El Níspero Zoo & EVACC Golden Frog Center

Why Go

The golden frog. El Valle is where Panama's national symbol actually lived, in the streams running off these crater walls, until the chytrid fungus wiped out the wild population in the mid-2000s. The EVACC center on the zoo grounds is one of the very few places in the country where you can still stand in front of a living one. The zoo around it is the bonus: sloths, spider monkeys, toucans, a tapir, a jaguar, on grounds that started as a plant nursery and never stopped feeling like one.

What to Expect

El Níspero never set out to be a zoo. It began as a working plant nursery run by a local agronomist who kept birds, and over the years so many people dropped off sick, injured or unwanted animals that a zoo more or less happened by accident. The seven acres at the foot of Cerro Gaital now hold over ninety species, and the grounds still feel like a nursery the animals moved into: plants everywhere, gravel paths, no map at the entrance. Some enclosures are generous, others are small and dated. If that matters to you, you'll notice it, and it's fair to know before you pay.

Plan the visit around EVACC, the El Valle Amphibian Conservation Center. It began in 2006 as an emergency, with two conservationists collecting frogs into a hotel room while the fungus moved through the valley, and the permanent building opened a year later with backing from the Houston, San Antonio and San Diego zoos. Half of it is closed breeding and quarantine space. The other half is a public exhibit of native Panamanian amphibians, with the golden frog at the center: a species declared Panama's national symbol by law in 2010, a year after it had already vanished from the wild. It's one room, maybe fifteen minutes, and it's the most worthwhile fifteen minutes in El Valle.

Getting There

• On foot: About 1.5 km from the main market turn-off, the last stretch on gravel road. A flat 20-minute walk, signposted from the main street.
• By taxi: A couple of dollars from anywhere in town, and the easier option in the midday heat.

Good to Know

• Cash at the gate, and take whatever price is posted there over anything you read online, including this. $6 for foreign visitors and $4 for Panamanians is the current standard.
• The EVACC exhibit has kept its own hours in the past, with Tuesday as its closing day. If the frog is your reason for coming, ask at your accommodation before setting off on a Tuesday.
• Don't count on the bathrooms having running water.
• There's no map, so wander with time to spare. Mornings are the livelier visit; by early afternoon most of the animals are sleeping off the heat.