Changuinola – Bocas del Toro – Rambala – Gualaca – San Felix – Castillos – Nata – Rio Mar – Ciudad del Saber – Panama City
9 cycling days | 7 chill days on Bocas del Toro | 675 kilometers | 7.644 meters elevation gain
After seeing my Parents in Costa Rica and enjoying the beatiful country I now find myself in Panama. I have no clue about what to expect from Panama. The only thing I know about Panama is that the land has a strange S-shape and of course the Panama canal. But the rest? It’s time to find out.
But first. My mom has been forwarding me a phone number that I had to call. The wife of her boss at work has family that is rebuilding a resort in the archipelago of Bocas del Toro. So I’ve contacted Rob to ask if I could pop by, to maybe help out with rebuilding (paint, lift, anything) the resort in exchange for a roof over my head and some time off the bike. And he told me that I’m welcome. I have no clue what to expect, but I’m meeting them today at the airport of the little town of Bocas. Why the airport? Because another part of the family is visiting as well and they’re arriving with by airplane today.
In the meantime I’m somewhere in a shady little city called Changuinola and I just woke up in my tent that I’ve put under the entrance of a church. Yesterday I’ve asked the neighbors if it’s okay to camp there and they were fine with it. They even showed me around the church and told me that the whole family is playing instruments during the church service. This morning I prepare breakfast and make coffee while a dog is keeping me company.
I pack up camp and start riding. My first day in Panama. The locals immediately score positive points when they point out to me that I’d better turn around and take a different flatter road then the one I’m about to take.
Moments later I meet another bike tourist that is going the other direction. His name is Mateo, he is from the US and he tells me his fun story. Just like me he is traveling south, but he has to go back to Costa Rica to pick up a package that he has ordered. In that package sits an inflatable kayak with which he is going to cross the Darién Gap into Colombia!
As you know by now there are no roads between Panama and Colombia and most people choose to fly to Colombia or do the journey by boat. Not Mateo, he will put his bike and all is bags on/in his kayak and will pedal the journey himself. Talking about adventure. What a legend!
In Almirante the locals do a poor job guiding me to the wrong dock (I guess to make me take a more expensive lancha to the island of Bocas) and I reach the dock for the ferry without problems. Trucks, cars, horses, people and one Koga Miyata Worldtraveler-S board the ferry. I meet Henrik, a Swedish viking that is basically doing the same as me but then on a motorbike. He lives in a van in Sweden, works in summer for half a year and with his earnings he travels the rest of the year.
We reach the town of Bocas, I leave the ferry and cycle a short distance to the airport. When I approach I already see Rob standing outside waving at me. He has been expecting me. We shake hands and walk to the terminal where I meet his wife Miley, their daughter Caroline, Rob’s sister Annette and her husband Joost and their sons Bob en Mark. Later on I meet Gwendolyne, the mother of Miley (her first words are “please call me nana” and I instantly love her for it) and uncle Konrad and his little son. We do some groceries (on the island of the resort there is literally nothing) and go with the boat to Bastimentos island. With eight people, many crates of beer, more groceries and one bike in the boat we make it to what I like to call paradise. The resort consists of two apartment houses on the hill that are being build, one house that is being resided by Rob and his family, a little harbour, a restaurant and two houses right on the water. One of these houses has been build by Joost’s family and to my big surprise I get dropped of on the deck of the other beautiful house on the water. Rob tells me that this will be my house for the coming days and I cannot speak out of amazement. The house is finished, it only lacks interior like a bed etc. But I get to sleep on a mattress on the floor, which for me of course is perfectly fine.







It feels like I’m adopted not only by one family, but by two families! Everybody is super friendly and helpful to me. They really put an effort into making me feel like one of the family and I cannot emphasize enough how grateful I am for that. Although I feel it’s hard for them to wrap their heads around what kind of trip I’m undertaking. I cannot blame them, cycling and camping for almost a year is quite inconceivable. But I put an effort by explaining what drives me and what my experience has been so far. In their turn they try to take me along their lives and their path into ending up restoring a resort in Panama. Half of the conversations are in Dutch and it feels nice to talk in my mother tongue again for a week.
