protest update and a trip to Volcan

Protests are still going on and they are moving from town to town. There are reports of another death and this time a 16 year old boy.  Yesterday it spread to Volcan the area that is known as the breadbasket of Panama as there is where most of the fruits and vegetables are raised.  It is on the other side of the Volcano Baru and the terrain is rough but rich black soil.  It is a beautiful part of the country - I compare it to patchwork like paintings of Iowa only instead of flat land it is all mountainous. We visited there a week ago - twisty windy roads thru scenic countryside.  We had use of a car and took advantage of it to tour around.   We stopped several times and asked for directions and once we remembered that the V is pronounced like a B we got the info needed.   Road and highways are not marked at all and luckily we were able to find someone sitting and waiting for a bus to get them to point us on our way.  We stopped in one place so that Bud and Kaiden could walk a swinging bridge- bridges are something that causes me to break out in a cold sweat - so I took the pictures.

I loved the signs that adorned the highways - telling you the elevation  is changing and that there are cattle etc,.  and yes they usually did mean it

v

our asking of directions did get us into a little problem as we asked some workers which way at a T to Volcan and they pointed to the right - I did glance up and see a sign pointing the other direction but what did that mean??? The did lead us to Volcan but it was the narrowest - windiest beautiful road.  But is also was up hill down hill and we did question whether it was going in the right direction knowing that at any minute we could be crossing into Costa Rica.  What seemed like  miles later we did find Volcan but one wrong turn led us to the most wonderful wood craftsman.  He makes custom orders on doors, tables , plaques.and even little key chains that in a short minute he had chiseled out Kaidens name. 

It was on in to town and grab a quick lunch then on to Punta Certa- a small little berg of  a town but surrounded by fields.  We got out and walked around and found you could buy a huge bag of vegetables for $5. I think what these actually were was 2nds - veggies that had some flaws etc on them and could not be sent to the larger stores.  What I saw was soup!!!

 We then stumbled upon a beautiful flower garden that I presume you could buy any plant you wanted - just walk out and pick one . The town really consisted of only 2 streets so getting lost there was not a problem.
Back to the protests. See all this farm land loaded with veggies I understand that if you were to protest then this would be one area that I would want to cut off from the rest of the country.  And cut it off they have but this has led to escalation of violence as of last night they had burned the police station to the ground in Volcan, also looted one of the government offices.  Once the national police were sent in it ended the roads were unblocked and there was quiet again.  But today they moved on down to the town on the international highway called Conception.
As one up rising is ended another springs up.  The Gnobe Bugle Indians have a huge support in Panama - today we were told that 83 % of the people of Panama support them.  This is causing the non Indians to join in the protests and start new ones of their own.  The National Police do have firearms  and tear gas- the protesters have rocks and trees to block roads . Thankfully this is so or the deaths would be growing far too fast.  
The only part left of our trip to Volcan that was of interest was the truck in this picture that must have misjudged the road - I think he needed to call AAA - or 911.