The Trail Up
For the first few minutes you’ll follow a smooth concrete path lined by houses, but you’ll quickly be into the forest and the trail proper – the petroglyphs are near the start (maps).
After this the trail becomes a blend of rock, mud, and roots, and is essentially all up up up through dense tropical forest. We did this hike in January (technically the dry season, but there’s always some wet spells in Panama), and this section was very slippy and unstable in parts, so it’s definitely not one for your favourite white trainers or anything without grips.
In wet weather, the slippiness would actually be quite dangerous and, for anyone doing the ‘figure-of-eight’ out-and-back, do be aware that you’ll have to descend this same steep, muddy section. Emily is quite certain she would have gone arse over tit at some point if we did that route, so watch your step!
Whilst the steepness can be very tiring, we found the humidity worse and sweated buckets despite the relatively short distance involved.
Just before the top, there a few more rock wall sections that require more of a ‘climb’ than a ‘walk’ to get up, but should be possible for most.
For this section, the trail is marked at various points with neon green arrows on grey posts, and it’s important to pay attention as the first few are easy to miss; when you see any of them with ‘cima‘, that’s the direction to follow.
At one point after Chorro Los Enamorados, the trail splits – you can go left for the top of La India Dormida or branch right. Both of these paths converge at the same point a little later, so stress about which to take.
It took us about 45 minutes to cover 1.7km and reach the top. This didn’t include any meaningful time at the waterfalls, which may be more impressive in the rainy season.
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