar (sugar). Compare this to a can of Coca Cola back in the states which has only 30 grams of sugar. Crazy!

Friday is payday for retirement... Friday at 9 AM at the local bank!

Clever Acronym for Delivery Truck

That night we were allowed to stay in a meeting room at the local bomberos station that had AC, wall outlets and allowed us to determine when to have the lights turn off. The only downside, we had to be gone by 6:30am the next morning. I fixed up a slow leak flat on my rear tire before we grabbed some of our first non-Panamanian dinner (lasagna). 

The next day we had our typical breakfast of crushed up cereal crackers, corn flakes, and sliced up bananas with powdered milk in the Parque Central we were at the day before. In the morning there were two sisters reviewing notes for school, people catching taxis and buses all over to go to work or school, and old people having their morning coffee and reading the newspaper. Truly a marvelous scene to be apart of! Louie fixed a flat tire (in between his 4th and 5th bowls of cereal) that had developed as a slow leak from the night before. Shortly after we were on the road for our next destination.To give the reader an idea of our breakfast, due to the amount of calories we burn per day, we typically pound down a 300 gram cereal box between the two of us in one morning. In addition we usually average 2 bananas each and about 10-12 (3 inch by 1 inch) crackers each morning. That usually lasts us 2 hours.

Typical Breakfast Cereal

The next destination was 35 km away in a small beach town called Playa Santa Clara. Almost as soon as we landed on the beach in Playa Santa Clara, some dark, almost black clouds, in the sky started heading our way and within 10 minutes we had rain, intense wind, sand blowing at our legs and lightning thundering in the distance. 
  

Dark Clouds over the Beach at Playa Santa Clara

 

Bikes seeking shelter under a cabana

Louie making his way on the beach

Luckily we were able to have some protection under a cabana and the humor to laugh at the crazyness of our arrival to the beach, hurricane style. That afternoon was spent reading, napping and staying out of the rain, before we decided to ask a nearby resturant if we could set up our tents under one of the unused cabanas for us to sleep under that night. This is the rainy season here, so there is plenty of vacancy at this beach. She agreed and charged us $4 bucks per persona. We listened to music through our iPod speakers (very useful so far on this trip), and cooked up some spaghetti that was loaded on my front rack for at least 4 days now.

Matt Reads "Turn Right at Manchu Picchu" while dinner cooks

Italian Dinner on the beach; Spaghetti, Tomato Paste and water for sauce, mixed with a can of veggies and a can of corn! That saying about how food tastes better when your camping, is really useful for meals like this!

Just a quick aside about my front rack. It was working great, but I wanted to have more of a platform for us to put groceries and accessible items on. I was thinking a 2 liter bottle cut in half would be perfect. A week or so ago, Louie and I met Cecile traveling by bike from Guatemala on her red piece of shit bike. She said we had to name our bikes, and that got me thinking about a good name.

Sure enough, I eventually found an awesome 2 liter bottle on the side of the road perfect for slicing in half and attaching to my bikes front rack. With my trusty sharp knife (Thanks Kyle C.) and few minutes of attaching the plastic to the bike, it was done! I noticed with the new bottle cap pointing forward in the direction I was riding. The red bottle cap reminded me of Rudolf the Red Nose Raindeer (like a light bulb) so the black Surly Long Haul Trucker is now called Rudolf!

Matts' Rudolf the touring bike

The next morning, we were greeted by a cloudless sky about 20 feet from the ocean waves breaking. Although camping on the beach is very relaxing and peaceful compared to sleeping in a town, the downside is sand getting everywhere. It gets on your gear, in your paniers, and in your derailleur/chain. Thus a thorough cleaning, especially of the bikes was necessary to prevent deterioration. Initially our goal for the day was to ride just 30 km to another beach town called Playa San Carlos to do some surfing where the waves were supposedly better. Stopping in San Carlos at a coffee shop we talked with the owner who was originally from Alaska. He said the waves weren't too good that day. Our plans of where we would stay changed like that, and we decided to push our 30 km ride to 70km (from Santa Clara to La Chorrera). We agreed that the beauty of bike touring is being able to improvise our mileage and target destination for the day with the blink of an eye (as long as it is feasible). 

Road Side Picture

On the way, Louie stopped at a truck on the side of the road. It looked like a lawn mower engine as attached to some grinder. Louie persisted the guy for a demonstracion. He showed us how the grinder took in stalk of sugar cane and pulvarized it to make it liquid. As he was showing us, a few cars rolled up for a $1 cup full of the drink. Talk about a sugary drink! We agreed that this sugar cane drink had shattered our old record of 50 grams of sugar per serving we were used to in those apple juices in Santiago! After his demo we tried a glass each and  think the sugar rush had something to do with our extra energy to push us to our destination before night fall! 

