the best of both worlds

The last two days have been awesome! We had our regional meeting, which means all the volunteers (new and old and of all sectors) in Coclé and Panamá Oeste got together to go over the previous quarter and plan for the next three months, and just to hang out and discuss everything going on in our PC lives. It was just really good to hang out with everyone and get to know people better. We went up to the Parque Nacional Omar Torrijos H., which is in Northwestern Coclé. It´s the same place I went for my tech week during training. It is just absolutely beautiful up there. In the mountains, surrounded by primary forest. We stayed up in the park for the night in a little cabin ANAM rents. Last night there was an amazing thunderstorm. The lightening was just absolutely the most amazing I have ever seen. 6 strikes straight down out of the sky, one after the other. I was enthralled. I have definitely become more of a fan of lightening storms since I´ve been here. It´s just so phenomonal! Then this morning it was gorgeous out. Clear, blue skies, warm. So when I woke up at 6 with some of the other volunteers we decided to take advantage of the clear weather with the rising sun and hike up the mountain to where you can see both oceans - the Pacific and the Carribbean - at the same time. Well, not exactly the same time, you do have to swivel your head. But it was just so beautiful up there. A perfect morning, seeing both sides of the country from one place, surrounded by mountains and jungle, lowlying clouds blanketing the land to the north. What a fantastic way to start the day, it was awesome. Then I hiked down to the town with two others and we stopped by at the waterfall down there that I knew about from visiting during tech week. They hadn´t seen it before so we stopped off and had a little swim. Then caught the busses back into the regional capital. Just such a relaxed couple of days, and a truly perfect morning. Good way to revive the spirits. :)
I´ll post pictures sometime this week, I know you´ll want to see them. :)