Distance: 37.73 km
Ride time: 2:20:25
Average: 16.12 km/h
Max speed: 51.68 km/h
Total: 34810 km
Normally I would choose hot weather over cold weather anytime, but after suffering through another hot and steamy night in my tent I concluded that I had slept much better in minus degrees at the Altiplano. The humidity and the mosquitoes are just a killer down here in the jungles of Panama.
Speaking of the mosquitoes, I think they must have sucked out half of my blood during the night – the 16 km/h average speed on flat roads is really very low.
Luckily there was only 30 something kilometers to David, the second biggest city in Panama. I stopped at the first McDonald’s a saw to cool down in their air condition. Then I was making my way to Bamboo Hostel and a much needed shower. I don’t know what it is, but at some hostels everybody speaks with everybody, while at other hostels people stick to themselves. Bamboo House was certainly a place where you quickly would get to know everyone there. Among them there was Mariana who had just moved to Panama from Buenos Aires. How nice it was to hear the Argentinian accent again.
David might be Panama’s second largest city but there really isn’t a whole lot of things to see here. After checking out the central square and some of the shopping streets we came to the conclusion that the nicest place in whole David was our hostel pool garden!
On the other hand David is a perfect hub to explore the surrounding beaches and mountains. I quickly noticed that Volcan Baru, Panama’s highest peak at 3474 m was located only a short bus ride away. Tempting, very tempting…
It’s funny how some hostels are like that, where people don’t talk to each other. I found this quite common in Zürich and Luzern. Maybe I just went to the wrong hostels there. 🙂
As for heat and humidity, give me cooler weather any day!