The Trek to Naranjito

A couple weekends ago, we hiked up to a little community called Naranjito, which means "little orange." A guy who Josh works with named Aremias is from there, and he invited Josh up for a visit. It was about a two hour hike south of San Luis, which is the town we used to live in. Two other guys Josh works with, Polo and Nahum, came along. They have both lived here for years but had never seen any of the villages in that direction. We took the wrong trail out of San Luis and ended up taking the "scenic route" through several jungle ravines on a hardly existent trail to get the the correct "main" trail. The picture below is Guildy, Josh, Polo, and Nahum on our little cut across trail.

As we hiked higher, some of the switchbacks were pretty impressive. Below is me, Polo, and Nahum.
The view from the top is pretty amazing. This is looking north back toward the Caribbean.
When we got to Naranjito, the first thing we did was go to church. It is a 7th Day Adventist community, so they were having church on Saturday. Below the kids are reciting their memory verses.

We were definitely the featured entertainment for the day, so after church, we went around to all of the 8 houses that make up Naranjito. It was a little like the movie "Groundhog's Day," because the exact same social scene was replayed 8 times. At each house, we had to sit down in their best chairs and then have some sort of food or drink.....orange juice, hot milk, a block of cane sugar. Then, after visiting for awhile, Aremias would take us to the next house. In the picture below, Aremias is sitting with his family in their house.

Guildy and Freddy had a splendid time kicking a lemon around. Apparently Freddy had previously had a splendid time writing on his face with a pen during church:o)

In the course of visiting with people, we learned a little history of the community and area. When you hear about tropical deforestation and slash and burn farming methods, you tend to think it's someone evil doing it. In reality, it's people subsistence farming, growing corn, beans, pineapple, and sugar cane on poor ground that can only sustain a crop for a few years. The Naranjito community has only been there for about 25 years. I that time, 8 families have cleared probably 100 acres of hillsides and continue to chop and burn more every year. Although it's not at all sustainable, it provides a good way of life for people who otherwise would have to try to make a living in the miserably poor economy of the westernized, capitalistic parts of the country.

The families in Naranjito all came from different parts of the country and different backgrounds, so their kitchens and handmade stoves were all different. This was one of the plainer ones. Several of them had big dome shaped ovens similar to something you would see in Italy or Greece.The most adventurous part of the trip was getting home. It rained on the way down, which turned the red clay mountain sides into snot. I was wearing my Croc shoes, which I learned have absolutely no traction under such circumstances. So I pretty much skied down the hill in the most graceful fashion I could muster. Josh did alot better, which was a good thing, since he had Guildy in the backpack. We got home exhausted and hungy, but very glad we had made the trip up to see it.