Panama City

February 3, 2023

After a wonderful buffet breakfast this morning at my hotel, the best of the trip (well, there were not many to compare to), I went to go get my bike box from the bike shop just a few minutes away from my hotel. Afterwards, then, I walked to an Office Depot in to get some packing material, tape, and just to check out the neighborhood between here and there. So, I have a few pictures from that walk.

I got quite nostalgic breaking down my bike, a lot more emotional than I expected. It just kind-of snuck up on me as I was wiping everything down, realizing that “Hey that was some dust from the Nicoya Peninsula in Costa Rica”, and “The last time I re-tightened that bolt was in Belize”, and on and on. So many good memories packed into such a short time. It feels like a lifetime ago. It will take a long time for it to wear off. I’m so looking forward to being able to play it all back by going through my journal again in the future.

As promised, I’m sharing some hacks and tips from the journey. Hope there’s one or two here you can benefit from!

Make signs in advance that you think you may need, or at least bring some 11x17 paper and a big black sharpie so that you can communicate to drivers for help on the road.
Money/security: I started off with a little money from each country that I got at home. This was very useful. Then, I only stopped at an ATM three times. I put some money under the inserts of my shoes to spread this out in case my panniers got robbed. I also put my ATM card for cash machines under one shoe insert as well. I wore some loose MTB shorts with plenty of pockets that I kept my passport in, wallet, MyID emergency contact and medical card, and a few other misc things. Under those bike shorts (that did not have any padding), I got some regular bike shorts from Amazon that had a couple pockets on each side. On one side, I had a copy of my passport and on the other side, I had my visa card, in a RF case (in case someone took everything from my shorts pockets – not realizing I had more underneath). In my wallet, I never had more than about $100, and then I had an expired credit card too that if someone was expecting that I would have that, I would reluctantly give it up, but it would do no good for them. Then, I also kept my wedding ring at home for theft/ransom reasons.
Way too much weight – no need for my PacSafe mesh pannier/ backpack locks from Amazon, did not need my camping stove and cup (never found a small gas can). I also had a giant battery with solar charger that I ended up throwing away, as where I had it in one of my front frame packs, the strap cut through some almond milk and leaked on this battery and ruined it. I didn’t really need it anyway, and just bought it only for this trip, so I was happy to jettison that pound as well. I brought some Nat Geo waterproof maps too for each county, with my route pre-highlighted at home, in case something happened with my phone. It is always a struggle to compare needs with weight, but I usually default to “better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it”, and I always evaluate the need for redundancy.
Always remain flexible. Build some contingency days in your schedule – you never know what’s going to happen, but something always will – trust me!
I’m glad that I went the direction that I did – from south to north. It was all memorable certainly, but some places (Panama and Costa Rica) were definitely much more enjoyable experiences, so it would have been really hard to go in a direction of increasingly worse accommodations and less things to do. In the direction I went, I had good motivation each day.
World Nomads travel insurance. They are highly recommended by others too if you research this. Easy to buy and very reasonably priced.

Some of my favorite equipment (note, I do not get any money for endorsing any of these):

The DaBrim Sporty visor. This is small than their classic visor, but still outrageously large. It did a great job of shielding me from the high UV-index sun here, but also caught a lot of wind too.
Aero bars to save wear and tear on your hands
Long-sleeve, high-vis jerseys. Even if you don’t sunburn as easily as me, it makes you more visible – especially for hand signals, at only a small cost of extra warmth.
GoPro and helmet attachment
Olympus Tough TG-6 point and click camera. I got this down to about 3 seconds to be able to pull it our of my top tube case, turn on, and snap a picture as I was riding. My iPhone was attached to my bike with a Quad-Lock attachment for the map, so it would not have been practical to use that for pictures. The Olympus TG-6 is waterproof, has 4x optical zoom, can be controlled with your phone, shoots video in HD and can be dropped from a height of 6’ without damage.
Garmin InReach Mini personal locator beacon. Carried this in my jersey zip pocket everyday in case I got robbed or ended up in a ditch, I could be just a few clicks away from an emergency call. Tiny and easy to use.
DZNutz antibacterial chamois lube. Better than all the other anti-chaffing lubes as it contains ingredients to help ward-off infections. Is water-soluble too. I used this every day.
MS ClipChamp, for making YouTube videos. Very intuitive, nothing to download (all online).
Similar to the MyID card in my outer pants, I wore a MyID wrist band with a medical symbol that EMT techs are trained to look for (at least in the US), and a QR code that can be scanned and immediately bring up emergency contact info and critical medical info on me (doctor’s name and number, blood type, any allergies, etc.).
Apple translation app. I liked that the text was bigger than Google’s. Also, you can download languages for use without a signal, scan pictures with the camera feature, and actually have a conversation with someone. Was an absolute godsend since I didn’t know Spanish better.

Check out that one guy cleaning windows on the big building on the left!

In the taxi on the way back from Office Depot

Will finish stuffing everything else in tomorrow

Me in front of my hotel (on the left) in the pool area, and other buildings on the right

Some of the last sunset pics of the trip! These are from the pool area of my hotel looking back towards Casco Viejo.

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Rich FrasierA great journal and a fantastic ride! Thanks for taking us along!
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1 year ago

Bob DistelbergReally enjoyed following along on your tour. And by the way, stashing some cash under the insole of your shoe is a fantastic idea.
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1 year ago

Ken DyckmanThanks Bob for all the comments. Make sure you check out my final Panama YouTube video montage tomorrow, set to a little 1984 song (you know the one!).
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1 year ago

Ken DyckmanTo Rich FrasierThanks Rick for following and for all the comments. Make sure you check out my final Panama YouTube video montage tomorrow, set to a little 1984 song (you know the one!).
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1 year ago