Traveling

For the first three months of service, volunteers are not allowed to leave their site, the purpose being for them to really invest in their community and fully integrate.  My three months ended in June, and for the fourth of July I went to the beach with a bunch of other volunteers to celebrate.  It was a really good time – there was swimming time, ultimate Frisbee time, relaxing time, and for dinner there were chili dogs and sparklers.  The beach was on the Pacific side and was long and straight.  At night the tide was low and the moon was full, leaving a wide stretch of wet beach that looked like glass in the moonlight.

            Since the July fourth celebration was kind of far from my site and it was only a little farther to the mountains of Chiriquí, I decided to go see some friends and hike up Volcán Barú, the highest point in Panama.  A fellow volunteer who lives near the volcano found me and my friends a guide to take us up the mountain from her community, and he brought along three youth from the community as well – a 16-year-old girl who was going up for the first time, and two brothers (14 and 16) who had already gone up four times before.  Our guide was training the 14-year-old to be a guide as well, but they were all going up for fun.  As with all traumatic events, my memory has blocked out the near-death experiences and I look back on the trip fondly.  In a few more months I may even be able to convince myself to go again.

            It started out so promising, beginning the hike at 6am, with good spirits and carrying as little as possible.  We were told to prepare for a cold night at the top, with some warm clothes and food, so when I first put on my backpack I hardly noticed the weight.  The first three hours we were walking on a narrow trail through a beautiful cloud forest in the mountain.  We refilled our water bottles with cold and delicious spring water our guide showed us along the hike.  We rested periodically and ate peanuts and looked at the bamboo and tall trees, listening to birds.  We were starting to get tired when we burst forth into our first picturesque view of the surrounding tree-covered mountains, with the town where we started cradled below us in a valley.  At this point, we thought the hike was challenging, but not too difficult.  Then, after four hours, we left the montaña and entered the part of the hike that was the actual volcano, which was a combination of steep uphill hiking and rock climbing.

One thing that we learned was the difference in how Panamanians view time, and how Americans view time.   For the next four hours, whenever we asked our guides how much further they said ¨poco, just around that wall way up there and then a little further.¨  Unfortunately, one of my friends got sick (what with altitude, questionable hotdogs the night before, and lack of sleep), and I spent a lot of the next four hours coaxing him up the mountain.  The guides were extremely patient and kind.  They refused to leave us (though I´m pretty sure I heard the brothers say to each other that if we were Europeans we would have already arrived), gave encouraging words, and one even pulled my friend along with strap of his backpack.  Of course, my friend was not the only one suffering – I used his frequent breaks to cover for my own slow pace and to recover from my lack of breath (there´s not a lot of oxygen on top of a volcano), light-headedness, and the constant feeling of lactic acid in my legs.  Then, as I was sitting with my friend, trying to get a little more energy to go ten steps farther and contemplating how terrible it would be if I dropped my water bottle (or myself) down the mountain, we heard a shout and watched as the backpack of my other friend (who was much farther ahead of us) began tumbling down. And down. And down.  We did, I am glad to report, make it up the mountain in one (albeit exhausted) piece with all of our belongings – the 14-year-old trotted down the mountain to retrieve the fallen backpack and caught up to us before we trudged all the way to the top.

            That night we stayed in the bunker at the base of some radio towers.  We all went to sleep immediately (2pm) and renewed our metabolism with Ramen Noodle Soup (good old Ramen, helps out every time).  There was perfect signal for the TV in the bunker, so I got to watch my telenovela (score!).  But the best part was the next day, when we hiked to the tip top to watch the sunrise.

WOW.

They put a cross at the highest point (very common here), and there were a bunch of other people who had come to witness the event as well.  A lot of people actually leave around midnight to hike to the top and then come right back after sunrise without sleeping (how????).  It was on the way down, of course, that we discovered there was a dirt road that went all the way to the top.  Our guide said that he preferred the other, more difficult path, because there are rocks and plants and handholds to help pull you up the volcano, rather than a steady and relentless incline you can only walk up.  Since I had already started to forget how much pain I was in the day before, I agreed with him.  Also, since the worst part was over, walking downhill felt like a piece of cake.