"I didn't understand a word he said, did you" Patrick says after we've been stopped by a policeman just before the bridge. He was telling us bikes are not allowed on the bridge, there are yellow cones dividing the two lanes making a total of 3 lanes for incoming traffic and only one for outgoing. "We'll walk, Gracias senor" and we ride off.
Once on the bridge, we walk our bikes on the "sidewalk". If there had been both lanes open we would have cycled, but this seemed safer and gave us an opportunity to take in the view. We see a giant container ship about to go under the bridge so we wait and watch. Patrick remembers a photo from when he worked at Dockwise in Holland where a man held a tape measure showing that a foot was left between the bottom of the bridge and the container cranes the ship was transporting.
After making our way off the bridge, we come to an intersection where outgoing traffic is being diverted off the road entirely so all lanes can be used to get into the city. The policeman here was insisting that we go off the road that would have taken us in the wrong direction. Patrick tries explaining, the policeman begins to look mad, finally though seems to understand that we will "walk" in the shoulder and let's us go. We walk until out of sight then start riding in the shoulder that fortunately was decent here. We actually liked that we didn't have constant traffic noise and cars passing us from behind. There was no traffic noise because cars were barely moving. This went on for over 10 km, imagine doing this everyday!
Hot, hot, hot! Traffic still bogs down when one lane is closed for construction. "I know what the problem is," Patrick says, "there's no honking." Surprisingly it is very quiet on the road. A little later, slowing to get around a pile of dirt from one lane closed, a taxi stopped and let us negotiate around the obstacle. "Imagine that, anticipating" Patrick says. "Also, they actually stop for pedestrians to cross the street" Rachel adds and also noticed buses using the side mirror before pulling out back into traffic.
The shoulder is hit and miss, sometimes very nice to cycle on, other times covered with gravel or disappears entirely, and we ride on the road. We stop frequently to get cold drinks, once at another McDonald's mainly for the ice and air conditioning. Water in Panama has been potable so far. Toward the end of the day, the shoulder became consistently nice. Today Rachel struggled with the heat and dizziness, even feeling like she is still compensating for balance as if still on the boat. We arrive in San Carlos around 3:30pm and find the San Carlos Beach Hotel. For $35, it's a ground floor room, not quite a "roll in" room with the bikes, but big enough, with hot shower and plush towels. There's a mini market nearby and even better, a restaurant that serves Chinese food.
AS seen in the supermarket. Makes us homesick...... :-)
All four lanes of the highway headed into Panama City are used in the morning to let rush hour traffic into the city. It just moves the bottleneck though since the bridge is only three lanes and the highway into the city at the other end only two lanes. It is a parking lot for about 10 kilometers. We use the shoulder to go against all this traffic.
