Today I went up the hill to El Valle, about 30 km up a nice twisty road on the side of an extinct volcano. The town sits in the flat bottom of the crater and is a laid back little place without all the commotion you would expect for a mountain town this close to Panama City. It was one of the first “luxury” locations in Panama due to its proximity, but because of its age (read “old money”), there isn’t the terrible looking crap that most speculators are putting up all over the rest of the country. “We don’t need that here” was the response from one of the locals in town, who has had land here for over 70 years.

In town, there are a few things to see. There is a “mud bath” that isn’t even worth mentioning, really. There is a waterfall that wasn’t too bad, but I think that was only because it was the dry season. In the rainy season it would probably be thundering and too loud to talk over.

But the best part of the visit was for free. If you continue on up the road out of town, it turns to gravel, but it is well kept. On and on and up and up, past several chicken fincas, and at the end (or where I stopped), was the head of this trail.

All around the town there are high ridges of the old crater wall, covered with thick jungle similar to Volcan Poas, and this trail led up to the top of the ridge, and went along it for a ways with down down down on either side of you. The fist picture in this post is from the mirrador on the one side, and this is looking the other way.

The road on the way up had nice houses on either side, and there was this weird looking little place.

Ok, so when I say that a road is nice and winding…that means that you have to take it slow.

A pile of folks have showed up at the house today when I returned. Long time friends of the family. This place never ceases to amaze me.