Christmas in Chepo

This is how the Baileys spent Christmas day

We were lucky enough to have David and Melissa come to visit us over the Christmas holidays.  We did lots of tourist activities while they were here.  The first was Captain Carl's Jungleland Adventure tour.  Captain Carl took us on a boat on Gatun Lake, part of the Panama Canal waterway.  The lake was formed by damming up the Chagres River when they built the canal.  It was the largest man-made lake for many years.  Carl knew where to find lots of wildlife.  Actually, many of the animals we saw weren't very wild.  Carl  trained them to come to the boat to get fed.

Here is a capuchin monkey with his black cap

A capuchin mama carries her little one on her back as she gets a peanut

A howler monkey hangs from his tail as he eats

I don't know the name of this little monkey

This little girl gets to handle a cayman!

The kids also got to feed the toucan!

That evening we took a stroll along the Amador Causeway in Panama City to see the sunset.

Sunset from the causeway

Dave and Melissa take a break

The next day it was off to Chepo.  We stopped off in Las Minas to take a couple of pictures of Dave and Melissa in front of little grocery stores with their names.

The Mini Super Melisa

The Abarroteria (grocery)David

On our arrival to Chepo we set up the Christmas tree and went to bed with visions of sugar plums.

On Christmas morning, it was time to head up to the Alto del Higo, the highest spot in our province.  The first picture of this blog entry (top of this page) shows the four of us climbing the antenna tower. 

Dave and Melissa enjoy the view from the top.

Climbing down from the tower

After we left the tower, we walked down to the neighboring town of El Toro, where we took a welcome swim in the clear, cool river.

Steve takes a dive

Melissa and Heather on the bridge

Daysi, an 8th grader, went with us

By the time we got to El Toro, we had been hiking for four hours, so we decided to take the transport back home.  We stopped at the house of some friends to wait.

Dave and Melissa chat with our hosts

Of course we had to ride the back bumper of the pickup truck to get the best views of the scenery.

We were pretty tired by the time we got home.  Dave decided to relax in the hammock.

That night we had our special dessert - Dave's recipe for chocolate bourbon pecan pie.  It was delicious!

It was quite a different Christmas for all of us.  We were glad to be up in our mountain village of Chepo where we escaped being bombarded with the commercial aspect of the holiday season.

The next day we went to this great waterfall, not too far from the town.  We had fun swimming with a seventh grade student and her family.

For New Year's Eve, the custom in Panama is to make dummies like this and burn them at midnight.  We didn't see these burning, but there were lots of them around the town.

Soon to come - Isla Coiba National Park

Steve and Heather