Hiking El Charco Falls
Jan. 18th, 2025 10:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
canyonwalkerPanama Travelog #26
Soberania National Park, Panama - Fri, 27 Dec 2024. 2pm.
This is another blog I've unstuck from my Panama trip backlog.
Today we're driving from El Valle de Antón to Panama City with a a few stops for short hikes. Around noon today we visited El Chorro de la Chorrera. Now we're doing a bit of revenge hiking.
It's revenge because this is a hike we tried to do Monday after we stayed nearby in Gamboa, but we were turned away by a sign that the trail was closed. The parking lot was gated off by a chain. "Maybe it's just closed on Mondays," we shrugged. Not wanting to run afoul of local authorities who might be upset we entered a closed park, we gave up and left.
We gave up and skipped a hike? you might wonder. Yeah, well Monday was a shit day overall. The first hike we did was a bust. It was supposed to be full of wildlife. We saw a butterfly. One butterfly. And the night before we'd had trouble with our room at the hotel. "Let's move past these snafus and get on to the next thing!" we agreed. HAHAHAHHAHA, was that ironic. Everything this trip has been a snafu.
Thus when we arrived back at the trailhead today and saw it's still closed, with the small parking lot still chained off, we were of two minds. One mindset was, "Everything this trip has included an element of failure. Let's just accept our bad luck and leave." The other mindset was, "Fuck it, we're going in!"
The second mindset won.
We parked in a pullout area on the side of the road opposite the small, closed parking lot. There was already another car there, just like there was a car there when we bailed several days ago, so that tempered our worries about whether the authorities would give us a hard time. Plus, when we crossed the street and looked more carefully at the guard hut at the start of the trail, we could see it wasn't just closed for a day or a week but looked like it had been abandoned for years.
The main attraction at this trail is a swimming hole and picnic area near a small waterfalls. There's also a nature trail that loops around about 1km. We opted to hike the trail count-clockwise, putting the falls at the far end as a bit of a reward.
Well, just like that guard shack at the parking lot has seen better days, the nature trail here in Soberania National Park hasn't been maintained in at least a few years either. There are two suspension bridges crossing the creek, and both of them need repair. I mean, we were able to cross both of them, but one needs several planks replaced, and on the other one the joint in the middle of the of the span is broken. Fun times!
When we got around to the falls and the swimming hole it was starting to rain. That didn't seem to bother a small family who were already in the water. I mean, why not? They're literally already wet. When I was a kid we used to go out and play in the rain on hot days.
The folks who were in the swimming hole started chatting with us in Spanish. We used our rusty conversational Spanish to converse with them. We talked about where we're from, where we've visited this week, and what our plans for the rest of the trip are. "What, you're not going to visit our beaches and mountains?" one asked, hurt, in Spanish.
What I wanted to say was, "Have you seen your damn weather forecast?"
It's rained every single day we've been here, and rain is forecast for the next few days, too. And it's not the type of "Oh, it rains for 30 minutes in the afternoon every day then clears up" rain that some tropical areas are known for. No, Panama's rain is on-and-off, all day.
Oh, and this is supposedly the dry season.
Chalk that up as another thing that's snafu this trip. 😡
Soberania National Park, Panama - Fri, 27 Dec 2024. 2pm.
This is another blog I've unstuck from my Panama trip backlog.
Today we're driving from El Valle de Antón to Panama City with a a few stops for short hikes. Around noon today we visited El Chorro de la Chorrera. Now we're doing a bit of revenge hiking.
It's revenge because this is a hike we tried to do Monday after we stayed nearby in Gamboa, but we were turned away by a sign that the trail was closed. The parking lot was gated off by a chain. "Maybe it's just closed on Mondays," we shrugged. Not wanting to run afoul of local authorities who might be upset we entered a closed park, we gave up and left.
We gave up and skipped a hike? you might wonder. Yeah, well Monday was a shit day overall. The first hike we did was a bust. It was supposed to be full of wildlife. We saw a butterfly. One butterfly. And the night before we'd had trouble with our room at the hotel. "Let's move past these snafus and get on to the next thing!" we agreed. HAHAHAHHAHA, was that ironic. Everything this trip has been a snafu.
Thus when we arrived back at the trailhead today and saw it's still closed, with the small parking lot still chained off, we were of two minds. One mindset was, "Everything this trip has included an element of failure. Let's just accept our bad luck and leave." The other mindset was, "Fuck it, we're going in!"
The second mindset won.
We parked in a pullout area on the side of the road opposite the small, closed parking lot. There was already another car there, just like there was a car there when we bailed several days ago, so that tempered our worries about whether the authorities would give us a hard time. Plus, when we crossed the street and looked more carefully at the guard hut at the start of the trail, we could see it wasn't just closed for a day or a week but looked like it had been abandoned for years.
The main attraction at this trail is a swimming hole and picnic area near a small waterfalls. There's also a nature trail that loops around about 1km. We opted to hike the trail count-clockwise, putting the falls at the far end as a bit of a reward.
Well, just like that guard shack at the parking lot has seen better days, the nature trail here in Soberania National Park hasn't been maintained in at least a few years either. There are two suspension bridges crossing the creek, and both of them need repair. I mean, we were able to cross both of them, but one needs several planks replaced, and on the other one the joint in the middle of the of the span is broken. Fun times!
When we got around to the falls and the swimming hole it was starting to rain. That didn't seem to bother a small family who were already in the water. I mean, why not? They're literally already wet. When I was a kid we used to go out and play in the rain on hot days.
The folks who were in the swimming hole started chatting with us in Spanish. We used our rusty conversational Spanish to converse with them. We talked about where we're from, where we've visited this week, and what our plans for the rest of the trip are. "What, you're not going to visit our beaches and mountains?" one asked, hurt, in Spanish.
What I wanted to say was, "Have you seen your damn weather forecast?"
It's rained every single day we've been here, and rain is forecast for the next few days, too. And it's not the type of "Oh, it rains for 30 minutes in the afternoon every day then clears up" rain that some tropical areas are known for. No, Panama's rain is on-and-off, all day.
Oh, and this is supposedly the dry season.
Chalk that up as another thing that's snafu this trip. 😡
