Anton Valley / El Valle, Panama
El Valle is a small town located on a beautiful flat wide caldera of the 6 km (3.75 miles) wide El Valle volcano that is inactive. Because of its elevation (600 m / 1,969 ft.), it is cooler than the Panamanian lowlands. For this reason many Panamanian’s either own weekend or vacation homes in this valley. Natural attractions of the town and valley include waterfalls, thermal hot springs, and the “square” trees. The valley is also known for being one of the last habitats of the critically endangered Panamanian golden frog.
To get to the valley, you drive west on the Panamerican Highway from Panama City for about 1.5 hours and turn right on highway 71 at Las Uvas. The road (highway 71) traveling up from the coast is a great two-lane highway, which is well maintained. It will take you about another 40-minute drive to get to the town and into the caldera.
Once you reach the rim of the crater, there is a nice rest stop area, with a monument of the golden frog in front of it. The views looking down into the caldera and the town are spectacular.
El Valle has a population of about 7,600 and has one main road that runs through it (Avenida Central or Calle Central). The town has a very small historical and geological museum, as well as a small zoo (El Nispero), a butterfly haven, and an orchid conservation center, which displays over 100 native local orchid species. There are also several petroglyphs west of town that is known as La Piedra Pintada. There are also about 500 species of birds located within the crater.
Standing in town, looking in any direction, you see the impressive crater rim. Downtown is centered around its main landmark, the town’s public market, which is referred to as El Valle’s Sunday Market, even though it is open 7-days a week. There are a few restaurants, and some hotels / motels / B & B’s, convenience stores, and of course, there are souvenir shops everywhere.
One of the hotels / motels that I recommend is the Anton Valley Hotel, located a little to the west of downtown on the main road.
The zoo, although nicely maintained grounds, is poorly maintained for the animals, with small cages, and some unhealthy looking inhabits. One poor monkey was in real need of attention for some sort of a skin irritation, and keep scratching himself and had a real loss of fur on most of his body. There were many beautiful flowers and well-maintained ponds, shrubs and trees throughout the zoo.
The Butterfly Haven, on the other hand, was well worth the time and is very well maintained and staffed. They first educate the visitor on the life cycle of the butterfly via a 15-minute video, then the staff answers questions, and shows you living examples of butterflies in all their various cycles of life. After this, you enter the main enclosed area, where there are many hundreds of living butterflies flying around you, flowers, shrubs and trees. This allows you the opportunity to get up front and personal with the butterflies. You can spend as much time as you wish walking through this enclosed area.
To leave the valley, you can go back the way you came or can continue west on highway 71 through town and up the backside of the crater rim, headed towards the town of Anton, located back on the Panamerican Highway. This route out of town is a lot steeper, and has many more switchbacks, but does offer a spectacular view once on to of the creator rim, looking across the valley. The road leading up the crater wall is very narrow, but is paved, and does open up once on top, all the way back down to the coast.
This valley and its surroundings are definitely worth a day or two’s visit while in Panama.
Next up in this blog will be Santiago.