Panama-City, Santa Clara, Santiago, David, Bocas del Toro, Chauginda.
So, when we finallly finnished our list of things we had to do we were glad we could leave and pick up our uncumplicated live again.... The Tuesday morning, we left, was the last day of the carnival. The streets smelled of old stale beer and were very quiet with most of the Latino's still in bed.
After we crossed the Panama-canal by a big bridge the landscape was little breathtaking. It was verywarm with a lot of travic on the road. However, the many fruitstables everywhere along the road did chear things up. And the people were all very nice to us. In the evening we wanted to camp on a camp- site at a nature park. After some asking around, we finaly managed to find the right junction. But ther was nothing which you possebly could decribe as a road... For the first time sins we started it was not possible to cycle at all. The track was just to steep and to rocky.So we had to walk all the way up. According to our guide it wold be only 7 km?s. But after one and a half hour off swetting and only being hardly half way, hopes were draining. There seemed to come no end to this road and what if there would be no camp-site or maybe it would be fully occupied or already closed for the night... But when we were almost there (with we didin?t know ofcaurse) we maneged to get a lift from an empty pick-up.
At last we arrived on the place of destination. The parkranger was suppriesed to see some visetors at this time of the day. It was not realy a campsite, just a few spots were you could put your tent.
On our road to here we had climbed considerably and here the wind was considerable stronger, altough we expected it to decrease. So, we set up our tent as well as possible. But instead of decreasing the wind was increasing and becomming more and more violente. However our tent endured the test with brilliance and the next day everything was still in place.
During breakfast we could enjoy this particularly beautiful spot on a mount slope with view all over the "Pacific coast". And goining down was so easy...
We continued our way on the Panam now and than stopping to buy some mango?s water-melons etc. Here there are no alternitive roads and so we met several other cyclists.
Also we had our first experience sleeping the fireguard. Other cyclists told us that it's quiet usuall to knock on doors of a firedepartment in Central America and ask for a bed. So we did and in our case we could camp in there yard.
After taking a day of rest in David twe crossed over to the Atlantic side of Panama and actually the real nice part started overthere. The roads were immediately much quieter. Now we could cycle next to eachother again and you could hear somthing different than trucks and cars. Also the landscape became gradually more attractive. We had to cross the mountanrange and therfore we and we had climb considerably. We couldnt make it in one day and so we camped at a spot near a huge monement with a fiew on the dam and lake. Because this large protected natuinal park was also a"cloud-forest" it was time to dig-up the overcats with nothing else to do we slept early.
On the Atlantic side everything changed drameticcly. We pased by indianen reserves and there small villages. In the evening we found, somewhere along the road, between the banana trees, a suitable spot to camp. When we had installed ourselves a man walked by and made a chat. He proved be the owner of the ground, but our stay was absolutely no problem. When it started to rain he rapidly made a small roof of bananaleafs to save our cooking and for the first time we saw where choclat comes from. We sucked on raw cocoa beans, which has a sheath with a delicious acid/sweet taste. It remained pissing down and eventual were all wet. After farewell we crawled in our tent. It continued raining till the morning and averthibg was saoking wet. It took us till 13.00 for we effectively could leave. It was however still early enough when we arrived in Almirante so we could take the boot which would bring us to Bocas del Toro, one of the Panaman islands on the Caribbean coast.
Arriving in A., a boy chatched up on us on his bicycle to offer a boat. Firstly we it did not trust him. we had already somany bad experiances with huslers at Cuba. But eventually we decided nevertheless to follow him and find out. The boat was one of the boattaxi's and was O.K. Also there was no extra commision charged for his services. On the first boat availlible was not enaugh space for our bikes. So we had to wait. The wharf was a small and crowded place where it swarmed of people. When the next boat arrived everyone wanted to go on it the same time. In this chaos I was busy in get the bikes on it in a decent way and Anita was in charge of our 10 bicyclebags. Everything seemed to well and on our small boattrip we enjoyed the view of the see and the islands.
Unfortunately, we got everything of the boat we had no more than 9 bags. Even after frequently searching the comlete boat it didnt change. Firtsly we hoped that somehow we didn?t put it on this boat and another boat would bring it with him. But after they searched all the baots in the evening, asweel ass the warf, ther was still nothing found. Our bag was stolen!! ?And in it ther was nothing which the robber could use. A wintercoat, books, all off our films of Cuba, the best pictures of ecuador and a bunch of negatives. For us, unreplaceble. For him just rubbish.
The hangover was big..Athough the police force started energetic, which was probably more to impress us than to claer the case, and gave up very easaly. After a hol day of hanging out in several offices and tellling the story over and over again we ended up with a warrant for our ensurancecompagie. We also heard that there were more ocasions of cyclist who got robbed the same way....
In spite of the being robbed is very anoying, the island was extraordinarily beautiful. Beautiful tropical beaches, palmtrees and good cycling.
Our way back succeeded without further missings and when we stoped in the afternoon in Chauguinola to buy some food and stuf a guy invited us to stay they ther for the night. He was a Portuguese Mozibicaan photographer who stayed here in Panama for a number of months. Moreover he was entirely fan of cycling and bicycles. It was all very plesant. But he proved to be an enthusiastic narrator and a bad listner so we ourselves didn?t speak that much. The next day we continued we our way through ?banana country? of Chiquita and Dole and passed the border without any problems.
