SantA Fe

May 16, 2025

The last stop on our 12 month worldschooling adventure was Panama.  We spent about a month in Santa Fe, a small town about 5 hours from Panama City.  During that month we took side trips to El Salto, a remote cabin in the jungles two hours walk from Santa Fe and to Calavebora, a beach town on the Carribean side about an hour and a half drive from Santa Fe. 

After what seemed like forever we have finally gotten back to slow travel again.  We are holed up in a gorgeous three bedroom house about a 15 minute drive from the town of Santa Fe.  We found it as part of the "People Like Us" home exchange group we belong to.  The owners split there time between Michigan and Santa Fe and happened to be in Michigan when we reached out.  

The house is amazing and we've really just be enjoying our time there, cooking, playing board games and having the kids finish up their academic school year with Pathways Charter.  They also have a cute dog named Gracie who we volunteered to take care of while we were there which the kids loved.  They also had two cats, but since Francesca is allergic, we kept them outside. 

We also spent time swimming at the various watering holes nearby and riding the horses that the owners have on their property.  

There are a few restaurants in Santa Fe that appear to cater to tourists - at least it doens't seem that many locals frequent these places. They are not always Panamanian fare, but all are decent and should be checked out if you are looking for slightly less local establishments in which to eat during your stay.  Click on the below links to see our restaurant reviews for each. 

Ryan and I escaped further into the junlges of Panama for a boys weekend gettaway to El Salto, a small farming community that is a two hour hike from our place in Santa Fe. 

The hike there took us a little over two hours and was mostly uphill, sometimes very steep, but we passed the time with a good father-son chat about a variety of topics. It's nice to have a teenager's captive attention with no devices or siblings to compete with for it. 

The cabin we stayed in is owned by the same people who own our home exchange place in Santa Fe (they also own a beach house on the Carribean side that we'll visit next week).  The farm is owned and run by a lovely couple Egberto and Esther Soto with help from their 22 year old son (the youngest of 10 children!) Josue. 

The cabin, nicknamed Girasol (Spanish for sunflower) is small, but bursting with rustic charm and it's built perched above a waterfall so you fall asleep to the roaring sound of the falls.  There is no electricity so no lights (we used candles and portable LED lights), no charging sell phones and no Wifi - Ryan and I passed the time reading on the deck and playing chess and card games.  

During the day we hiked and swam in the cool waterfall pools of which there were many.  The one a few minutes from the cabin was called La Iguana and had the best swimming hole. One day Josue guided us on an hourlong hike up the mountain passed several other waterfalls, some magnificent, to La Golindrona where we swam and played in the falls.  

The journey is not for the faint of heart in the best weather conditions - indeed Josue brings ropes to help ascend and descend parts of the route - but it was particularly terrifying because all the recent rain had rendered the rocks extremely slippery.  At several points I had to take off my shoes as I had better grip with my feet than my slick soled shoes. 

We ate tasty local meals provided by Egberto and Esther Soto, the farmers on whose property the cabin was built. All the food came from crops they grow on their farm and was largely vegetarian, but we did have a delicious chicken and yucca soup on one occasion. 

At each meal Esther would be in the kitchen cooking and Egberto would sit near us and pepper me with questions in Spanish which I would answer back in my Duolingo Spanish with a healthy helping of Google Translate. 

It was a fun weekend getting back to basics in nature, but we were happy to get back to our creature comforts, and the girls.

Back in Santa Fe we signed up for what we thought would be a relaxing river tubing experience on the Santa Maria River — Panama’s third largest. The kids had never been tubing before, but I used to do it all the time in college. (Any Bucknellians remember those lazy drifts down the Susquehanna, cooler of beer in tow... maybe some recreational extras? Not me, of course!)

So I pictured a calm float with the family — minus the beer and bad decisions. But this is Panama, where the definition of “relaxing” apparently includes a few legit rapids and a looser approach to safety. When the water picked up speed, Francesca and I exchanged some nervous glances…

But we needn’t have worried — the kids had an absolute blast (and honestly, so did we). I was the only one who fell out of my tube. Naturally, there’s video below. Watch 'til the end.

The above is a compilation of just the white water clips.  Below is a bit longer video of the whole experience. 

My family decided to sit this one out so I went solo up El Tute.  From what I had read it was the best mountain to hike if you were only going to choose one.  

There are a few ways you can go - all described in this Santa Fe tourism website - but I chose the 7.75 mile loop trail that boasted a 2,500 ft altitude gain. 

The way up was steep - sometimes very steep - but the trail was wide (mostly a dirt road) until it veered off into the forest which was teeming with colorful butterflies, crickets and beetles. 

After the forest was the open ascent to the summit.  It was super windy, but not too cold. 

The way down was tiring as I was gassed and my slick sneakers slipped a few times on the loose rock dirt road causing scrapes on both arms. 

Santa Fe was the perfect way to unwind as we wound up our yearlong trip. And we are looking forward to our final four days in Panama City with a hotel and a lot of fun city activities.