El Valle de Anton (during COVID)

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This was my first destination in Panama and my first trip abroad during COVID. So first, here are a few observations about traveling here “in these unprecedented times,” as of June 27th, 2021:

- Towns like El Valle desperately want tourists.
- You have to wear a mask outside your home. Everyone complies but no one gives you a hard time if you lower it when you’re nowhere near anyone.
- I was the only foreign tourist in town. On Saturday night and Sunday there is an influx of tourists from Panama City - many of them perpetually drunk - so it’s best to visit during the week.
- During June and July it is usually partly sunny during the day and then showers or thunderstorms move in sometime after 2PM.
- There were at least 30 restaurants in El Valle and all of them were open, waiting patiently for someone to show up. All of them had outdoor seating.
- Vaccinations in Panamá are coming along much more quickly than in other Central American countries. In a week’s time the percentage jumped from 16 to 22, and several people I talked to had appointments for the Astrazeneca one.

Getting to El Valle de Antón (at the bus station, don’t mix it up with the small city of Antón) from my homestay near the Panamá City airport wasn’t too difficult since strangers and police helped me procure a metro card from a broken machine, a free face shield courtesy of the metro police, a bus tariff card from a machine that only took bills and not coins, etc. - all common guises of organization in Latin America that almost never actually work. Luckily, the bus system in Panamá still goes with the Latino flow, which means buying the ticket at the booth with the name of your destination and waiting 20 minutes max before the next bus leaves. Of course, departure just means leaving the station to find others on random corners till the bus is sufficiently filled to get on the Interamericana.

Because of COVID, the minivan journey took about double the 2 hours expected because we picked up so many people to stay “full” (1/2-ish capacity) the whole way. It’s required to wear a mask and a face shield on the bus, but I was the only one wearing the shield.

Valle de Antón is situated in the largest populated caldera in the world, so it’s surrounded by craggy peaks with names like La India Dormida (The Sleeping Indian Woman), Cerro la Silla (Chair Hill), and Cerro Cariguana (Iguana Face Hill), all of which require the same amount of imagination as constellations do. Because of its altitude the climate is cooler year-round, but it still can feel pretty oppressive when hiking through the humid jungle or the exposed peaks.

My first impression of the town is that it seemed like there was a local law that every resident must have a lovely garden filled with flowers and hummingbirds, and that many people get around by bike on the bike lanes and fairly calm streets. My kind of place. I stayed 4 nights at DondeJosé, a charming and quaint homestay a ten-minute walk from the town center. Every day I went for long hikes in the mornings, relaxed during the afternoon rains, and strolled the Avenida de Milionarios in the evenings before taking a long dinner reading at one of the otherwise empty restaurants.

Donde Jose

Staying at this hostal is undoubtedly one of the reasons I enjoyed El Valle so much. Jose and his wife Liz are wonderful hosts and did so much more than just provide a place to sleep. They offered loads of advice for the rest of my trip and offered guide services, snacks, free bikes, free laundry, and most of all nights sipping wine and beer and chatting with them and their friends, including a Cuban-American guy whose uncle is the one who captured Che Guevara. In the next six months they plan to build and open DóndeJosé and Liz, a new site with several cabins and a pool.

Chorro de la Moza

It took fifteen minutes for José and I to ride here on his badly damaged bikes. Because of COVID, the area was empty and closed, but he said it’s absolutely packed on weekends with people from the capital to wade and bathe in the shallow waters as the high sun sifts through the canopy and dapples the clear waters. We lifted the bikes over the barriers, hid them behind a tree, and walked carefully along the rocky and slippery shore, past perfectly round pools in the volcanic rock. Eventually the trail was impassable due to fallen trees, but the scene wasn’t all that interesting anyway, if you’ve ever seen a creek and waterfall before.

La India Dormida Hike

La entrada to this accessible hike begins in a residential area and is $2, presumably to pay the cashier and policeman to stand there all day. If you really want to avoid the fee, there are other ways to ascend. You can tell who the guides are by the excessive eye contact from 50 meters away. Luckily, José's presence ensured I didn’t have to deal with them. They probably don’t like the giant map there that tells you which trails not to take, since it’s pretty straightforward.

There were a few waterfalls along the trail as we climbed, steeply at times, for about an hour through the thick jungle and eventually up to grassy clearings. It’s a nice viewpoint of the valley and it’s usually very crowded, but because of COVID we only saw two other people at the top who apparently couldn’t live without their boombox or didn’t enjoy silence.

Cerro Cariguana Hike

It’s pretty simple to find the trailhead from town by looking at Google Maps. Workers were fixing the steps and drainage at the entrance and the trail seemed pretty well maintained.

Near the summit a cement post with the number 27 piqued my interest so I followed it out of the caldera and was able to see all the way to the coast, as well as a network of trails that traversed the exposed, grassy hills below. Because the area is deforested, you can make out some of them on Google Maps, so I explored them two days in a row, eventually making it to trail #40.

On the first day one of the trails led into a homestead with lots of chickens and before I could decide what to do I was surrounded by 3 angry dogs and a family of subsistence farmers who looked more worried than I probably did. At first I thought it was because of COVID, so I kept my distance but I doubt the pandemic has had any effect on their lives. I asked a lot of questions so Carlos proudly took me into steep ravines for a tour of his crops of yuca, rice and corn. He even made me a nice walking stick with his machete. I gave him some loose change as a tip but he led me back to where I entered, so I figured that was enough for the day and headed back to town.

Cerro la Silla Hike

This hill is just outside of the caldera so it’s probably best to take a bus to the trailhead. I tried to walk there from Cara Iguana but failed, twice.

You should definitely take advantage of the situation right now. To fully explore the area, you should spend at least 3 nights.

There are more photos below.

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Photos

View of the Caldera / Valle
This view is from La India Dormida. Cerro la Silla is at 1:00 in the distance - the peaks that look like a comfortable seat.

Yuca
Carlos showed me how to cultivate a yucca root by digging through the rich soil with his machete.

Enormous Cerro Gaital
One route to the top requires a vertical rock climb and the other was closed and impassable.

José’s Spanish Tortilla
I had a private cooking class - only 4 ingredients but delicious!

Cerro Cariguana
You don’t see the iguana face?

Chorro las Mozas
This is the second, larger waterfall on the short hike.

Igneo
I’m glad I made a last-minute change to boots - volcanic rock lies under the shallow soil.

Palo / Bastón
Carlos making me a walking stick to walk down a steep path.

Chorro
Carlos cutting a root unnecessarily to clear the path for me, to get to the chorro and pool where his kids used to go swimming.

Trail Marker
The people who live among these seem to have 0 knowledge of them.

Comments

[D MJ Binkley]

Panama
Thanks for giving us the low down on life in Panama. It is great people are slowly moving about the world. El Valle sounds lovely. People make the experience.