How To Hike The Lost Waterfalls Trail, Boquete — ALONG DUSTY ROADS

By Car

We had a rental car for half of our month in Panama, and it was ideal for independently exploring the trails around Boquete.

It’s a beautiful 25-minute drive out from the town: winding narrow roads over hanging bridges, past little fincas, and rose farms over the river. When you come to the what looks like the end of the road by the bus shelter (it’s not, it curves round to the left), you’ll see signposts for several hikes: Quetzales Trail, The Pipeline Trail, and The Lost Waterfall.

You need to take the road to the right after the bus shelter. Your GPS will send you that way, but it’s quite an obscured road on first look, but there is a sign for ‘Lost Waterfalls Trail – 1.2 kilometre‘. It will take you up the narrow road right to the entrance.

Sidenote: rather confusingly, there’s a sign on the road straight ahead that says ‘Pipeline Trail’ and ‘The Waterfall Trail / ‘Cascada Escondida’ (there’s a hidden waterfall at the end of this trail hence the name) – this is NOT the road you take for the Lost Waterfall Trail.

There’s not a lot of space for parking, with the best area being a small gravel lay-by on the right hand side of the road a little bit before the entrance (here on Google Maps). If that’s full, keep going and find a suitable place on the roadside – the challenge is getting tight in but not so tight that you end up stuck in the mud or precariously close to the edge!

If there are multiple cars, there may be a little bit of gridlock and confusion as everyone goes through the same mistake of thinking the road ends here (it doesn’t, and you can easily keep going past the entrance in order to turn around).

Note that, at the main entrance sign, you do not need to turn right and continue down as it’s a very bad road. However, those with high-clearance 4x4s can choose – or will be instructed – to go down there and park.

We’ve probably made that all a bit more complicated than it really is, but hopefully it saves some uncertainty/confusion on arrival.

If you’re considering a Panama road trip, then you can find our itinerary here and also read our absolutely essential Panama driving tips post.

Good to Know // As mentioned, The Lost Waterfalls hike is very close to the equally popular Pipeline Trail (where we saw a quetzal), so combining them into the same day trip from Boquete seems to make a lot of sense.

But it’s not as simple as that.

In fact, the daily rhythm of Boquete’s very specific climate (clear skies and crisp sunshine in the early mornings, then cloud and rains rolling in from around midday) means all hikes are best done in the morning, with anything started in the afternoon having a significant chance of being wet and grey. Therefore, a better idea is to do the Pipeline and Tres Cascadas on separate mornings.