WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE

A hike through Panama's Parque Internacional La Amistad highlights wonders, both of the natural world and within the hikers themselves.

You probably already know that Panama is a connector: of oceans, of trade routes, of North and South America. What the Backpacker team found out when we embarked on a five-day trek through Parque Internacional La Amistad-which straddles the provinces of Chiriquí and Bocas Del Toro on the western edge of the country-was a link to so much more: to a pristine jungle ecosystem, to Indigenous tribes who've called the land home for millennia, and to our wildest hiking dreams.

EMBRACE THE UNFAMILIAR

In Panama, I left my expectations behind.

By Amelia Arvesen

I'm in a hiking version of the floor is lava, hopping as gingerly as I can between mounds of grass with my 40-pound pack. Around me spreads the 800-square-mile Parque Internacional La Amistad (PILA) that encompasses the montane jungles of the Cordillera de Talamanca.

As I look in wonder and exhaustion at the ridgeline ahead, my right foot slips into a muddy hole carved out by cows that sometimes graze these pastures. I feel a sharp pinch in my ankle. Just what I need: an injury on the second day of our five-day trek. As I steady myself, I'm relieved to find that it doesn't hurt to walk, but I'm annoyed nonetheless. Our guide, Plinio, says camp isn't much farther.

Once at the shelter-a tin-and-wood hut for Indigenous shepherds who pass through these mountains with their flocks-I peel off my sopping shoes and socks. There's no swelling, but I do find blisters the size of quarters on the pads of my pruney toes. If I wrap them in dry bandages now, they'll only get wet again when I pitch my tent in the gentle but steady rain.