When first reading about Boquete, where we’d be spending a week with our Spanish school, Alex noted the opportunity to go up Volcan Baru, at 3,443 m (11,296 ft) the highest peak in Panamá, and the highest in Southern Central America. Alex was keen but when we looked up the hike we realised that a climb of 1,636 m (5,367 ft), starting at an altitude where you can experience altitude sickness, might be beyond us considering that neither of us do well at altitude without acclimatising!
The last thing that really made me think this was a bad idea was that in order to avoid the heat most people attempt the climb at night starting at midnight for a 6 hour hike to the summit in complete darkness.
There is another way though. You can visit the summit in a modified 4×4 that climbs up the rough track in 2 hours leaving at the only slightly more reasonable time of 3:30am.
As we approached our week in Boquete, there emerged two camps in our group. One group wanted to take the 4×4 up for $95 each, and the other wanted to hike, which without a guide is nearly free. There was, in fact, a 3rd group of two who thought the whole idea was insane and preferred to get some sleep.
Continue reading “Climbing Volcan Baru – the highest mountain in Panama!”