San Miguel Arriba

[Panama]

Hope this is the right place for this post. I was ask to help my wife's university social work class with their year end project. They were to collect clothes, food , toys and anything useful and take it to one of the mountain villages. They needed a 4x4 to transport a generator, tv,vcr and pa system. they needed for their presentations. I will tell you there are two seasons in Panama, the wet and the dry, November is the end of the rainy season, but has the most rain. I will post some pictures, as I was the driver I did not have much time to use the camera.

This was the start point at 253 meters on my gps. the fellow with the horse told me there had not been a truck up the mountain for a couple of weeks

[Panama]

Some of the students, 14 female and 3 male, who helped me get up the mountain. It was 5Km and took 3 hours.

[Panama]

Waiting to cross

[Panama]

The school at San Miguel Arriba, 438 meters

[Panama]

The horses made the trip in about 2 hours, there was 37 sacks of food, clothes, toys, etc.

[Panama]

Local dwelling, there is no electricity or telephone, mine was the only vehicle in the village.

The smoke is from the cooking fire inside, not a Land Rover.

[Panama]

We spent the night at the school.

These ladies cooked for us and about 150 of the people who came on Saturday.

[Panama]

It rained all night and the next day, they sent a rider to ask a fellow with a Land Cruiser pick-up to come and help us get back to the top of the mountain, but the pick-up could not climb the other side.

With the rope and the tow strap on hood (lower right), the people from the village and the studens pulled me through the worst places on the climb out.

It was 89 degrees F and rain.

[Panama]

On the top 827 meters. Ready for the descent.

[Panama]

Back at the bottom. Local transportation for students.

I had a couple of moments coming down, but made it ok, did not break anything and I am ready for the next project. But maybe in the dry season for the mountains. Hpoe you enjoyed the project as much as me.

[OldFart]

Excellant piccys Panama, and its just the job the landy was built for is'nt it :yay:
I'd love to work in that part of the world having visited Equador on numerous occassions, the people and their culture fascinate both my wife and I, maybe your photos will be the catalyst for us to go back sometime.....with a land rover :)

[DEANO3528]

An awesome set of pictures Panama. Thanks for sharing them with us.
Now that's what I call a green laning expedition!

[si_guru]

What a fabulous place to go driving offroad. Really great pictures.

[Panama]

This is another photo of the climb going in on Friday, the photos don't really show how steep the trail was, there was several steep and washed out sections on this side, the other side was not as steep, but washed out and a lot of mud

[DUNCIA]

Fantastic,

[red]

great pics mate :)

cant wait to pick up my 1st L.rover http://forums.planetmayan.net/showthread.php?s=&threadid=10241

me and the g/f have got a house in cz so i will be taking it out there at some point .

[Panama]

Thanks for the comments, you folks probaly don't have a lot of green leaves or 80-90 degree temp at this time of year.

When it quits raining, I will take some more photos.