Panama
La Amistad International Park
One forest, two countries, five kinds of wild cat moving through the cloud.
The cloud forest swallows the trail almost at once: moss hanging in curtains, visibility down to the nearest trunks, sound narrowed to dripping water and, if the morning is kind, the low call of a quetzal somewhere above.
La Amistad spans the Talamanca range across the Panama-Costa Rica border, 400,000 hectares that make it the largest nature reserve in Central America, holding both UNESCO World Heritage and Biosphere Reserve status. Panama's share alone holds over 100 mammal species and more than 600 kinds of bird, among them the resplendent quetzal, sacred to the ancient Maya and Aztec, while five cat species prowl the forest: jaguar, puma, ocelot, margay and jaguarundi. The Panamanian doorway is Las Nubes, a hamlet beyond Cerro Punta where the ranger post anchors a set of marked trails that climb into ever-cooler, mossier air. On the far Caribbean slope, the Naso people run an ecotourism camp at Wekso on the Teribe River.
Solo
Walk out of Las Nubes at first light with a day pack and the trail to yourself; the forest's scale does the rest.
Couple
Cool highland mornings, quetzal-watching in the moss forest and farm-to-table dinners around Cerro Punta make an unhurried mountain pairing.
Friends
Take a guide deep on the longer trails and keep a wildlife list: with five cat species resident, even the tracks are an event.
Family
The shorter marked routes from the Las Nubes ranger post turn moss, insects and drifting cloud into the day's discoveries without a hard climb.
- La Amistad's 400,000 hectares form the largest nature reserve in Central America, shared across the Panama-Costa Rica border.
- Five cat species prowl the park: jaguar, puma, ocelot, margay and jaguarundi.
- The Naso people run an ecotourism camp at Wekso, the park's Caribbean-side door on the Teribe River.
- From Las Nubes, beyond Cerro Punta, marked trails climb into moss-hung quetzal forest.
Roadside plantations around Cerro Punta sell their own strawberries with cream, the highlands' winning recipe.
Cerro Brujo Gourmet cooks from its garden and the organic farms next door, and the Cerro Punta market sells the same valley's produce raw.
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