El Valle De Anton’s Best Day Hike: La India Dormida
We recently travelled to El Valle de Anton and after spending a few days there, we would rate La India Dormida El Valle’s best day hike! I will say, this is probably one of the most popular day hikes in Panama, but it’s definitely for a good reason. Here you will find amazing views over the town below, some epic ridge lines, a walk through the jungle, and a one-of-a-kind adventure. Read on to find out the details!
About The Hike: La India Dormida
The unique thing about Anton Valley is that it’s located in the crater of a Volcano. And this hike, La India Dormida, is along the crater of which the town sits in! In Spanish, La India Dormida means “Sleeping Indian Girl” and it’s called so as the ridge where you hike to is supposed to resemble a sleeping lady (from the town).
La India Dormida Hike Stats
These are the basic hike stats as found on All Trails. We chose a slightly different route to switch things up a little that we will outline below. The distance varies as you can really go as far as you want on this trail. If you follow the exact All Trails route (as linked below) you will go about 3.5 km total. But if you choose to adventure the trail a little more (which we recommend!) you’ll go further.
- Distance: 3.5 – 5 km
- Elevation: 930 ft
- Time: 1.5 – 2.5 hrs
- All Trails Link
Know Before You Go
Popularity: La India Dormida is one of the more popular hikes in the area. That said, we only saw a few other couples on the way up, and maybe 10 people at the main view point once we arrived. Once we went past the main view point, we didn’t run into anyone else (and it was completely safe and easy to navigate!).
Parking! Especially if you arrive during mid-morning like us, there will be someone there to guide your vehicle. They ask for a tip for parking there (I believe it’s completely voluntary). Expect to pay a few bucks as a tip for parking (unless you want to risk not paying). There is parking available, it’s roadside parking and there isn’t a TON of it. However, it’s super close to the main road areas and other roads where you would easily be able to park.
Entry Fee: This was 3$ per person. You walk up and there’s a hut on the side of the trail that will ask for you to pay and they give you a bracelet. 3$ per person isn’t really that bad considering how much we pay at home for the same hikes. We probably spent about 10$ total between the two of us between entry fees and the parking tip.
Weather: The weather in this area is hot and humid, even though it can feel cold at the bottom. I was wearing hiking pants and quickly realized it was too hot for that. Bring water, some snacks (if you need it), and appropriate clothing. Plus – even if there’s an overcast BRING SUNSCREEN (we learnt this lesson quickly on this day).
Markings: The trail isn’t super well marked. It’s easy to navigate for the most part, but there are some spots that you could easily head in the wrong direction. If you have the All Trails link open and follow that, you will be fine! If you don’t have All Trails, we found Google Maps to be a great option for figuring out where the hikes were.
Our Experience
After a crazy windy night and a below average sleep, we woke up and headed into town for some breakfast to fuel up before todays activities. Our breakfast was at a popular chain spot called Cafe Unido and it did NOT disappoint – the iced lattes and breakfast sandwiches were a perfect way to start the morning. We had our own vehicle so we drove it up to the trail head around 0930 in the morning, with someone there to guide us into a parking spot and collect a tip for doing so. The man asked if we wanted a guide, but it’s a decently marked & not very long hike, and we had done our research so we said no and headed out on the trail. The nice thing about this trailhead is it’s really close to town, so if you decide not to rent a car or are staying down town, it’s not too far of a venture to get to the start.
Once we started our way up the hike, we reached a small hut with people waiting for us to pay them – it was $3 each and we received a bracelet. Then we started our way along the trail! The first bit of the trail is through the jungle. It starts to get a little hot, a little humid, and it can get a little muddy too. This was our first hike in Panama so we were unsure what to expect! We were moving pretty slow, but made it to through the jungle to the start of the view points after about one hour of hiking. There are quite a few uphill sections but nothing too difficult and the hike overall is easy-medium.
The reward for this hike, given that it’s a relatively short hike, is SO worth it! Since, if you’re moving at a faster pace than us, you can make it up there in 45 minutes – 1 hour, many people decide to do this hike for sunrise and get epic views over the town and ridge lines. Once we made it to the first viewpoint, the views just kept getting better & better! You start to see so many hills in the distance and get to see the town below inside of the crater. There are some steep drop offs and areas to traverse in this section, but if you stay on the path there’s nothing to worry about.
Once we saw the viewpoint, All Trails was telling us to turn back. However, we saw the paths along the ridge lines and decided to keep going to get some better views – and it was so worth it. Instead of taking the path back down to the trail head that we had just gone up, we decided to keep going and make it a larger loop. We went along the crater edge all the way continuing until the Mirador Cerro La Cruz road (landmark on Google Maps). This way we could pop out onto the road, and just walk the main road back into town. This was definitely a lot longer, however the views were way cooler out this way, and you avoid seeing the same route twice.
On the road back down, we made sure we stayed to the side as cars usually can’t see too far because of the twists and turns – but there were no close calls for us. We started around 10 am, and ended at around 1 15pm, so it took us about 3-3.5 hours total taking the long route. We would definitely recommend continuing along the sideline once you’re up there to see more of the epic ridges! We got back to the car and headed off to the next journey!
If you have any questions about this hike, feel free to leave them in the comments for us.
