Post - Everyday Travel Guides

by Rebecca Hollman
updated June 15, 2020

La India Dormida Hike - El Valle de Antón, Panama

El Valle de Anton, mostly shortened and called just El Valle, is a cool mountain town a short drive away from Panama City. Known as an outdoor adventure spot, it draws a big crowd of Panamanians from Panama City who want to come play in the mountains for the weekend. The town itself is located in a volcanic crater, with the ridges and peaks surrounding it in all directions. These leads to tons of epic hikes just steps away from the edge of the town. One of these hikes, called La India Dormida, leads along a crest line overlooking the town. La India Dormida means the Sleeping Indian (or Sleeping Native Woman) and gets its name from the supposed outline of a sleeping woman’s body that the ridge makes. This relatively easy hike gives dramatic wind-swept rolling mountain range views and absolutely gorgeous golden hours for both sunrise and sunset.

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About the Hike:

This hike leads up from El Valle town along the volcanic mountain ridges surrounding the town. If you start from the popular trailhead, you will pass a famous rock with pre-Colombian carvings and also a waterfall before reaching the crest of the ridge. You then follow the ridge line for awhile, seeing epic views in both directions. If you do the trail as a loop, you will descend the ridge line and come back to a main road, which you will follow back into town. Otherwise, you can turn around at any point and head back the way you came from. If you start at this trailhead, there is a $2 parking/entrance fee and someone regularly watching the entrance. This is also the popular way so there will usually be many cars along the roads and big crowds. You can also access the trail from where it intersects with the highway going out of town at Mirador Cerro La Cruz. Here you can park at the lookout point along the highway and head up the trail the opposite direction. You would follow the trail up the ridge line going north and back into town and then could either turn around at any point or continue on into town and back along the road to make a complete loop.

Trail Info:

This trail can be done in many different ways, giving different total lengths and distance. The most popular way is to start at the trailhead below, at the Piedra Pintada, and go up the mountain side. You could either continue this and reach the main road and walk back into town to make it a continuous loop (6.2 miles) or you could stop at the peak of the ridge and come back down the same way you went up. Total mileage for the whole loop is 6.2 miles and the up and back would be anywhere between 2-3 miles.