El Valle de Anton (El Valle) is a small town developed in the crater of an extinct volcano. While I can guess that this area was super fertile and that’s why it was chosen, I wonder who (back in the day) was willing to say “I’m sure this will never erupt again; let’s build our town here!”. Regardless of how they conned their fellow townspeople into settling there, the decision seems to have been a safe one thus far.
El Valle’s appeal is that it’s only about 2 hour drive from Panama City, and that’s its elevation is almost 2000 feet which makes it a cooler weather destination (a delightful 75 degrees, compared to the 87 when we left Panama City). It has built its reputation as an eco-tourist weekend refuge for people coming from the city.
While there are plenty of bus options to get there, Mr Snacks loves a road-trip adventure. (Nothing more exciting than battling local traffic customs and surviving until the end of the trip!) The few blocks from our AirBnb to the main highway was the first challenge—fortunately, we’d seen enough of our Uber drivers do the route, we knew which white-knuckle maneuvers seemed to be tolerated by other drivers to make a single turn lane into 3 while weaving through crossing side traffic. After this, it is highway driving on to the Pan American highway. Largely well-paved, there were only a few potholes that threatened to devour our tiny rental car, and they seem to be kinder about their speed bumps than Mexico.
We arrived mid-morning in a deluge, but that gave us time to stop for some empanadas and a coffee at Heaven’s Cafe to formulate a plan. When the rain cleared, decided to try La India Dormida trail, a moderate difficulty trail to see how my ankle held up. We drove ourselves to the trailhead 10 minutes outside of town, only to be told that the trail was closed, they would not sell us a $3 entrance pass. When pressed on why this was closed (we guessed the rains were why it was closed) we were told it was African Wasps. (They even used Google Translate to explain this to us since the mutual vocabulary didn’t cover that phrase/insect.)
We took this as a sign that the hiking was not meant to be that day, so we drove up to the edge of the crater at Mirador Cerro La Cruz. I wish I knew the gradient of the road, because it was insanely steep. Once we made it to the top, our little rental car was almost on the verge of overheating. Good thing we were turning off the car to admire the beautiful view of the forested volcano crater and even a glimpse of ocean off in the distance. It’s hard to remember that the country is only 50 miles wide at points so if you are high you are likely to be able to see an ocean!
We did finally get to hike the next day—it was a well-maintained trail that had waterfalls and a rock carved with intricate symbols in a densely forested area. Hot, sweaty, but very nice.
We also were able to visit the market in the center of town. The El Valle area grows a significant amount of fruits and vegetables sold in Panama City area—likely as a result of the more moderate temperatures and fertile volcanic soil. Not surprisingly, their market had both the most attractive produce and plants we’ve seen in the country, but also at the best prices.
Our trip home was a little sporting, in that we got a Panamanian rain storm during our drive. Mr Snacks drive well through the deluge, but we got to a point on the Pan American highway where both sides of the road had standing water up to the middle of our wheels. We only had a section that flooded for 100 feet or so, the opposing direction had it for closer to a mile. The good news (?) was that everyone around us seems like this was just any old day in any old rainstorm. We followed their lead and had no issues making it the rest of the way home—just another day in the rainy season of Panamá!