Beautiful Hike

Two weeks ago we decided that we had recovered enough from our illness to try a longer hike.  We didn't go up and then down, though.  We started at an elevation of 2000 ft. in our town and hiked down to the town of Los Seibos, which is only at 1000 ft.  The climate there is very different!  There are ripe mangoes everywhere, which we ate and took back with us.  One of the students in sixth grade, Oliver, has relatives in Los Seibos and agreed to guide us down and back.

Our tour guide

Oliver was a wonderful guide.   He was very talkative, and pointed out all sorts of interesting things along the way.  When we got to the famous steep part “El Picacho” (steep peak), Oliver pointed out the place where a horse fell into a big hole and died.  They reworked the road two or three months ago and it is a lot better, but you can see that it is still pretty rough.

Climbing El Picacho (in sandals)

On the way down we passed lots of steep terrain where farmers have planted their crops.

rice, corn, yucca are planted here

A bit more than halfway down the trail we came across the Los Seibos School.  It is a K-6 school, but the population has dwindled over the years.  There are currently eight students and one teacher in the school.  The fence is new this year.  Since cars or trucks can’t make the trip, the fathers of the school kids carried everything down either by horse or on their backs.  Many of the residents in the area prefer to send their children to our town where they have 56 students and one teacher for each two grades.  Oliver lives with his grandparents in our town and his brother and sister also live there with the other set of grandparents.  One of the families we were going down to visit have a house in each place and spend weekdays in town and weekends in Los Seibos.   They have five school-aged kids, three of which would have gone to the Los Seibos School.

Los Seibos School

Once in Los Seibos, we had an introduction to the families.  There are only six houses in the hamlet.  Then we walked down a steep hill to the swimming hole where we enjoyed playing with the kids in the water.

The swimming hole

Heather enjoys a natural jacuzzi 

Steve plays "freeze tag" with the kids

Two of our hosts - Efraim and Isidro

After the swim they insisted than we mount the horse for a photo op.  We didn’t actually ride anywhere.

We chose a different way back to town to avoid “El Picacho”.  It was longer but not so steep.

Here is the group at the top.  They loaded us down with mangoes, plantains, and yucca, but we were lucky that the grandfather carried our gifts on his horse.

Our escorts for the trip uphill

Other Stuff

The fish seller comes past our house once a week in his pickup truck with fish fresh from the Pacific in huge ice chests.   Red snapper is $2.00 a pound!

On Friday evening the neighborhood kids took us to a hilltop to look for the sunset.  We saw the Pacific, but no sun.

Myelis, Joanis, Noelis, and Johnny with us

Of course they had to show us their climbing skills on the radio antenna!

June 25 -29 was our province’s English Week.  We celebrated with games, a spelling bee, talent show, and various contests including a poster contest.

Heather and Orme  (co-teacher in the middle school) in front of the winners of the poster contest.

The primary school spelling bee finalists with English teacher Omar

Last but not least is the inauguration of the newly built first ever police station in our town.  Until now the closest police station was a half hour drive away, and the patrols through our area were few and far between.  The community feels better with 24 hour protection.

The Minister of Security of Panama arrived at the ceremony (90 min late!) by helicopter, which landed on the town playing field.  The local kids all raced to the field to see the landing.

That’s it for this week!