Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah

CEDESAM

I remember when I met my “counterpart” for my community at CEDESAM. Counterpart is in quotations because instead of living in my community she lives ten hours away in Panama City. Not exactly the best counterpart to have. But that’s not the subject of this blog and as you can tell, I am no longer bitter about not having a counterpart…...or a community guide…….or a host family…….or getting kicked out of my house and having nowhere to go…….uh hum. Sorry, I’ll get back on track.

CEDESAM is an acronym for yet another Panamanian agency (there’s only about a million of them) that reminds me of a dozen VDOT workers leaning on shovels watching one guy dig. It’s an old army base that was given to the Panamanian government when we hitched up our stakes and moved out. To say the least, the Panamanians haven’t exactly taken the care that the Americans did in maintaining the facility. It’s located a couple of miles away from Farallon beach. There is a lovely resort there called “the Royal Decameron Beach Resort and Casino” (what a mouthful). It’s right on the beach, has air-conditioned rooms, pools by the ocean, bars, restaurants, a discoteque (club) and of course a casino. But we don’t stay there. This is Peace Corps and we stay at CEDESAM; which is two miles away from the beach, does not have air-conditioned rooms, bars, restaurants, discoteques, swimming pools, or cute Panamanian waitresses that bring you tropical drinks in a hurricane glass with a little umbrella. We cram a dozen guys into a room with no air-conditioning, fans that look like they could fall down on top of you at any moment and sound like nails on a chalkboard, but you don’t dare turn it off because you’ve already lost five pounds in sweat and you’ve only been here 15 minutes. The water only works in some of the showers, and then only half-ass, the shower doors don’t close, three-quarters of the seats are broken off the commodes and we fight with the girls over toilet paper because there never seems to be enough. As you can tell, I love it there. We had IST (In Service Training) there and after a wonderful week at the beach, I decided it was time to head back to the mountains for some fresh air.

El Valle

Phil, John and I hopped a bus to a little mountain town known as El Valle de Anton. The town is actually located in the crater of an extinct volcano that erupted, according to Lonely Planet, “with such force that it blew off its top, creating a crater 5km across – one of the biggest in the Americas.” Being in the crater of a volcano, El Valle is completely surrounded by mountains and forests. It’s a great place to do some hiking, ride a bike, go horseback riding, bird-watching or just relax. It’s also only a couple of hours outside of Panama City, so it’s a popular spot for Panamanians that want to get away for the weekend. There are lots of very nice vacation homes owned by wealthy Panamanians and there is a strong expat community of Americans, Germans and other Europeans.

Sean up, El Valle down

We stayed at the Residencial El Valle, a nice budget priced hotel that’s right downtown, had good size clean rooms, but no hot water—as advertised. There are several nice restaurants in El Valle and we visited a few of them. Los Capitanes is a German owned place that serves a variety of European dishes, Pinocchio’s is a good pizza place, and we hit another Italian place (I can’t remember the name) and of course ate on the cheap at some regular Panamanian fondas.

Nothing but blue skies from now on

I really liked El Valle because it’s a great place to ride a bike. The town, although surrounded by mountains, is fairly flat and a using a bike is a great way to do some exploring. We rode all over town, checking out different resorts, hotels, restaurants, neighborhoods and the like. We weren’t the only ones; more Panamanians ride bikes here than in any other town I’ve seen. It was crazy! Every day looked like some sort of bike rally. There is also a neat little market downtown selling fruit, vegetables, and local handicrafts. Plus, they have a library! Granted, it’s not like the ones I’m used to, but still, I was shocked to see a library….that actually had some books….trust me, it’s a rare thing here.

La India Dormida

Gosh I hope that cable holds!

One of the major attractions here is hiking the trails at La India Dormida “the Sleeping Indian”. Legend goes that there was once a beautiful native princess who fell in love with a Spanish conquistador. After asking permission from her father to marry the Spaniard, she was denied, and promptly took her own life. She was buried in the hills and after several years, the mountain took the shape of her body. The trail we took leads up the mountain past another popular spot called La Piedra Pintada or “the colored rock”. It’s basically a huge boulder with some pre-Colombian carvings. We hiked up and down the mountain and were able to take in some spectacular views of the valley below.



Holy Jungle Wires Batman!

I had the most fun when we took a canopy tour of the forest on a series of zip-lines.There were six different platforms and the zip-lines are several hundred feet off the ground. It was really an exhilarating experience to fly through the jungle on a zip-line with my legs dangling in the air. One of the zip-lines took us right past one of the most popular waterfalls in the area called Chorro de las Mozas (Young Women’s Falls).

Afterwards we went to the base of the falls and did a little swimming with some local kids. All in all a good weekend. Enjoy the pics!

Whoa! That looks like a belly-flop fer sure!