After a night in Panama City due to circumstance not desire, our friend Carol picked us up (in a car!) from our hotel to whisk us to our next destination of Valle de Antón, two hours away. The “Valley” is a pueblo tucked inside the heart of an ancient crater and surrounded by mountains and lush cloud forest. Because of the elevation, the weather is perfect around 80 degrees (27C) and thanks to some occasional rains, it wasn’t totally dry like other parts of Panama during February.
The biggest selling point of El Valle is the loads of hiking trails, as well as the hot springs, but we only scratched the surface. Unfortunately due to some unforeseen political protest possibilities, we had to leave a day early to ensure we’d get to our housesit without issues. Turns out, there were no issues, but in this case it was better safe than sorry.
We shared an Airbnb and dinner with Carol. Carol and Mandy met in 2015 on a Multnomah Athletic Club (where Mandy used to work) trip to Cuba. They became instant buddies and have kept in touch for many years, meeting in person only a few times since. However, when Carol mentioned she’d be in Panama at the same time as us, we knew we had to make something happen. Every time Mandy connects with her, she feels a deep bond. They simply get each other.
The streets of Anton de Valle are saturated with flowers and green. It was so lush and beautiful!
Enjoying cheap wine (love Panama for this reason!) surrounded by rolling mountains.
The next morning, we were all ready to hit the trail! Talk about a monkey’s eye view!! The first two-hour trail we did was marked “moderate” at 5.5 miles (9k) and called Cerro La Gaita. It led you up a steep path to more steep stairs to a wooden path overlook of all the nearby mountains.
We’d never seen a plant like a wax rose. It’s a leafy cactus native to shady, moist areas of Central America. The waxy looking flowers are easily confused for fruit but apparently burst into quite large orange blossoms.
Please keep your hands inside the vehicle!! Since we had a car, the trailhead was easily accessible 20 minutes from town, but still quite the roller coaster ride to get there! Good thing they had concrete tire tracts. Could have been quite a doozy without them!
Beginning the hike. We were the only ones on the trail!
Oh it felt so amazing to be surrounded by green!
Surprisingly we didn’t see any wild life however!
The official trailhead. You can actually drive all the way to this entrance but we chose to walk the first thirty minutes in lieu of destroying Carol’s rental car.
This tree dripping with roots from the inside out, is called a “walking palm” and is native to Central and South America. The tree supposedly “walks” from shade to sunlight by growing roots in the direction it wants to travel, and then allowing the old roots to lift into the air and die. Some say the process takes a couple of years, while others suggest the tree moves two or three centimeters per day!
Beginning the epic staircase. A long way up.
Reaching the canopy and the wooden platform.
What an incredible perspective of the surrounding Cocle Mountains.
Having a break at the top.
We are sooo happy to be back in the sun! And to share it with a good friend as well!
But apparently, you can’t win them all in this beautiful land…especially in the world of bubbly water! Although the setting itself had verdant and lush jungle potential, the centrally located Los Pozos was unfortunately not quite what we we expected. The location itself was fantastic. Using bikes from our Airbnb we rolled into the hot springs in five minutes. When we peeped ours heads in the gate, it became easy to get giddy about the little storybook bridge leading into the site.
Greg pays our entrance, which was an overpriced $8/each.
Ah well, we decided to enjoy it anyway and slap on our complimentary mud masks for the photo.
There were three small anti-climactic pools. One wasn’t warm at all, another felt like a regular pool…and the other…
…was just right considering how hot it was outside anyways? They were all quite dirty and unsurprisingly crowded. This is also where many got stung by a caterpillar named WTF. Ha. True story. After looking weird and puffing up for a few days it healed just fine.
And no, it wasn’t the mud masks making it dirty because those had to be washed off…
….in this little outdoor shower.
The chemical makeup of what we dunked in. In theory, it seemed healing. 🤣
Another quick trail in the morning was at the India Dormida Trailhead to Piedra Pintada. Although unfortunately we didn’t have time to do the full trail, which is quite popular, we at least got to treat our eyes to some waterfalls and these intriguing petroglyphs on a giant rock dated from 8000 years ago.
