One of the most exciting parts of the trip so far was
spending the weekend in El Valle. El Valle is a cute little touristy town at
the base of the “Sleeping Indian” mountain. The drive up to El Valle was
incredible and when we arrived we found out we were staying in a cute “tropical”
hotel complete with a rooftop full of hammocks and a view of the mountains. The
first night we went out to dinner at restaurant called Bruschetta. Prof Vivien
kept telling us throughout the whole trip that their cheeseburgers were the
best so of course we all had to get one! It was pretty good.
Saturday we woke up at 530am and grabbed some breakfast at a
little breakfast bar then met up with our guide for the hike. Our guide had a
pet monkey that rode on his shoulder named Monica! Pretty neat! We loaded up
the bus and headed up to the park where we would begin the climb to the top of
the sleeping Indian woman mountain. The hike was incredible! I was not
expecting it to be as intense as it was. It took us about 3 hours and the trail was
rocky and at parts we had to crab crawl down.
The scenery was beautiful though and we came across waterfalls, Indian
petroglyphs, and the most gorgeous mountains I have ever seen in my life! Definitely
one of the hardest but most exhilarating things I’ve ever done in my life!
After the hike we had lunch and headed over to go zip-lining.
The course was 1 ½ hours long and had 4 different lines. To get there we had to
hike up another part of a mountain and we were already pretty tired so that
kind of stunk. It was my first time and was tons of fun! I kind of expected the
lines to be really long and high up but they weren’t. Each one probably took
30secs to slide down. After zip-lining
we went to the zoo. It was kind sad because all the animals had really small
enclosures but the zoo was beautiful and I got to see the golden frogs which
are only native to Panama and are almost extinct.
On Sunday we got up early again and went horseback riding!
The horses were a little on the skinny side but they definitely had big
personalities. They would all compete to be in the front of the line and if one
tried to pass another they would bite each other. We rode up a street that was
in a nicer neighborhood of Panama with large pieces of property and huge houses
with gorgeous views of the mountains.
All in all, the weekend in El Valle definitely made the
whole trip and I will remember it forever!
Written by: Sarah Wilson
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