When I wake up I walk over to the house that feels like the headquarters of the community to have a cup of coffee and breakfast with the rest. In the afternoon we take trips with the boat to the main island to do groceries, we work on the unfinished houses on the resort or sometimes I do nothing at all. The work is that I’ve been doing is probably insignificant. I paint the beams on one of the houses on the hill or help with making a kitchen countertop from wood and epoxy resin. While maybe insignificant it feels good to help out and take a small share in building this amazing resort.
Also to ‘pay back’ for the incredible roof over my head that I have been given. Around 4/5 PM the other family is always hosting a Happy Hour and we drink some beers on their deck, gaze into the water and talk. At night alternately dinner is been cooked and it’s always a feast. We drag out all the chairs and tables that are around and eat with 11 people. Big pots and pans as you can imagine! I dedicate myself as the dishwasher to at least contribute a little bit to the party. After dinner it’s more beers and occasionally a movie night on Joosts’ beamer on the deck.
The little house on the water that I may call my house for a big week is hard to put in words. It’s stunning is as far as I can get putting it into words. The house is build on poles in the water and has an amazing outlook over the thousand islands that encompasses this archipelago. Every morning when I wake up there are two stingrays eating shells from the poles where ‘my house’ is build on. In the afternoon we see three dolphins entering our little bay jumping and playing around. There are barracudas jumping out of the water every minute of the day.





Ever since I’ve set foot in Panama (literally at immigration at the border) I’ve been seeing billboards about a certain Bocas Filthy Friday. Apparently it’s a world renowned island-crawl that’s being held in Bocas del Toro every Friday. The concept is that the party starts on the main island, after a while you are being brought by lanchas (little boats) to two other different venues both on different islands, before you are being brought back to the main island again where you can finish the party deep into the night. Caroline, Bob, Mark and me are all in our twenties or thirties and therefore interested in a good party. Caroline has been on Bocas many times but has never been and the same accounts for Bob and Mark. The ticket swallows up half of my monthly budget, but I feel like we need to go. On the day itself it rains a bit which sets back the mood a little bit and there are serious doubts whether to go. But then uncle Konrad convinces us to go and I’m glad he did.
The party is amazing. Imagine two hundred guys and girls in a very good mood, dancing to amazing tunes while being on the deck of a venue on a bounty island. When the dancing makes you too hot, you jump into the water to cool down. We have an amazing time. The booze flows freely and before we know it we are in a boat taking us to another bounty island, to more dancing, more swimming, more fireworks and more drinks. We agreed on being picked up at the second venue by Konrad, Rob and Joost, but when the time comes I feel I’m long done partying. Since I feel like I don’t have any obligations towards the group and the rest will understand I tell Bob I’m going to stay. He tells me he’s been thinking to stay as well. Caroline and Mark get picked up by our family and the party crew shrinks to two strong and happy men. We make it to the third and last venue and the night becomes more and more blurry.
Not letting us be picked up by the family boat, automatically also means that we have to either find some kind of transportation back to our remote island or a place to sleep on the main island. And although we are trying very hard to arrange a place to sleep with one of the many beautiful girls on the party it doesn’t seem like our effort is paying off.
I am not worried. Every day on the bike for me is one big uncertainty about where I’m going to sleep so I’ve gotten used to being comfortable with these uncertainties. In the end everything always will be alright. But for Bob of course this doesn’t work like that and at some point I feel he’s getting anxious about the fact that we have no transportation home nor a place to sleep on the main island. He wants to book a very expensive hotel on the main island but I tell him we’ll start looking for some transportation. Not in a straight line, but we make it to the docks. At some point I see some locals boarding a lancha and they’ve been mentioning Isla Bastimentos. And one thing I still remember is that we’re also residing on that same island. I drag Bob into the lancha and off we go. Meanwhile I feel like we’ve been very lucky that we’re getting home so cheap, the local way. Little did I know that Bastimentos is big and this lancha is taking us to the west side of the island while we have to get all the way to the east. When every other local is disembarking the lancha I ask the driver if he can take us the east side of the island. Of course, but it comes with a price. Sure, let’s go. I tell him the name of a resort that is close to ours and off we go. It’s pitch dark, the driver doesn’t know this part of the island and we have to take a small through-pass as well to get to our destination. I am drunk as hell, but I manage to navigate with the help of Google Maps and tell the driver to go a bit more left or right, hoping that we don’t hit a sand bank or one of the many scattered islands. When we reach the resort I tell the driver that our place is a little bit farther. He doesn’t take it, shuts of the motor and tells us that’s fine but he needs more money. I bargain another price. Off we go into the dark again. And just before we reach our place he shuts the motor off one more time. Again he wants more money. I’m getting pissed at this point and in tell him in drunk Spanglish that he’s had enough money and to just take us that little bit further. He turns the boat around and starts going back. Fuck, that’s where the bargaining ends, he wins. Five more dollars. Eventually he drops us off at our place. Bob and me drink one last beer on the deck to cheer to the good outcome of the day, night and this crazy boat ride.





