Climbing a Pifa Tree

Double click this and see if you can spot the boy at the top of the tree(look at the one with the man at the bottom) The red clusters are ripe pifas. They go from green to yellow to orange to red.

The bark of a pifa tree is covered in very sharp spines. Touching one could be likened to patting a porcupine.
To climb one you need to lash together 2 bamboo triangles. You then lash both triangles loosely to the tree with a piece of old garden hose. When weight is applied to the back side of the triangle it sucks up tightly to the tree, the needles helping to hold it firmly in place.
Then you stand on the lower piece and lift the upper piece up the tree. The rubber hose slides without sticking like a rope would.
When you have it high enough you put your weight on it and use your toes to hook the bottom piece and pull it up.
In this manner it takes about 15 seconds to get to the top of a 50 foot tree. Once there comfortably ensconced on your seat, you pull the pifa clusters off, tie a rope to them and lower them one by one to a friend waiting at the bottom. The whole process took about 10 minutes.

The nut of a pifa is used comercially to produce palm oil, however the Panamanians love to eat the cooked nuts with their coffee. I have never tasted one but am told that it is an aquired taste. They boil the ripened pifas for 1 1/2 hours to cook them. Pifas are nasty trees, covered in sharp spines, nature has designed them to protect the fruit. The only creatures able to reach them are birds and insects. Enter the ingenious Panamanians. This creation cost probably nothing. In Canada we would have used (at great expense) a cherry picker. I am sure they have been doing this for thousands of years. It was an amazing thing to watch, I am always learning something new and cool here....Luego