June 26, 2016
After some near-misses yesterday, we have the road to ourselves for most of the day.
Cycling Stats
Start Point: David, Chiriqui, Panama
Destination: Las Lajas, Chiriqui, Panama
79.80 km trip, 5:11 time, 51.2 km/h maximum speed, 15.4 km/h average speed
Route Description:
Leaving David, the road was under construction (completion date 2016) so we had two whole lanes to ourselves all day long. For whatever reason, traffic as a whole was lighter than yesterday.
Accommodations:
There are two or three hotels / bed&breakfasts in Las Lajas. We stayed at the Paradise Inn ($54.60CDN) which featured three separate pools, and even some themed rooms.
What happened…
Andrew writes: Oh man, what a delight…having the whole highway to ourselves for pretty much all day today really took the edge off of yesterday. It seems like they are either adding two more lanes, or re-paving the existing highway and so as a result, half of the road is closed to traffic, but open to cyclists like us. There wasn’t a lot on offer, or much to see though, so maybe we would have been better served taking a secondary road.
When we reached Las Lajas, we tried looking at a few different accommodation options, but settled on one that had a pool, WiFi, and A/C. We didn’t end up using the pool since it was full of a drunk family. That’s ok though, it was still a nice, out of the way place. I imagine that we could have gone a few kilometres more to the beach itself and looked for something there, but at this point we seem to be on cruise control to reach Panama City.
Amanda writes: As Andrew said having the road to ourselves was really nice, however the newly paved road made for hot riding. Having said that I don’t know that it would have been any less hot on a dirt road. An uneventful day with pretty easy riding which is good because I think tomorrow includes a pretty big hill to start the day and we plan to ride over 100 kilometres. We opted for the more expensive air conditioned room to ensure we got a good night sleep before the climb tomorrow. We also finished planning how many days until we get to Panama City and booked ourselves a really plush hotel! We’ve been traveling for two years now with a lot of sleeping in tents and cheap hotels and we’ve decided to cash in some of our air miles and stay at a luxury hotel in Panama City to celebrate the end of this continent. I’m super excited for a hot shower and clean towels!