On our walk home it started sprinkling, and by the time we got inside the house it was pouring!! Heavy and hard. I looked up some stuff on the computer and some words in Spanish so I could communicate a little more fluently (which isn't fluent at all. It's like " I..bus..Cerro Punta") to be able to communicate a little more with the locals.. About 4p we walked to the bus stop because we decided we wanted to do some more sightseeing. So we went to Cerro Punta which is north of Volcan. At first we thought the guys put us on the wrong bus because we went sooo sloooow and even made a few circles.. We kept asking and pointing "Cerro Punta?".. we were sooo confused and I'm sure quite annoying:( Finally they let us off about 2 blocks from where we started (I'm not kidding at all, and a half hour later..of which we could have walked in 2 minutes from where we started:) hahaha, sigh.. Good thing is tho they didn't even charge us for the detour.
We then got on a different bus that was headed in the right direction :) and I sat by a young Panamanian that was snoozing.. Typically, I mean 99.9 % of the time locals don't speak English. So at first I assumed this guy didn't either. Well I watched him a little while he slept trying to analyse him him since I was bored. I noticed he was young because he had pimples and a little bit of facial hair, and had a backpack in his lap. On which his name was penned kind of rock-n-roll style. Roderick Pitty. I was also thinking, how..if this guy is sawing logs, is he going to wake for his stop. And too, how in the world are we going to know when we are supposed to get off the bus. These buses, although being nice for Panamanian buses, don't have an electronic sign flashing the destination points. I guess if I lived there I would know. They only indication I've found is that the different towns usually incorprate the towns name on random buildings. Anyway, the guy, Roderick?, woke.. He nearly knocked me out as he stretched awake, and I asked him randomly (which I typically don't do), 'habla Engles?' And to my great surprise he said yes. So I told him our group was headed for Cerro Punta and asked about how long of a ride it was from where we were.. He said he was about to get off the bus in Bambito and the C P was just a little up the road, about 10 mins. I asked him about some restaurantes and he hadn't heard of them (it's more of a ghetto town than where he lives). He understood every single word I said, so I asked how he learned to speak English so well. He said at the University. He said he's been studying it for 2 years. Amazing, trust me, compared, he was excellent! Better than a lot of people I've spoken with in Mount Vernon :)
Anyhow, it was refreshing to be able to carry on a brief conversation with someone, and also to be able to know we were headed in the right direction was wonderful. haha because not always are we ;)
Long story short-ish..the views were amazing. However with it being rainy my camera doesn't take good pics, and especially not while we are moving (not to mention the fogged up windows on the bus..) made it virtually impossible to take a good picture there. Cerro Punta is where most, if not all, of the produce is grown for the whole country of Panama. The soil is amazing and the views of the fields and mountains are remarkable. We hope to go there again before we leave Panama with friends who could show us around. We will see.
Tomorrow we go to Bugaba for field service and we are excited about that :) Will let you know how it all goes. Love, Valora
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