Even though I had an early start, I did not expect to get to the top today. I puttered around Boquete for a bit, where I finally got a photo of a Tropical Kingbird. (learn more about this bird)
I started up the road. It is a consistent climb with very few breaks, and very few extremely steep parts, though I was in the mountain bike's low gear, or one up from that, the entire way.
I was making my way through coffee plantations. I saw several of these structures. Obviously they were used to load trucks, but there were no mechanized means to get the coffee up there. I presume that bags of coffee where carried up the stairs by workers. At least at this facility, there was electricity, so why there wasn't a conveyor system baffles me. The chute was appropriately sized for sliding burlap bags down so I assumed bagged product.
I continued UP the road to where I had come in two days ago. To the left was Volcanito, where I had come in. Today I continued up the hill, and why not? There was a National Park, a chance to see monkeys, an interpretive trail, and a mountain just up the road!
The key word in the previous sentence however is "up". The road was getting steeper as I pedaled. My out of shape legs were getting weaker as I pedaled. When I got to the intersection that gave me a choice to go to Los Naranjos, I stopped to see exactly where that might be. The road heading that way was rock (not gravel, rock and small boulders). My maps.me app showed that the road would connect with a road farther out that would go back to Boquete, but it showed that for the first several miles it would transition back and forth between trail and rock road. I was not that adventurous today. It had taken 3 1/2 hours to get this far and spending a few hours exploring tropical forest, while having some attractive qualities, didn't seem like the thing to do today.
I pointed the bike back down the way I came, and let it roll, with judicious use of brakes.
I was rolling about 30-35 mph, and caught up with a small pickup truck that was hauling a load of what appeared to be bags of onions. He was traveling about 25 mph on the twisty road. Before long, another car came up behind me. Not wanting to get penalized for caravanning (see ultra race rules!) at the first reasonably straight stretch I released my brakes and pulled into the other lane. In no time I reached my maximum speed today, 44mph, and went right around the little pickup.
What had taken 3.5 hours to pedal up, took 15 minutes to roll down. :-)
When I got back into Boquete, I took a little pedal around, then started back up the little (but steep!) hill back to where I am staying. Along the way up that hill today I spotted Green Ti plants growing in the forest. I have one growing in a half barrel at home. It is much easier to grow in our climate than the Red Ti. The green one only requires that it does not freeze, and stay out of direct sunlight. Pretty easy to accomplish in Oregon if you have a little green house for the few winter months. Here of course, they just grow outside.
It was a nice ride, and a great workout. I don't think I'll ever have enough time to ride to the top of Volcan Baru. I was within 7 3/4 miles of the summit today but had 5650 feet of elevation to gain yet and with grades over 40% it would be a slow haul.
........Road Bike........Rollers.......MTB..........Lifecycle......Total
Today ......0.................0.................13....................0.............13
Jan.........26................ 0................0.....................0..............26
Feb.........7..................0................0.....................0...............7
March.......5.................0................0.....................0...............5
April.......0.................0...............58.....................0...............58
YTD.........38...............0................58.....................0.............96
And I was correct, I never did get all the way to the top of Volcan Baru. I did make it to the park boundary but progressing beyond that point would require being accompanied by a guide. After a few hikers being murdered a couple of years ago the officials required a guide to offer at least a set of eyes to watch over your safety.
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