Hiking Chorro Macho Falls in Panama

Panama Travelog #12
El Valle, Panama - Tue, 24 Dec 2024. 11:30am.

Finally, we've done a hike in Panama. A hike on a trail that was open, accessible via our weeny rental car, and which delivered exactly what it promised (no touts or shills filling sites with fake reviews). And it only took us... 5 tries.

On the way back to town from our aborted attempt to get to Pozo Azul we stopped at Chorro Macho falls. It's part of a small eco-park, and its small parking lot was full of tourist outfitter vans. Oh, buy, just the sign we hate. Oh, and speaking of signs we hate, there was the literal sign advertising the admission fee to hike the trail. It was only a few bucks each. That's not much... but it's also a super-short trail. The cost works out to something like $25/km. Shit, a limo is way cheaper than this walk. But after the frustration with this morning's thwarted hike we said "Whatever", paid our money, and started on the hike.



I'd forgotten to bring my nice camera on the day's outing. It's sitting in a dark corner of the one closet-like shelf in our sparsely furnished hotel room. I gave thought to driving back through town to get it but at this point am so sick of wasting time not getting to hike that I decided I'll do the best I can with my iPhone camera. Which... is fairly good nowadays. The photo of Chorro Macho falls above is way better than I could have captured with my old iPhone SE 3. My new 16 Pro has a higher resolution imager, multiple lenses, and more powerful computational photography. It still doesn't achieve the richness of color than my aging Fujifilm X-T3 delivers, but it does other things well that save me time try to fix them up in post, like fixing highlights and shadows by quietly and smoothly combining multiple exposures.

I'd share more than this one picture, but it was a short hike and this falls 100m in from the trailhead was basically it. We'd definitely like to hike more today.... We'll have to go back to our plans and see what else we can pull forward to today.

The Legend of La India Dormida

Panama Travelog #13
El Valle, Panama - Tue, 24 Dec 2024. 12:30pm.

After the one hike we were able to do this morning, at Chorro Macho falls, we came back through town to get lunch. I was still fuming about the two hikes we were not able to do but tried not to let my frustration drag me down too much. After all, there are still other worthy things to do here in Anton's Valley. We used lunchtime as downtime to review our plans and see what we could pull forward.

It helped that the sun starting poking out from behind the clouds. It was the first time in almost 24 hours we'd seen it! I'd been fretting, among other things, that we were doomed to have nothing but gloom and rain for our 9 days here in Panama.

"Let's hike La Dormida," I suggested.

"We could do that tomorrow, and get an early start. It might be too late today—" Hawk responded.

"Let's hike while sun is shining!" I interrupted.

Okay, so what is La Dormida? It's kind of a Romeo and Juliet story... if Romeo and Juliet also involved a mountain.

The Legend of La India Dormida

A legend from the time of the Spanish conquest in Panama tells of La Dormida, or The Sleeping (Native) Girl. Luba, a young woman, the younger daughter of the local chief, fell madly in love with one of the Spanish soldiers subjugating her people. But a young man, Yaravi, a brave warrior of her own people, was madly in love with her. Yaravi was so distraught over what he saw as Luba's betrayal (to himself and to their people) that he took his own life. When Luba learned of this she reconsidered her actions and was filled with regret. She renounced her love for the Spanish soldier and ran off into the woods. Exhausted, she lay on the ground, then died. The mountains took the form of her body.



The legend is explained on a sign at the trailhead on the edge of town. Along with it are these two pictures. Above is a view of the mountain from (I think) down here in the valley. You can kind of see the supine human form in it: head to the right, neck in the middle, chest and abdomen to the left.

In case that's not obvious enough the sign also includes a pencil sketch illustrating the resemblance:



So, what's the point of hiking La Dormida? It's not to have the joy of proclaiming, "I stood on her nose!" 🤣 It's to have a view of the valley from the top of the ridge, to see several waterfalls along the way, and to see some native rock art, too.

Hiking La Dormida & Piedra Pintada

Panama Travelog #14
El Valle, Panama - Tue, 24 Dec 2024. 1pm.

Only a few minutes after beginning the trail to La India Dormida we're stopping. ...No, not stopping entirely; just stopping for a few views!



Along the trail to La Dormida are a few native petroglyphs. They're called piedra pintada, or painted rocks (also a common American-English name for petroglyphs). The big rock you see in the photo above has petroglyphs carved near its base. No, there were no acrobatic graffiti artists in antiquity here to carve things implausibly high up the rock face, just people scratching shit into the rock[*} at arm's reach.



Modern scholars are not sure what these carvings represent. They don't have the structure of a written language, nor do they have the structure of petroglyphs. Academics' best guess is that it's some kind of a map of the valley. 🤷 There you go— prehistoric land use planning!

Just beyond the painted rock there's a small waterfalls on the stream we're following up the side of the ridge.



That sure looks like a nice swimming hole beneath these falls. Guess what, though.... Not only did I forget my fancy camera back at the hotel for today's trip (still using my iPhone instead, as I mentioned on an earlier hike) , I forgot my swimming suits back at home. 😵

Now it's time to get back to hiking. There's only about 99% of the trail left to go!

_____

[*] If this was the US I'd get to give you an earful about The Antiquities Act of 1906. Be glad it isn't... unless you're into that sort of thing. 🤣