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El Valle for the Weekend

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Written by Matt Landau

Sunday, November 05 2006

El Valle is a handsome enough eco-town with a market on the main street where you can stuff your suitcase with all the woven hats and handmade tzochkes you want. People wander around like its Sunday afternoon all the time here, shopping, sipping coffee, giggling. There's a funny old man who roams these parts serving hotdogs with this angry, almost annoyed look about his face that says you'd look this way too if you were dolloping relish eight hours a day.

The road into El Valle twists off the Pan-American Highway about 10 minutes past Coronado. It's a curvy two-lane road, heaven for a racecar driver, torture for someone with motion sickness. The soccer mom in front of me—in her red Honda Oddessy—appeared to have gotten her drivers license in a box of Fruit Loops. Barely clinging to the pavement on several tight turns. I could see the kids in the back seat looking back at me with their little faces in a way I can only describe as mini terror.

The main drag leads into the market area which is really no more than a few small restaurants and shops. The feel though, is that of a small Vermont village: the kind of place you expect to see small log cabins, men with long white beards, and smoke billowing out of rustic stone bakeries. I was tempted the morning I arrived to do as the locals do and pedal into town on my bicycle then fill my backpack with fresh papayas and baby watermelons. That temptation was muffled however, when I realized I had neither a bike nor a backpack. I didn't even like papayas for that matter.

El Valle attracts people from a variety of walks of life, one of which is that crunchy Birkenstock crowd that smells kinda funky. Stopped at an intersection, my second morning, one young man came up to me wearing a baggy poncho-like shirt and pants that reminded me of garbage bags. He dangled several of his long ratty dreadlocks into my car window and asked me if I had any spare change. When I told him I didn't, he then pointed at this similarly-worn-out hippie; I'm guessing this was his girlfriend, since people like that don't get married. “Then, can you take our picture?”

The photo was something I could help him with, so he handed me his digital camera and then proceeded to scurry over and strike several of poses with the girl. The smiles on their faces in the resulting photos appeared to speak to me. They said, “hey, at least you're good for something.”

I gave the rat children their camera back and tossed them a quarter. “Hope this helps.”

The hippies had won my friendship with something as simple as a boost to my photographer ego. I felt good donating to them because surely my money wouldn't be wasted on anything boringly essential like rice or flour or water. No, these hippies were going to put it towards their next bag of pot. And that, to me was a worthwhile investment.

As much as I enjoy making fun of mountain villages because they're so trapped in literal and figurative mediocrity, El Valle does have some neat things going for it. It's got, what I consider to be, the coolest waterfall within distance of the city called Chorro del Macho. Nearby are a set of thermal water wells and mud pits which are believed to hold therapeutic properties. (On my visit, I actually think they cured my hiccups if that's even possible.) The Nispero Zoo is a fun place to take pictures of animals although the people working there seem to be more interested in their handheld video games. You can visit all of El Valle's attractions combined for less than the cost of a martini and I recommend you use the money you save, to stay a night in El Valle's nicest hotel, La Casa De Lourdes.

La Casa De Lourdes is this superb boutique hotel that I discovered on my last trip. Originally, the property on which today's hotel sits was known for its restaurant—the pride and joy of Lourdes de Ward, a Panama City restaurateur who traded in her city endeavors for a more relaxing milieu. The poolside tables and dramatic lighting are almost dementedly luxurious and the food scores high marks on the gastroflavorologist test. Try the house's fresh Mandarin Sour; a concoction that the bartender Ricardo claims is “the best drink on the moon”. The restaurant here has been a staple of high-end dining in El Valle for four years now and it appears that the hotel compliments it to a tee.

The owners are also building a spa complete with volcanic mud masks and an in-house shaman healer who does treatments using only natural ingredients. (”Hi, my name is Herb, I'll be your shaman for today. We'll be starting with your treatment for watery diarrhea using the sap extracted from a Bisengy nut tree I found in the Amazon rainforest last weekend.”)

Directly behind the property sits the Gaital Nature Reserve, one of only two nature reserves in all of Panama, where things like babbling brooks and bumbling toucans seem to carry on as if no one is watching. What's neat is that the hotel works closely with expert locals who can take you on private tours, pointing out exactly which hairy ropes you should and should not touch. La Casa De Lourdes fits into the schizophrenic personality of Panama so well because it's this pristine little sanctuary that you would never expect to be so close to a beach or a metropolitan city. You get there and you hear birds chirping. You smell cool fresh mountain air.

That El Valle is set in the crater of an extinct volcano means cooler temperatures and less hot sun (however you say that scientifically). It's a nice retreat and at night, if you sleep with your windows open, you get that nippy breeze that's totally Maine-y. There's sometimes even a little frosty dew that sets in the early mornings—a peculiar contrast to the beaches just 30 minutes south. A good chunk of its resident's only call El Valle their home on the weekends—taking off from work in the city on Fridays and making it in by sunset—which makes it a great place to visit during the week because its less crowded.

I've attached information for La Casa De Lourdes, where you can find all the luxury amenities at pretty decent rates ($100 and up). Their restaurant has an oft-changing menu with seasonal specialties like tamarind-blackened fish and yucca croquettes and reservations are usually recommended.

La Casa De Lourdes

http://www.lacasadelourdes.com/

Reservations: This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

Hotel Phone: 507.983.6645

Restaurant Phone: 507.983.6450

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Comments (2)

Lori Stucker: my other home

I happen to have spent a good amount of time in El Valle living/working at an organic farm and I return often. I also happen to have dreadlocks. I would just like you to know that my friends run the hotels you speak of and that the people who live in El Valle are much more open minded than you, thank goodness. Those "worn out hippies" you saw were greatly appreciated by locals. I, for one, picked up the litter everywhere in town when i first arrived.
There was a gathering of travelers that took place in a very remote location just before your hippie sightings. Some have friends that live in El Valle. So, yes, we had just come from the jungle-tired and worn out. El Valle attracts many types of people, having never-ending tunnels into the mountains, the giant carved rock, etc. It has its own climate and energy. I find you to be childish in your take on natural cures. Nature is powerful and i have seen cures for almost everything out there. Perhaps you need another shot of El Valle to calm your being. My time there has been wonderful and always will be. I hope this will provide you the oppertunity to think of the things that are truely meaningful. Perhaps at some point you will stop focusing on other peoples faults and take a look at your own life. I wish you peace. Lori

May 24, 2007

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