Cerro Punta, Panama

Almost 2000m above sea level in a bowl-shaped valley surrounded by densely forested mountains, CERRO PUNTA is the highest village in Panama. In the eighty or so years since it was settled, the town's fertile soil has produced some eighty percent of all the vegetables consumed in Panama – there are little patches of cultivated land everywhere you look – although this agricultural boom has not done the surrounding forests any good. The town's altitude gives it a very special atmosphere – it seems incredibly crisp, and the taste of the food and the smell of the orchids seem all the better for it. More