Roadside Stand of Sugar Cane Juicer in Action

 

Lunch location with bikes right by our side

$4 meal; Pollo, arroz, platanes, ensalada

We arrived at 6 PM in La Chorrera and went straight to the Bomberos. We gave our usual intro about being cyclists looking for a place to sleep for the night. The lieutenant led us to a small building next door to the fire station. We both followed the lieutenant and looked in anticipation as he opened the door to see what our sleeping location for the night would be. As we walked into the room and took a peak, we realized that it was an old heart surgery room for the firemen. There was an surgery chair, a couple filing cabinets, a desk, and a chair. This was going to be an interesting setup for the night! The rest of the evening consisted of a quick dinner in the Chinatown of La Chorrera and watching a band playing music in the Parque Central.

The next morning, as we had breakfast outside the surgery room, the sub-lieutenant (Jose de Leon) joined us. He was super friendly and he talked about his favorite sports teams in the US (NY Yankees, Oakland As, and the Oakland Raiders). Jose had a pretty sweet Bomberos hat that resembled to a Jacks Surfboard hat Louie had brought on this trip. Since we were wearing helmets all day, Louie didn't see much use for it, so he gave his hat to Jose as a souvenir. Jose accepted the hat and gave his to Louie, which he was super happy about...a gift that had turned into a swap.

Overly excited by the new hat swap with Bombero Jose!

The solar panel, after a hard day of GoPro battery charging

Later that morning we wanted to experience going to church in a latina country. Besides not understanding a word the priest was saying, birds flying around inside, and a bunch of stray dogs walking through the aisles, it  was an interesting sight. It seems like in Central/South America, since these countries are very religious, going to Sunday morning mass is a big deal for them. The church goers dress up really nice, there is food cooking outside the church, and there are likely festivities the rest of the day. 

Louie patiently waiting for a hand shaved ice snow cone. Secret Ingredient: Azucar!

That afternoon we rode into the bomberos station of Arrijan. Jose, from the La Chorrera station had called his fire fighter buddies to let them know to expect us that evening. The fire chief showed us where to put our bikes and where we would be sleeping: The attic, which was really a storage space for old fire extinguishers and propane tanks. After moving our bare essentials for the night into the attic, we setup in the garage for a little reading. The reading was interrupted once or twice by rats crossing from one side of the garage to the other, a few feet in front of us. Although the bomberos were friendly enough to let us use their kitchen for cooking, we did have the present of 1.5 inch cockroaches crawling around in the kitchen as well.

The Bomberos Kitchen was used for our traditional Italian Dinner

Due to the shift change of the bomberos at 5:30 AM, we were up pretty early to start our final day of riding into Panama City. Besides both of us "semi-ruining" our morning oatmeal bowl by accidentally pouring salt into our oatmeal thinking it was sugar, we were off towards Panama City. As soon as we got onto the Pan American highway we were caught in Monday morning rush hour traffic. The first 2-3 mile stretch resembled traffic on the 405 North into LA (So Cal people) or NJ turnpike into NYC (East Coast people).

Louie Meandering through the traffic in the shoulder. The highway was literally a parking lot.

 Hoping we would be able to ride the shoulder and avoid the car traffic, we quickly realized that the shoulder had also turned into an additional lane. Thus, we resorted to riding most of the time in the sewage drain on the side of the road or on the grass. After crossing the Bridge of the Americas, which spans the Pacific entrance into the Panama Canal, we were officially in Panama City.

We made it to Panama City!!

 
The entrance resembled that of a big American city with a really nice boardwalk for running/walking along the ocean. The other side of the road consisted of the Panama City slums. It was pretty crazy seeing that contrast between wealth and poverty. We arrived at one of Matt's friend from graduate school, who currently lives in Los Angeles parents house. We were welcomed to a really good lunch and then spent the afternoon relaxing and doing our first real laundry in 15 days.

A new highway that extends out over the water kept us off city streets and dropped us right into the fish market. We were excited to see the beautiful sky line that Panama City has to offer.

So back to that Gate that was at the end of the hike. Since then, I have ridden past that gate hundreds of times on my mountain bike to explore the ridge and all the trails that are beyond the gate. In a similar way, I have found that this trip is kinda like that gate (bare with me on this analogy!). We don't know what this trip entails for us, but we think it has potential to open our view of things with each mile we ride. We really have no idea what it might be, but we have hundreds of miles to search for it.

Panorama of Panama City

-Matt

P.s.