The Road to Nowhere

Having spent 10 days doing around half the cycling I was used to, then 10 days sitting on a beach, drinking beer, chatting shit (particularly Andrew) and occasionally popping into the water for a brief surf, I had grown fat and used to the comfort I had been embracing. Well now was time to whip myself back into shape and try to claw back some of the money I had been hemorraging on the Samarian beach. I set myself the target of reaching Panama city in 10 days, that would average at almost exactly 100 kms every day and allow me to catch a boat sailing to Colombia. The first day was tough, the heat was fierce and to get away from the coast the road sprang up and down like a jack-in-the-box. However that night, camped in the back garden of a friendly Costa Rican, I congratulated myself: 110 km's done, $5 spent and only some mild cramping. The next day was a different story though. It started off fine but as the day wore on and the clouds burned off the heat become really intense, and before long I was completely saturated with my sweat, being able to ring out of my clothes. Despite drinking 10 litres of water that day my body started to protest hard: first shortly after my lunch break my left knee blew out, making progress agonising work. Then the cramps started: first my feet went, then it slowly spread to my calves, up my legs to my quads then hamstrings, my hips went first before my stomach, ribs, chest and even the left side of my jaw followed. It felt like I was having a heart attack (I have since been told it was heat exhaustion), but being in the middle of nowhere I had to struggle on, and after 5 km's of utter agony and testing my will to the limit I made it to the top of the hill leading down into Costa "del sol" Rica, the area surrounding Jaco, which is all to reminisent of the Spanish South coast, or the southern Californian one. On the descent my body cooled enough to allow my cramps to ease off a little. That night I lay out on a beach praying that the next day would find my knee in good enough condition to ride. To start with it was solid with stiffness but thankfully the coast road was flat and I was able to warm it up and get it functioning. That day was equally hot but this time instead of the paltry 10 litres I consumed close to 13 and this seemed to keep the cramps at bay again I ended up sleeping out on a beach with a stunning sunset, only to be continualy woken by crabs investigating my prescence all night long with their claws. The next two days took me along lovely jungled roads, through rolling pasture land and finally up to the Panamanian border: 5 days 550 km done, $40 spent, I was on track. Three things immediately struck me about Panama: soldiers, cars and a complete and utter lack of bicycles. Costa Rica is extremely rare in that it was no army and so for the last three weeks I hadn't seen camouflage uniform's strutting up and down the streets like the cock of the roost. So immediately crossing the border and being confronted by this sight was a bit of an unpleasant shock (I'm not a big fan of automatic weapons being waved about). Most of Central America is a very poor place so the numbers of private cars is relatively small, this is not true of Costa Rica but I had been sticking firmly to out of the way roads, so after 2 months of few cars, coming into Panama was like entering rush hour London for me, thankfully though the Pan-American highway comes fully equipped with a nice wide shoulder for the rare cyclist. Rare because Panamanians don't seem keen on the method of transport. Originally I thought it was because they were all rich enough to afford cars but then I started to cycle pass carts being pulled by oxen. I think the reason is because of the quality and speed of their bus service, which speed pass me every few minutes at break neck pace, often providing moments of great hilarity, like dogs calmly standing on the roof while being whisked along at 60 km/h. Unfortunately due to my target of making it to Panama city, so as to catch my boat, I had to stick to the Pan-American throughout Panama. This meant tediem and plenty of it but the glimpses of the real Panama I saw when I turned off the road for food (best chicken I have ever had) or a place to camp, gave me the impression that with a little more time this country had plenty to offer the touring cyclist. 10 days after pulling out of Samara I crossed the bridge of the Americas and into Panama city and the end of the road (almost). In the ten days I had shed my beach flab and was as fit as I had been when I had entered Costa Rica a month earlier, this gave me confidence as my next target was Medellin in the Colombian Andes and all the work I had done over the last 5 and a half months would be put firmly to the test.