We sleep off our hangovers and have a chill day. On Sunday Rob throws a party to celebrate his birthday. Other people that are living on the island are invited and arrive by their little boats. The food is abundantly and delicious. Some local fixed-contract workers that work on the resort every day are invited as well. I eat until my belly hurts and then a little bit more. We drink beers, we talk and we listen to music into the night.
Being amidst a squad that is solely here to build really puts me in a building mood myself too. It’s been super interesting to see how these houses are being build on an island without any facilities. There is no electricity, no water lines, no gas lines, no nothing. Electricity is pulled from solar panels and since Bocas is a tropical rainforest climate it rains 50% of the year. All this rain water is being collected from the roofs of the building into big storage tanks, filtered and being pumped into the water lines that go to the sink, shower, toilet, etcetera.
And all this building, gardening and creating has really put me in a building atmosphere as well. I’m secretly starting to think about building my own little house after this cycling adventure. Buying a plot of land, building one or two tiny houses that are off the grid as well with solar panels and capturing rain water. I’ve been so excited about this that one night I seriously cannot get to sleep because I’m just constantly brainstorming about how this would look like. I even start googling water pumps, filter systems and prices of sea containers (surprisingly cheap!) for my future little houses. It’s crazy but also quite fun to have more ideas up my sleeve for the question what after all this cycling is over.
And then my last night is there. During dinner I take the stage to thank everybody for making me feel so welcome and at home. And it’s true, I couldn’t be more lucky to have met these incredible two families and I whish them all the best with the resort and their future plans!









They drop my off with their boat onto the main island from where I take a ferry to the mainland. It’s cycle time again! I don’t like to plan ahead but the problem called Darién Gap in combination with a nearing birthday from undersigned needed some planning. So I booked a flight ticket from Panama City to Cartagena, Colombia for the 21st. It’s the 11th now, so that gives me 8 days to arrive in Panama City to throw myself a birthday party on the 18th, and 3 more days to cure from a hangover and prepare myself and my bike to fly to South America. Planning done. It’s 615 kilometres so I’d better get started.
I promise myself that whenever after a week of not cycling I don’t feel like jumping back on the bike again it’s time to go home. Luckily that’s not the case yet and I have those little butterflies in my stomach again that tell me I’m excited for the unknown and the adventure.
As soon as I touch ground on mainland northeast Panama I cycle into the lush green rain forest. Everywhere I can look I see little wooden houses in between banana trees. The only colours that deviate from this green/brown palette are the colourful clothes hanging on the washing lines. It’s incredibly hilly and the whole day I go up and down like a rollercoaster. Continuously letting my legs rest in a downhill and tensioning them when pushing up the hill, but never able to find a rhythm. Whenever I’m on one of these hills sometimes the Caribbean sea still appears into the corner of my left eye. I see a group of school kids in their uniforms leaving school and I can hear them whisper the word gringo with big smiles and giggles.
A hill later I see two kids from one of these picturesque wooden houses run down to the road to wave and say Hello to me. It’s all smiles and happiness in this corner of the world. I see lots of indigenous dresses and I have a strong feeling that indeed this is a very traditional corner of Panama.
