November 3, 2021
San Felipe
We slept well last night. I'm not sure why or how because Rio Dulce is about the noisiest town in which I have slept in my life. Apart from the trucks and motorcycles one has to endure the constant loud music coming out of, well, everywhere. Barely a few seconds go by without the air being pierced by a vendor advertising his/her wares or friendly banter from folk on opposite sides of the street. In Africa loudness is a fact of life. It is considered impolite to speak softly because it suggests you are hiding something and music is something to be shared. But Africa has a lot to learn from Rio Dulce. Or Central America in general.
This doesn't take away from the fact that the people here are undeniably warm and caring. As soon as the hotel staff had returned to work this morning, they came banging on our door wanting to check if our bicycles are OK because they couldn't see parked outside our room (we had moved them into our room before we went to sleep).
Despite the noise I managed to get a few hours of work in. We polished off the remains of the banana bread for breakfast and cycled through the mess that is Rio Dulce's main street to look for quieter accommodation.
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Barely five kilometers from the chaos in Rio Dulce lies San Felipe, a little village on the lake which feed Rio Dulce. It has been inhabited continuously since about 1000BC. It has a castle, actually a fort, built there in the mid seventeenth century to protect the Spanish settlement from pirates. There was no need to protect the original local inhabitants because they had mostly been dragged off into slavery and put to use elsewhere and the only remaining people were Spanish or the results of their endeavours.
We found what seemed to be a quiet hotel on the hill overlooking the lake and have spent most of the day doing very little. We had intended to visit the castle but have managed to put that off until tomorrow. The hotel is less quiet than we hoped for because the residents in the area constantly light fire-crackers. I'm not sure why. Maybe it is to scare the birds off and prevent them from roosting in the trees in their gardens. If so, it isn't working too well because we have enjoyed some nice sightings while sitting on the balcony outside our room.
Today's ride: 6 km (4 miles)
Total: 2,057 km (1,277 miles)
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