For most of the week, El Valle de Antón is a sleepy mountain village where flowers far outnumber visitors. But everything changes on Sundays, when well-to-do Panamanians and foreign tourists flock to the town’s weekly handicrafts market. El Valle’s usually empty streets fill with cars, and vendors set up stalls loaded with baskets, pottery, wood carvings and countless other handmade items in and around the bustling market building.

El Valle occupies the huge crater of an extinct volcano that blew its top some 3 million years ago. At 600 meters (1,968 feet) above sea level, the town is much cooler than sweltering Panama City, 123 kilometers (77 miles) to the west. Most people come to El Valle for the crafts market and to revel in the fresh mountain air, but there are also gardens, a zoo, a nature reserve, and an ancient petroglyph site to explore.

The majority of El Valle’s handicrafts are made by the Guaymi, the largest of Panama’s seven indigenous groups. Guaymis also bring fresh produce and flowers, including brilliant white orchids, to the market.

Colorful molas (reverse appliqué panels), made by Kuna Indians from the San Blas Islands off Panama’s Caribbean coast, and textiles from as far away as Peru are for sale as well. There are also finely woven baskets and disconcertingly realistic tagua nut carvings of insects, lizards and other jungle inhabitants, fashioned by the Embera and Wounaan Indians of Panama’s Darien Province.

Among the most popular locally made crafts are bateas (decorated hardwood trays used by the Guaymis for tossing rice and corn) plus clay and soapstone statuettes of frogs, owls and campesinos sporting wide-brimmed hats. Real black-and-white hats known as montunos also dangle from ropes and hooks. These so-called "Panama hats" are woven from white palm fibers and decorated with black geometric patterns.

When market-overload sets in, head for the Chorro El Macho nature reserve, a short distance north of town. Here, you can walk along peaceful forest trails to a misty 35-meter-high (115-foot-high) waterfall, or you can literally fly like Tarzan through the bromeliad-laden treetops using a system of harnesses, steel cables, and platforms. This exciting aerial ride, called The Canopy Adventure, was built by a Panama City-based ecotourism company (www.canopytower.com/Adventure/). They employ local people to manage the reserve, which is home to several species of hummingbirds and endangered ranas doradas, or golden frogs.

A good place to see El Valle’s famous golden frogs is at nearby El Níspero, a private property that has been turned into a plant nursery and zoo with park-like grounds. These diminutive frogs are bright orange with black spots, and have slender feet that allow them to cling to slippery leaves and vines. Central American animals such as toucans, macaws, monkeys, and tapirs are on display, along with exotic birds from China and Japan. El Níspero’s plant nursery has more than 200 orchid species and many other ornamental plants for sale.

The rambling Hotel Campestre (983-6146), a popular 1920s-era lodge on the outskirts of town, also has a small exhibit of golden frogs. Behind the hotel is a grove of árboles cuadrados, square-trunked trees which supposedly can be seen nowhere else in the world. However, they seem more of a tourism gimmick than a genuine botanical oddity.

One of the most unusual sights in El Valle is at La Pintada, an area with large stones covered with whimsical petroglyphs. Giggling local children act as self-appointed guides who, for a small tip, will lead you through the woods to the carvings. The biggest boulder is the size of a small house and one side is entirely covered in squiggles, spirals and vaguely anthropomorphic figures etched by pre-Hispanic abstract artists. The origin and meaning of these ancient doodlings remain a mystery.

More petroglyphs can be found in the Museo El Valle next to the church in the center of town. This small museum also has pre-Columbian urns, folk costumes, colonial religious art, and information on the region’s volcanic beginnings.

GETTING THERE:

By Car: From downtown Panama City, cross the Bridge of the Americas and head west on the Inter-American highway. The turnoff to El Valle is on the right-hand side about 2.5 kilometers (1.5 miles) beyond the Playa Río Mar exit. From the turnoff, it is roughly 30 kilometers (19 miles) to El Valle along a well-paved road.

By Bus: Buses to El Valle leave from the Terminal de Buses al Interior in the Curundu district of Panama City. The trip takes about 2.5 hours.