Wildlife, Hiking, and Coffee

Panama has all levels of hiking trails through the rainforest. Closest is Cerro Ancon, a steep hill with platforms at the top overlooking the city, while Parque Natural Metropolitano is the largest wildlife refuge within the city. The Soberania National Park on the outskirts of the city has more advanced trails, while the adjacent Gamboa resort keeps sloths, butterflies, and frogs.

A couple hours outside the city in the mountains is El Valle de Anton. The town has inns, cafes, and a nice outdoor market for vegetables, souvenirs, and candy. There are many hiking trails in the area, including Chorro Las Mozas that has waterfalls and a natural pool. Most famously, there is a rock formation known as La India Dormida that resembles a sleeping woman.

Sloth in Metropolitan Park

We’ve been out in a small boat to the tiny islands along the edges of Gatun Lake, the freshwater lake that makes up a major section of the Panama Canal. The islands are home to monkeys, sloths, birds, bats, and crocodiles, among other wildlife.

We visited an Embera village on the Chagres River in central Panama, home to one of the country’s indigenous tribes. Most Embera live in the Darién Gap, a large region of rainforest that covers the border between Panama and Colombia. The rainforest is so dense that the Pan-American Highway (the network of roads that link the Pacific coastal countries of the Americas) breaks for about 65 miles at the Darién Gap.

Most important to us, Panama produces an impressive selection of coffee. In February we spent a long weekend at Finca Lerida, a farm high in the mountains in the Chiriquí province, to see how coffee is grown and processed. Alongside the coffee plants were dozens of exotic species of flowers and birds, including orchids and hummingbirds.

While there we toured the nearby Elida Estate, one of the Lamastus Family Estates, which grows the world’s most expensive Geisha coffee. We now look for cafes in the city that serve coffee grown in the mountains of Panama.

Coffee cherries

We took a one-week trip back to the U.S. in late April to visit our son, who is at the University of Maryland. We brought an empty suitcase and did some shopping, more for brand-name items we love rather than unavailability in Panama. I bought several shirts and pants with high cotton content, which is surprisingly difficult to find in Panama.

Tocumen (PTY) often ranks as the largest/busiest international airport in Central America. It serves as the hub for Copa Airlines, which offers two daily nonstop flights to Washington Dulles International Airport (IAD). Flights are listed at 4 hours 50 minutes, but often arrive early.

Grocery stores in Panama are as well stocked as any in the U.S., but prices and availability vary a lot depending on the store. Riba Smith is popular among expats for a big selection of brand-name imports, but it’s expensive. A new Rey opened in our Bella Vista neighborhood, with less expensive local staples like chicken, yogurt, fresh fruits and vegetables, and a bakery.

We live near the Mercado de Mariscos (seafood/fish market) that sells both fresh fish to take home and cooked meals to eat there. Each stall has its own recipe of ceviche made with seafood caught that morning. Nearby is the Mercado San Felipe Neri, a cavernous indoor market with stalls for meat on one side and fruits/vegetables on the other.

San Felipe Neri Market

Fresh fish at Mercado de Mariscos

If there’s a typical meal in Panama it’s a whole or filet of Corvina fish (a white fish similar to Sea Bass) with garlic sauce, served with patacones (flattened fried plantains) or coconut rice, for $10 to $12 at the seafood market.

El Trapiche is a traditional Panamanian restaurant chain that serves dishes like ropa vieja (shredded beef and tomato stew). And, although we’ve long believed U.S. beef is the best in the world, our favorite steak restaurant—the eclectically designed Marzola in Casco Viejo—only serves steaks from Argentina.

Whole fried Corvina

Argentinian skirt steak at Marzola