Sadly, I think Antigua, Guatemala might lose the top spot on my list of most beautiful cities. Cartagena has everything: cobblestone streets, buildings dating back to the 17th century, Spanish forts, tree-lined plazas and lot’s of interesting things to see on the streets. Last night we went walking around and ended up at a small plaza where some kids were playing soccer (on one end 2 statues were used as goal posts). Lot’s of people just hanging out enjoying the cooler temperatures. A TV news crew even made a visit, presumably just to catch the local happenings around town.

The city is very safe and a strong police presence, especially in the touristy areas, helps keep it that way. Almost every other corner has a police officer on it. Several other corners also have some “ladies of the night” who do a cute little dance if they see you. I think it’s a good sign that the police aren’t packing huge machine guns like they do in… well, everywhere else. All the ones I saw just had a night stick and a handgun. The gringo presence here is still very small for such a large city (pop. 1.1 million). Hopefully it picks up because it really is an amazing place.

Karin and Marten leave for their home in the Netherlands tomorrow and won’t be back for a few weeks. I’ll miss them and it’s going to be strange not seeing them all the time but I’m happy they are able to make it home for a family visit. I still have to plan a route through Colombia so that’ll keep me busy tomorrow. Not too sure which roads I want to take south but I’ll stick to main roads due to repeated warnings about FARC activity further south and into the jungle areas on the other side of the mountains. I’ll look to head out Tuesday morning.

09/27 2 records broken today. The mountains running down the middle of the country provided a healthy dose of never ending hills once I made the initial climb. 6124 feet is my new number to beat for elevation gained in one day. My Dad won’t like this but I broke my top speed record at 44.4 mph. Panama is only about 40 miles across in this area. I was within 12 miles of riding from the Caribbean Sea to the Pacific Ocean in one day.

The climb up into the mountains wasn’t bad but the hills after that were relentless. Fortunately traffic was light and there were a couple places to grab some water. I didn’t even stop for lunch so I’m looking forward to dinner tonight. A sign indicating the continental divide (3,600 feet) was at the top of the first big hill and the views back to the Caribbean Sea were amazing.

At about the halfway mark I arrived at Lake Fortuna. Not sure how much of it was natural since a massive dam held the water back but it was pretty nice looking. There were a few touristy shops selling all kinds of food/drink so I bought some candy. The surprise of the day was at a checkpoint. The guard actually asked to see my passport. It ended up being kind of a pain because my stupid Pacsafe money belt broke (both zippers) so now it’s kind of buried in my front pannier.

The weather cooperated all day except when I started the big descent. Rain came down in buckets right up until I found a cheap, little motel to stay at ($10). My detour into Chiriqui Grande for a hotel could have ben avoided. Not too far after the turn toward the mountains was a little motel. Oh well.

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09/26 You had go a little out of the way to find a place to spend the night. You weren’t even sure when you left this morning where you’d be sleeping and you’d read that there were no hotels in Chiriqui Grande. That information was a few years old and sure enough there were three of them. Two of them were owned by the same people but they ran both from the same office. Of course you had no way of knowing that, so when they said they wouldn’t have a room available for an hour at the hotel with an office you went to the other hotel. The office at that place was empty and there were no signs saying you should go to the other office. You smiled.

With an hour to kill you went to a bar and drank. Then you went back. Now they had no room available. The only option was a scary hotel by the docks. You smiled again. On your way there, and again when you went to an internet cafe, drunk guys who always seemed to know a smattering of English, came up to you and wanted to shake your hand. You didn’t like touching sweaty drunk people so you offered a terrorist fist bump.

The hotel back at Old Bank had a boat so they drove you over to the main island where you caught a water taxi back to the mainland. While the small, fast-moving boat jumped over the waves you clutched your GPS in case you quickly had to mark the coordinates for a future dive mission to retrieve your bicycle.

Then you rode all day along virtually undeveloped countryside. Jungle lined the quiet highway on both sides and you thought back to Costa Rica and laughed at how the tourist brochures made the country seem like Panama with friendly people, great food, lots of wildlife and jungle everywhere.

Tomorrow you go over the mountain range that splits Panama down the middle. You should be able to make it in one day. If it takes two days you don’t care.

This post dedicated to the craziest writer on CGOAB.

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09/08 Since most of the hard riding was yesterday it was a quick 30 miles into Granada. The place I’m staying is called the Hotel Terrasol. I’ll hang out here tonight and again tomorrow. They have laundry service here which is just awesome because washing in the sink only does so much.

Karin and Marten emailed me and let me know that flights no longer fly from Panama City into Cartagena, Columbia. That kind of sucks. Now I’ll probably have to go right to Medellin. Maybe I’ll take a boat instead of a plane. Not sure what to do now.

I rode right to the central plaza to orient myself but before I could set off again a guy named Fred came up and we starting talking. He used to live in Calgary. While we were talking a kid wanted to guide me over to the hotel. At first I said no since I knew where it was but he said he gets a commission (and a tip from the person he’s guiding) to bring people to the hotels. Not sure why he’d get a commission from the hotel since I was going there anyway but he was nice enough so I followed him over. I’ll go check out the city tomorrow since my clothes are being cleaned and I can’t be walking around in a towel.

I initiated Operation: Spread the Love this morning. Since head nods usually go unacknowledged I started waving at people instead and if I was riding by a ped I said good morning. This seemed to do the trick. Everyone I waved to waved back. I’ll try this out for a while and see how it works. People are going to be nice to me damnit.

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06/22 I’m just tearing through the countries now. Hola Guatemala! The pants exchange went fine this morning but my plans for an early departure were foiled. It was funny because I actually woke up on my own at 5:45am. Still had to hang around until the store opened at 9am.

The border crossing was a little messed up. The lady who took my departure fee seemed surprised that I didn’t have a stamp on my passport for my bike. She waved me through but I figured I’d better ask this time. At the customs counter in Guatemala they stamped me in for 90 days and said I didn’t need to get anything special for my bike. Works for me. I found a guy to exchange my Belize dollars for some Guatemalan Quetzals and was off.

The first couple miles after the border crossing are unpaved and I thought I’d be riding on gravel all day. I wouldn’t have cared because riding on gravel isn’t as hot as riding on blacktop; you just top out at 10 mph because it’s bumpy. The gravel eventually gave way to smooth pavement which turned out to be a good thing because it started getting a bit hilly. There were a couple more sections of gravel along the way but only for a mile or so. It’s been a long time since I climbed over 2100 feet in a day but I didn’t do too bad thanks to some well-placed little towns where I could get some cold water. My handy new umbrella also provided some shade at one impromptu stop where there were no trees.

The scenery is pretty nice looking. The land doesn’t seem to be nearly as developed (crops) as Belize. There are lots of cows and horses running around. The people I passed all waved and I had lots of honks and thumbs up from passing cars. The kids that saw me all yelled “gringo” which was cute. One kid yelled, “Give me a dollar!” in perfect English. The garbage situation isn’t bad at all. Couple bad places here and there but nothing like what I’ve seen. One thing they do differently here is they sell water in plastic bags the size of sandwich bags (1/2 liter maybe). My skills at opening the bag and dumping the water into my bottles without spilling any is going to need some work.

Staying at the El Muella for US $25 (AC/internet). It’s right on the shore of Lago Peten Itza. Tried some local beer called Gallo. I like it. Good sunset over the lake to end the evening.

GPX Track