Author Graham Greene, drawn to return again and again to Panamá, called it a bizarre and beautiful little country. And it is. It runs east to west rather than north to south, confounding one’s sense of direction. Because of Panamá’s “sideways” geographic position, the sun appears to rise over the Pacific and set over the Atlantic.

Panamá has rural traditions and big-city sophistication, and is filled with more treats and surprises than a party piñata. Exotic wild creatures, some found nowhere else on earth, populate millions of acres of pristine cloud forests and tropical lowland jungles. Jaguars roam free and indigenous people live much as they did before Columbus discovered the New World. Wildlife is abundant and visible – in rain-forests less than half an hour from the cosmopolitan capital and in a wilderness park within its borders. This tiny country, about the size of South Carolina, contains a biodiversity greater than any other in Central America, including Costa Rica, its famed eco-destination neighbor to the north. There are more bird species here than in all the US and Canada combined, and more plant and tree species than the US, Canada, and Europe. Rich mangrove forests and endless stretches of white, gold or black sand beaches border its 1,800 miles of Caribbean and Pacific coastlines. More than 1,500 islands – some rugged and forested, others mere specks of paradisiacal white sand with a few swaying coconut palms – lie in its crystalline seas. And you’ll find its people as warm and welcoming as the tropical sunshine – and as diverse and exotic as its landscapes.

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