Turismo Milodon

This was truly an amazing place! Our cabana was large with several intimate spaces to escape to. The pool was wonderful and everything felt so quiet and private with only 8 rooms and adults-only. The access to the beach and the restaurant/bar on the beach was extremely convenient and also very quiet.

This is beautiful, boutique hotel nestled on the mountainside. Each casita was a stand alone accomodation with a porch facing the mountains. We were greeted warmly by the office manager. The breakfast was outstanding!

The location is perfect! We were within walking distance of all the key sights in Casco Viejo and the hotel itself was beautiful, very comfortable and with great on-site amenities.

Due to the rough surf, we were not able to go to Isla de Pajaros. Instead, they took us through the Snyder Canal on the mainland north of Almirante. Our guide knew we liked to photograph wildlife, so they chose this as an alternative for us. It was nice. We also enjoyed hiking from Playa del Drago to Playa de Estrellas, having lunch on the beach and swimming to see the starfish.

We were very pleasantly surprised to have a private boat tour.... just us, the boat driver, and our guide. We had so much room to photograph and they spent whatever amount of time we wanted when a special wildlife sighting occurred.

It was awesome to see this small, family-run coffee plantation. We got a very intimate tour and enjoyed tasting the different coffees. I was excited to be able to try the Geisha coffee that is so famous.

We went on a shorter hike on Sendero Culebra trail, chosen by our guide due to the fact that he was determined to find us a quetzal.... so endearing! We didn't enjoy the hike itself as much as Los Quetzales and after about 1.5 hrs, I asked to turn around. I think I would have preferred hiking to the Three Waterfalls instead, but frankly, the Los Quetzales trail was so awesome I could have really foregone the 2nd day of hiking.

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We loved this mountainous, rainforest region of Panama. We loved our full one-way hike on Los Quetzales trail. Our guide, Elvis was awesome and such a gentleman who tried so hard to find a quetzal for us. The hike was beautiful and a bit challenging, but it was comfortable knowing we had a guide who did not push the pace too hard. We were happy that we started the hike in Cerro Punta which was supposed to be a bit easier than starting in Boquete. The 2-hr. drive the trailhead was beautiful and gave us an appreciation of the landscape.

It was great to see some of the new part of the city and the original Panama City ruins. We enjoyed seeing the IMAX movie at the Miraflores VC, but we could see nothing on the observation deck due to the crowds. I'm not sure if there was anything else to see at the VC. Overall, due to the fact that we experienced the full transit of the canal, we could have skipped the VC. We had little time for our tour of Casco Viejo and would have preferred more time for that. Due to being short on time, we had to drive through the crowded streets instead of walking. Luckily, we had scheduled some extra time into our trip on both ends so we could do some exploring on our own.

This was amazing and everything I had imagined. We are so glad we booked a full transit as it gave us a full picture of this engineering marvel. The only glitch we had was the pick up time was confusing. Gapa gave us a pick up time of 6:30 and between 6:00 and 6:15, the hotel staff were hunting us down at breakfast to inform us someone was waiting for us. We quickly finished our meal and met our driver who seemed to be in a hurry. We arrived at the ticket office/line for embarkation around 7 and were nearly the last to board the boat. If we had been picked up at the agreed upon time, we might have missed the boat.

We loved the overall concept of this and there were parts of it we really enjoyed: sampling ceviche at the Fish Market and having cocktails on the Lazotea rooftop bar. There were 2 things we were disappointed about, however. The restaurant choice, Canal House was not a good choice. While it was located near the canal, it was dark when we were there, so we couldn't see anything. We were only given 2 choices for our meal and we really disliked the option we chose. Also, it took a very long time to be served. We sat with nothing (no drinks even) for over 30 minutes. The atmosphere was extremely loud (live band playing) and it was very hard to hear our guide talking to us. Also, we had just met our guide, Victor and we thought it was sort of strange that he sat and ate with us. He was hard to understand with the loud environment so it was stressful. We enjoyed meeting Victor and sharing ceviche and cocktails after dinner, but an improvement for the future would be to leave us alone for dinner. Also, I would recommend that the dinner location also be in Casco Viejo. Overall, it would be much more time in between events and we could even walk to each venue and explore Casco Viejo at the same time.

We really enjoyed Casa Molino, one of nicer hotels at which we have stayed. The hotel is a grand house in the countryside and right on Lago Llanquihue, with a view across to Vulcan Orsono that is unreal. We had a 2nd floor very comfortable room with huge windows facing that amazing view. The grounds and the house are immaculately kept and beautifully designed, with peaceful indoor and outdoor areas to relax and take in the view. The property has a nice short garden walk down to the lakeshore to its small beach, very nice. While staying at Casa Molino we had all our dinners there, the food and service was some of the best we had during our travels in Chile.

Boat ride on Lago Todos de los Santos and easy/moderate hike on the side of Vulcan Orsono made for a pleasant and relaxing day.

We very much enjoyed hiking in the Valley of the Moon and experiencing this completely unique desert scenery. After the hike we drove further into the park to see the Tres Marias which we could have skipped, not as interesting in our opinion. Then to a nice viewpoint overlooking the Valley of the Moon and San Pedro for snacks and cocktails at sunset which was nice.

This tour was great. Need get up very early to experience the geysers at sunrise but totally worth it. The drive up from San Pedro to the very high altitude plains with views of the much higher mountains is spectacular.

Overall this day trip was OK but not as spectacular as our other Atacama tours IMO. The lagoons viewing and viewing and hiking at Piedras Rojas were nice enough.