Cycling The Globe

A Cycle Touring Expedition Around The World

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Day 1660, Colon – Panama City: Crossing America, Coast to Coast

Posted by Thomas Andersen Posted on Apr - 30 - 2015

Distance: 87.30 km
Ride time: 4:29:38
Average: 19.42 km/h
Max speed: 51.68 km/h
Total: 34346 km

Last night when I left the ferry and cycled through the streets of Colon I thought it was a pretty sketchy place – it probably has something to do with the fact that I don’t normally cycle at night, and everything looks more sketchy then. This morning Colon showed itself in a more welcoming way.

Today’s plan might sound a bit out of the ordinary; crossing America coast to coast in a single day. Well, down here along the Panama Canal that only amounts to 80 km of cycling. After a breakfast from the local bakery I left the Caribbean coast and headed into the green mountains.

That’s the Panama Canal down there. I did pass rather close to the Canal at times, but as I plan to make another visit tomorrow I didn’t stop and explore too much.

Instead I could soon enough see the skyline of Panama City in the background. A place that reminded me more of Singapore or Miami rather than a city in Latin America. What a difference from the poor neighborhoods in Colon where I had started this morning. Panama is a country of contrasts.

Tomorrow I will take a day off the bike to have another look around this fascinating place.

Categories: Panama
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6 Responses so far.

  1. Wow! Contrasts indeed! Btw, great to see a map representation of your stages, again, even if the distances aren’t accurate. 🙂

  2. Marcos C. says:

    Good to see you back on your trusty Bianchi!

    You must be very fluent with Spanish and that will serve you well until the border of Mexico and the U.S.

    As always, safe travels!!!

  3. Thanks Stephen and Marcos! By the way, I just ordered a new Garmin GPS which will give much better accuracy. Will get it in San Jose, Costa Rica!

  4. You’ll have to fill us in on how it goes. 🙂 Will you still be uploading to Strava?

  5. Oh yes, all the data will still be on Strava and with much better accuracy.