Once upon a time (pre James) we would have enjoyed hiking up a mountain, earning ourselves cold beers and a good lunch. Post James we had assumed that it was not realistic – James loved walking when he was younger but now he can’t go 20 metres without declaring he has tired legs!

Nevertheless temptation got the better of us in El Valle de Anton where we are now. It’s a town a couple of hours west of Panama City, 600m above sea level and in a massive dormant (or at least inactive for a long time!!) volcano crater.

We did a short walk to a waterfall yesterday, which went well, so we started eyeing up the main hike in town – La India Dormida. Squint slightly and the peaks look like a sleeping Indian, apparently. Google says 45 mins up, a 3 hour round trip??! Reviews suggested it was only for fit people, there was lots of scrambling, it was hard to find the path etc. But then we saw a blog from a woman who took her 6 year old up and therefore assumed everyone else was just being a bit dramatic.

We sold it to James last night. Something about climbing a mountain like Pepper Pig, although apparently Pepper always goes in a car!

We woke excited however it was blowing a gale, apparently not as bad as the U.K. has had this week but still enough to make us reflect on whether this was sensible. We decided to crack on.

Our essential hiking pack list has changed from the good old days. This time it included a Lego digger truck, a teddy bear and wet wipes. We even packed rain coats – good parents 👍.

Now, admittedly we did carry James from our hostel to the start point in the jungle, but we figured he’d soon get bored walking along the road and we’d save his legs for the main climb.

First stop…bakery. We’re not idiots and this boy would need an incentive. It seemed like this would be a good occasion to offer James his first doughnut. Again – good parents!

We were off and soon enough climbing up the mountain through the jungle over rocks, tree roots and some pretty steep sections. The ascent went well, he took his time – 90 mins for us to get up but he walked (and scrambled) nearly all of it. Waterfalls and bridges were good milestones and the doughnut was a winner!!

The trail was supposed to be a loop so when we hit the first peak, which was a bit blowy, we pressed on to the second and third peaks which were less visible. Less obvious however were the high winds and near vertical ‘paths’ down the other side. We had shunned the idea of a guide – seemed like a waste of money and now we are not so sure.

This was obviously the perfect point for James to get a bit tired, grumpy and attempt to push his Dad off the mountain. Brilliant. We pushed on and edged our way down the mountainside on our bums and happily found someone with a good OS style map who helped us out. Just a little more bum shuffling and we could take a right turn to circle back to the original trail. Much better than the alternative – scaling higher up the mountain in high winds with an annoyed toddler… and increasingly annoyed parents since we weren’t even treated to a doughnut!!

Unlike the rest of the day we don’t have any photos of these moments, which tells you everything you need to know about how much we were focused on getting down the mountain in one piece!

Off we set on the return leg. James sat happily on our shoulders with us trying to make our way down a mountain. Actually it wasn’t that bad, easier than climbing up with him on our shoulders but we both had shaky legs by the time we stopped for a waterfall paddle which perked us all up.

Shoes back on we finished the descent and headed as quick as possible for lunch and a Panamanian Balboa – cheers!

It’s our last day in El Valle so after lunch we headed to the volcanic hot springs, for some much needed relaxing.

We were surprised we made it to the top and happy that it means a hike is not off limits for this trip. James has since declared that ‘it was terrible’ but he says that about most things most days so we’re ignoring that for now.

Tomorrow it’s back down to sea level for some beach time!