2 new hotels in Cambutal

Unless you are a hardcore surfer and love to sleep on your board, most people prefer a decent bed. Upto a couple of months ago, the board was one of the options in Cambutal and a tent was ´the boutique´option. Now Boom Shiva has 2 lovely beach ranchos with 2 queen size beds, a bathroom with rain shower and a balcony right on Playa Cambutal. At night you can hear the waves crashing on the beach from your bed and on clear nights you see the Milky Way. In the morning you can jump into the Pacific, after waking up with your morning coffee. Call 67454745 or 67884017 for reservations.

On the same road Hotel Playa Cambutal is under construction, a small high end hotel with a couple of rooms.

How to get to Cambutal

Good maps in Panama are hard to come by. The best Panama map I have seen so far was bought by my father in Europe. When you are on the road and it turns out there is no road, contrary to what your map says, you can always ask around. Panamanians are always willing to help out. Problem is, everything is either ´very far´ or 5 minutes away.

From Panama City you take the Interamericana for about 2-2.5 hours. This is the easy part. At Divisa (after Anton-Penonomé-Aguadulce) you take a left turn with the fly over. Then you drive down to Chitre and Las Tablas.
Now here it gets tricky. There are 2 roads, one goes down the coast to Pocrí-Pedasí-Límon-Playa Venado and the second one goes through the mountains. Most people will automatically direct you to the coastal route. Which is longer. The mountain road has been recently renewed and goes to Tonosí (passing Cacao-Valle Rico).
Drive through town in Tonosí, last fuel stop bytheway and it has supermarkets, there´s only one main road passing the small plaza. About 300 m out of town you will pass a restaurant. From here on it is about 30-40 minutes to Cambutal. There will be 2 ´major´ forks. Do not take a lefthand to Guanico and do turn left at the next fork. From here on you just keep driving till you hit the village.

Good maps only at Tommy Guardia Instituto Geografico Nacional

Driving to Cambutal

Traveling with a baby can be gruesome and with a new carseat and a 5 hour ride I expect the worse. And as usual it turns out to be the opposite of what I expect. Junior loves his seat because he can look out of the window now. We only have to make one stop, just after Antón. The girls at the foodstand love Juniors blond hair and carry him around while we enjoy a great chicheme and chicken with rice for 1.90$

It´s Carnaval weekend but the only police we meet is at Las Tablas & they are directing traffic so we do not get stopped. The new road from Las Tablas to Tonosí is a great drive now, it goes smooth and fast. On the deserted road we do get stopped by the police however ..... As we roll down the window he recognizes our party and breaks into a smile. Hola! Como estan? I need to talk to you, he says. I have a property for sale. We invite him to drop by the office this weekend. We do get a reproach for not wearing seatbelts though ......

The winding road gets sloping, with lots of green around. At the usual bridge over the river we can hear the monkeys great us. Junior starts smiling and wriggling, as if he wants to join the monkeys in their cool trees.