I find a nice gravel road that leads downstream of a river. Not much later I find a quiet place for my tent, out of sight of the main road. It’s been a long while since I’ve camped in nature like this. In the night I am treated to an utmost spectacle with a sky that’s full of bright stars and below the horizon hundreds of fireflies shining their little LED lights above the river. I try to capture the amazing scene with my camera by playing with the shutter times but fail. Soon later I’m chased into my tent by other flying creatures that I like less: mosquitos.
At night I am awakened when I hear voices near my tent. When I zip out of my tent I see three men with headlights floating down the river. I have no clue what to make of this. My best guess is that they are fisherman. Why they’re not just putting a rod out, but instead move among the fish? Maybe it’s a ground-breaking technology. They don’t form a threat to me since soon they’ve driven further down the river again. However later in the night to my own surprise I dream about 20 guys that suddenly appear in front of my tent and robbing me of my stuff. Pretty crazy that I’m only having a likewise dream after 11 months of camping outside.







There is no road on the Caribbean side of Panama going through the capital, so I have to cross the Cordillera Central Mountain Range to get to the Pacific side. It’s a hell of a day. At three quarters of the climb I fall asleep on the side of the road. It’s just too steep and too much. The dancing drops of sweat on the rim of my cap are back. Two very sweat ladies stop their car on the side of the road to give my some water, I probably look like I need it. Little encouragements like this and all the thumbs-up and honks from cars are dragging me through the day. When I’m almost at the top I get another little present: tailwind. It pushes me over the top of the mountain.
The downhill is genius: a lack of hairpin bends, still that tailwind and a nice negative percentage makes me not needing to brake a lot. The asphalt is perfect and I can reach some nice speeds.
When I reach Gualaca I get treated by a nice rainbow. Time to look for a place to camp and sleep. Via the iOverlander app I find a nice piece of grass next to a baseball field. On the one hand it’s in the middle of the city but on the other the sports complex is big and I feel safe camping here. Some boys are playing football close by. I take a shower with my 10L water bag that I hang from a beam that belongs to the stands of the stadium.



When I wake up I notice I’ve not been sleeping alone. I wish it was a girl, but instead there’s a huge grasshopper staring right at me. Good morning! Luckily he is in between my inner and outer tent. Around 6AM it’s already warm so that promises another hot day today. I am suffering today, it’s probably the heat and yesterday’s tremendous effort that is still affecting me today. I need a lot of stops to splash water over my head to cool me down a bit. It’s a day along the two-lane Pan-American highway so the recipe for today is: music in my ears whilst making steady progress.
I’m about 70 kilometres in when I have a little stop at a gas station when I see the same camper with Belgian license plate that I’ve seen yesterday in the mountains as well. I strike up a conversation with this friendly Belgian family from the French-speaking part of the country. They tell me they’re going to try to camp at a restaurant not far away from here. They tell me to go there as well. When I arrive at the very nice restaurant with lots of grass and a nice swimming pool, the owner asks 10USD to camp for a night. I politely turn his offer down, thank him and tell him I will go and find a place to camp somewhere in nature. But then he tells me it’s fine to stay for free. Well alright then. I put my tent, read a book, take a dip in the pool. The owners are super nice and treat me to fried jalapenos. Not much later the Belgians arrive as well and I get invited over for dinner.
They have been traveling with their campervan for almost two years now. They have two children of 6 and 9. Soon they have to fly back to Belgium to let the kids do a test in school. Apparently it’s part of the prerequisites to have your kids “home-schooled” or in this case: campervan-schooled. It’s amazing to hear their story and to see that is perfectly possible to travel the world, even when you have young kids. Another super inspirational encounter.
I have a good night’s rest and find myself back on the road after having had breakfast. Today I’m going to make a 100km-banger. Two friends call me in the afternoon to tell me that they’ve formed the idea to visit me somewhere in August. At the end of the day there’s a road deviating from the highway into a string of villages and I slowly cycle down the road to check for a place to sleep. When I see a volleyball field next to some houses I ask around to check if I can put my tent there. A man tells me that it is better to put my tent next to his house. They are being friendly to me and offer me coffee and a cookie. The man grabs a chair to come sit next to me but we don’t manage to find a connection. The conversation never really sets off and we don’t get further than the weather and talking about his cows and horses. Tonight I sleep between chicken, dogs, horses and cows.


