The road less traveled

Any day is a fine day for a Sunday drive in Panama, even if it happens to be on a Saturday.

We decided to try going to the Jerusalem mall in the Panama side of Paso Canoas, Costa Rica, using the back road Highway 414. According to a couple of different maps, including a local one updated a month or so ago, it appeared to be a decent road, not a main road but still a paved secondary road. It goes past our gate, and is quite good as far as we have been down it. The kids go to the boys & girls club about 15 minutes down the road, so we thought it would be about the same for the whole way.
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Most of it was great! The road winds around, up and down, with many river crossings. The river crossings are at the bottom of ravines, which mean the road is very steep going down to then up from each crossing. The slope was about 10%-13%, with a couple steeper than that!

The road was quite narrow in spots, and there were a couple of sections that were church roads. (Quite Hole-y!) We got to a point where they are building a new dam, and the road kind of stopped. There was a bit of a gravel trail around a corner, so we tried it, and ended up on the steepest section of the road, not sure the grade, but our truck was in low gear, full gas, and no acceleration! I would have put it in 4x, but didn't think I could get started again if I stopped.

We made it out the other side, and over all it was a great trip! The scenery was amazing (GeoLin has some pictures to post) and because of the road, there was hardly any traffic (a couple of taxis, and a bus or two...). We did pass one village that had cool bamboo arches with flowers over the road, and it was the first time in Panama where people actually stopped to look at us. Not sure if it was because we are gringoes, or if it was cause no vehicles and come through that way in a while...

​We will try the road again in a couple weeks when there is more water to see how the rivers look.