Good bye Map

The trip up to visit Kat, a young peace corps volunteer from North Carolina got delayed a day as the ride over from Santa Catalina proved to much for a gringo biker and his map. Getting late in the day and not super stoked about biking on the Pan American highway again at night I pulled over to check my map. To my suprise there was a shortcut just 2 km ahead, a nice 23 km paved highway to my destination of Cerro Iglesia. Heading straight up hill I biked for 40 minutes into the night before coming to the small town of Nancito and the end of the road. I looked everywhere only to find deadends, exhausted I finally asked a local and he varified that the highway on my map didnt exist. Almost 2 hrs after dark now, my local friend invited me in for the night and the next day fed me a large breakfast and sent me the right way to Cerro Iglesia. ¡
Spending some time with Kat and seeing the life of a Peace Corps volunteer in Panama was pretty cool. I have met lots of these volunteers but I never imagined they were living in Bamboo huts in the middle of the junlge. The Panamians love there volunteers as they are constantly being helped in various ways whether it be developing new agriculture methods or building a shelter for the rainy season. Yesterday with directions from my friend I headed up into the mountains to a small indeginous village at 6 000 feet where my map showed the road ended, but behind town I noticed one kept going so I rode up it for 4 hrs, over a mtn and then started decending down to the caribean but the day was getting short and I could see the road didnt end anytime soon so I reluctanly turned around. After exploring these mtn roads in the highlands of Panama for the last couple weeks I have come to the conclusion that camping supplies, a GPS and a weeks worth of food would be necessary to explore this frontier properly. As for my map it is now in the hands of a young boy on the side of the highway as it is apparent it will make a better fire starter then the directions in was giving.