2. Across the Panama Canal
Day 81
I slept like a baby last night. No logistical or border crossing worries in my head, it was relaxing. There was a HUGE storm last night. Those storms here are something else.
Anyway, I am up at 5 in the morning but it is dark outside! What happened??? Who turned the Sun off? Panama is one hour ahead of Costa Rica, that’s the reason. I wanted to have an early start for the obvious weather reasons. And being weekend, I expected big traffic jams of people coming back to the city. The breakfast in the house is normally at 7 but the host, Ramona graciously offered to have it ready for me at 0630. Great. Not too much to pack so the bike was ready in 20’. Meantime everything around was coming to life. Morning fog was slowly (very) lifting and the Sun finally made an appearance. Absolutely beautiful morning. Great view of the mountains and the forest from the veranda. Despite my plan to leave early I was leaving actually later. I had a very lovely conversation with the owner of that place. And that’s what this is all about. Meeting people, seeing places and experiencing new things. Not much else matter. BTW, that place is easily at the top 3 places I’ve been so far. And that includes The Palace.
I finally leave and quickly rejoin the Panamerican Highway. My GPS says it 367 km to Panama City. I dialled in the speed limit into my cruise controller and settled in. Nice scenery going through the hills with fog still lingering in the trees. It is still early in the morning, not to mention it is Sunday but there are cops with their radar guns hiding in the shadows already. Buggars. I am at the speed limit so all is good. But shear number of them is surprising. I’ve literarily seen more cops before 10 am today then in the whole 2023 up till now. Crazy. And I have still a long way to go.
I am looking in my mirrors and there are two bikes coming up behind me. Soon enough then caught up with me. Looks like a couple from Austria on their F800GS. I going behind them and tag along. These are the first “adventurers” I’ve met on this tour. They stoped for the gas so I stopped as well and introduced myself. The lovely people are Kiki and Andreas from Klagenfurt, Austria. They’ve on the road since the last year and they started in Montreal. They travelled up to Prudhoe Bay in Alaska and Yukon as well. And they actually rode through Squamish on the way down. Here is their website ibahabs.com . They don’t have a YT channel as they say it is way too time consuming. I figured that one myself as well. They are heading the same way down to South America and they will be about 2 weeks behind me. There is a very good chance we will meet again. We swapped few stories and soon we were on the way again. Soon enough we came to a big police checkpoint. They were stopping everybody so it took a bit of time for our turn. And they pulled all of us over. But all they wanted to see our driver’s licence and took pictures of our bikes and we were on our way again. Didn’t get the meaning of the stop but I don’t really care. We are moving. More cops with the radars. Ridiculous. By the time I got to Panama City there were no less then 20 checkpoints! Police in Panama must have a huge budget …
Nothing really interesting along the freeway were the speed limit dropped to 80 with frequent 50 or 60. It is painfully slow. But I wouldn’t dare to speed. I rode with Kiki and Andreas almost all the way to Panama City. It was funny to ride behind Kiki. She is a tiny little girl and you can’t almost see her on the bike behind all those bags she has. When she stands up in the pegs she is almost as tall as Andreas sitting down 😊 But she can sure ride her bike like a pro. 40 km before the City they peeled off and we waved goodbye. It was cool riding with them for awhile.
The road widens to 6 lane freeway and everybody starts to speed up. Nobody cares about the speed limit all of a sudden. And I haven’t seen the cops for the rest of the way. I can see the Canal on my GPS screen and try to find a lookout. Unfortunately there is a one but in the other direction. And there is a concrete barrier in the middle. Rats. So I ride across the Bridge of the Americas across the Panama Canal. I see lots of ships anchored in a distance waiting their turn to enter the canal. And there is a HUGE container terminal on the other side.
After I cross the bridge, I am technically in South America. No time to pop the Champagne yet. I’ll wait to Bogota with my bike there. I enter the maze of Panama City. Huge skyscrapers, nice waterfront and very clean. That my first impressions. However, they have many multilevel intersections here and my GPS gets confused which road to take. At the end, and after a few wrong turns, I stop following the nav guidance and go old school, again. I look at the map, I can see my destination and I figure out the way to get there. And soon enough I am at my destination. Cool hostel with a private room and bathroom. I have a decent internet, the place and the shower is clean so that’s all OK.
Tomorrow bright & early I will drive to the shipping company to finalize the shipping details. Then some sighting, I hope.
See ya mañana