I set off early because I don’t have breakfast and because I don’t have a click with the people that I’m staying at. It’s scorching hot again. Half way through the day I see a very familiar campervan passing me and standing on the side of the road not much later: The Belgians. They give me a water and some thumbs-up and it’s good to see them again.
When I arrive at the bomberos in the town of Nata, nobody is home, but everything is wide open. I wait and I wait. After an hour I hesitate to at least already take a quick shower, but I’m afraid that that will be the moment that they will return to their base so I restrain myself. Patience. After two hours, long after it’s gotten dark two fire brigade vans are driving up the terrain. They tell me I can stay but that I have to scram early in the morning around 5AM. Well okay then. I decide to roll out my matt and sleeping bag in the touring car that’s collecting dust somewhere in a corner of the terrain such that I don’t have to assemble and disassemble my tent and can be on my way earlier tomorrow morning.
At 5AM I set off in the dark. I see the sun rise and it’s beautiful.
And wow, it’s so nice and chilly in the morning! Another advantage of setting off early is that you’ve covered a decent amount of kilometres already pretty early in the day. I decide to make a big afternoon stop in a nice beach town. It is Sunday afternoon and the beach is teeming with people. For four hours I swim, read and do a powernap. I take advantage of the shade in the hottest period of the day. Around 4PM I jump on the bike for the last 20 kilometres of today. I take a small country road to what I think will be a quiet beach. But to my surprise there is some kind of party going on on my beach. There are lots of cars parked, people have gotten their coolers with booze out and there are two vans with huge speakers playing latino music. The setup is quite impressive and when you stand in front of the two vans the music is so loud that your ears start to hurt immediately. I’m going to wait a bit because with all these people around I’m not going to put up my tent. Luckily around 7PM the music stops and most of the people leave the beach. I make dinner and put up my tent. It’s already dark but I still walk around in only my swimming pants and with my feet in the sand. I love it.






At night I wake up a couple of times because there are guys roaming the beaches to collect trash. I wake up pretty late. The sun is making my tent feel like a cooking pan. It’s the day before my birthday and I’m nearing Panama City. I can feel that we’re getting closer by the amount of cars that are being funnelled down to reach the capital. Disappearing shoulders of the road at times make for dangerous situations since I have to get into the lanes where the cars are. Cars are rushing passed me at centimetres distance. I think that cycling along a busy highway causes you to be exhausted faster: a continuity of noise, continuously being scared by trucks that are using their horns or braking on their engines (the noise I started to hate intensely) right beside you.
The road continuously goes up and down and I keep having to change my gears which makes me not find a nice rhythm. Then I find myself on a big bridge crossing the Panama canal. I am so excited. This was one of the big land marks that has been on my radar for a long time. For now it’s not that spectacular yet because the bridge just crosses a piece of the canal without locks, but still. I turn right after the bridge and cycle along the canal for a bit. I already see some big ships. I have the plan to visit the museum and a watching platform to see some big ships go through the locks of the canal.
I make my way to a city with the beautiful name of Ciudad del Saber (City of Knowledge), very close by the Miraflores locks of the canal. It looks and feels like an American campus. I see American football teams training on pitches in the middle of campus, there are stately buildings everywhere with names like “Department of ..”, “College of ..”, “Faculty of ..”, food courts, neatly marked lanes and signage.
First a beer and already pre-celebrating my 34th birthday with a hamburger. After this treat I pick out a grassy field next to the Olympic swimming pool to put up my tent. Normally I would be very happy with all the security cars that I see driving by, but this time it’s making me feel anxious that they will kick me and my tent out of this campus. A funny contradiction. All in all everything feels super safe here. I manage to take a shower in the dressing rooms of the indoor basketball hall. I don’t think I wake up a single time during that night of sleep and I have the feeling that that almost never happens. Great night’s rest.
Good morning! 34! Happy birthday to me! I decided that today I am going to throw myself a party, or as we like to say in the Netherlands: You have to hang the garlands yourself.
Also, because I don’t want my friends to miss this opportunity to give me a present, I start up a “sponsor me a beer campaign” on my website. I tell them that for every donation I will buy a beer, which I will show on my Instagram stories. Therefore not much later I find myself having my first beer around 10AM together with some nice donuts and croissants from the bakery. Today is a budget-free day. I get a lot of phone calls and messages and I really feel like a birthday-boy.
In the early afternoon I make my way to the Panama canal. More beer in the restaurant of the museum. I see big ships entering the Miraflores locks, pumped up 17 meters with the pure force of water and buoyancy. As an engineer this is a must see and it’s fascinating what they’ve build here in the early 1900’s. More donations. More beer. After the canal I have myself a lovely lunch. More donations, more beer. I start cycling the last 10 kilometre into the city and have an amazing view over the skyline of downtown Panama.
I get a bit emotional when I cycle into the city. It’s probably the beer as well. But I can’t help but think about the difficulties I’ve overwon making it all this way already. With music in my ears I happily let tears flow over my cheeks. Tears of joy. I’m blessed with so many good friends, blessed with an amazing caring family, blessed with such a nice life. A deep sense of appreciation is taking the better of me. What incredibly beautiful that I’ve been given the opportunity to ride a bicycle across the world, to have been able to choose for this freedom. So many people that are not being able to do this. What a privilege.
My parents and brother and sister have given me the gift of a nice hotel and that’s exactly where I’m heading now. I weep down my tears of joy and happily enter the hotel. Hello shower and bed, so good to see you.
The solo party squad is marching on. This time in casual clothes and freshly showered. I’ve contacted Irene, a Dutch girl that I know from my time in Quetzaltenango, Guatemala. I saw she was in Panama City as well so she is the first guest on my birthday party. We have dinner and more beers. We head to a rooftop bar with an incredibly beautiful view over the skyline of Panama and meet two guys from Colombia that live here. The birthday squad just grew to 4. Another bar. Shots. Another bar. Meeting more people. More beer. We dance deep into the night. Taxi home. Miraculously I still remember the code on the door of the hotel.
A beautiful day in every way. Thanks to everybody for making this day possible.







Of course I wake up with a hangover, but not a terrible one. I arrange a bike box with one of the bike shops close by. I participate in a rather boring “free” walking tour after me, Irene and her friend Christa visit yet another rooftop bar and have some dinner. The next day I explore Panama City a bit by bike.
This morning is fully dedicated to get my bike in the box. My flight is at 4PM so there’s plenty of time. I always tell everybody that travelling with your bike in the plane is so easy. But I always forget the fact that there is always little moments of pure stress involved as well. This morning the stress factor is boiling down to a left pedal that is not coming out of it’s thread. Eventually I roll down the bike to the same bike shop that I got the box at and with the right tools and craftmanship they have it loose within no time.
The bike box is relatively small but I manage to get the bike and all my bags into the box and close it with tape. I order a XL Uber which gets me to the small airport.
When I get to the check-in desk they tell me my bike box is more than the allowed 30 kilograms and that I have to get some bags out to separately check-in and pay for. More stress. Now I have to open and close the bike box again but I wasn’t smart enough to bring extra tape in case this would happen. Luckily the employees have some tape for me. I just hope that my box is taped up well enough and that the baggage handlers will treat it with care. Now my last hurdle is to pass the boarding crew at the gate with my bags that seem to be too much for check-in. I already paid 70 euros extra for the bag, I don’t want to pay more. And I know these companies damn well, they try everything to charge you more. I manoeuvre myself passed the boarding crew without them noticing that I’m having just a little bit too much check-in. Seated down in the plane the enjoyment can finally start.
I’m in a plane to Colombia! My third Chapter of this trip. After having completed chapters 1 North and 2 Central I’m now heading to South America. I cannot believe I made it this far already and I’m so excited for what’s to come!







Next up: A terrible start to my South American adventure!
Om te beginnen wat heb je ons getracteerd op prachtige foto’s en wat heb je weer veel meegemaakt
Niet te bevatten eigenlijk en idd dus ook bijna niet uit te leggen
Goede reis maar weer xxx