There are sunsets you stop for, and then there are sunsets that make you completely forget what you were doing.
At Lost and Found Hostel, high in the mountains of Chiriquí, the balcony is one of those places where you can accidentally lose an hour simply because the sky has decided to put on a show. You might have been playing cards, drinking a beer, talking to someone you met that afternoon or trying to decide whether you have enough energy left for another walk. Then somebody looks toward the horizon and says, “Look at that.”
And suddenly everyone is outside.
Lost and Found sits high in the mountains of the Fortuna Forest Reserve, on the continental divide between Chiriquí and Bocas del Toro. From the property, the landscape stretches away toward the mountains, valleys and distant slopes around Boquete and Volcán Barú. It is a very different view from the classic Panama postcard of palm trees and tropical beaches.
This is mountain Panama, and sunset here has its own personality.
The balcony is the perfect place to do absolutely nothing
One of the best things about watching sunset from the balcony isn't really the sunset.
It's the fact that there is nowhere you need to go.
You don't have to hike to a viewpoint. You don't have to find a beach. You don't have to book a tour or climb a mountain. You can simply sit down with a drink and watch the landscape change.
The mountains that looked green and ordinary during the afternoon begin to take on deeper shades as the sun drops. Clouds catch the remaining light. Valleys become silhouettes. The sky can move from blue to yellow, orange, pink and purple in the space of a few minutes.
And because you are high in the mountains, clouds often become part of the performance.
Sometimes the sunset is a clean, dramatic explosion of colour.
Sometimes it is completely different.
The sun disappears behind clouds and the entire sky glows from underneath them, turning ordinary-looking clouds into enormous illuminated shapes.
You never quite know what you're going to get
That is part of the fun.
Tropical sunsets aren't necessarily predictable. Weather moves quickly through the mountains, and a cloudy afternoon can suddenly produce an incredible evening.
There are days when the sky seems determined to remain grey right until the last possible moment.
Then, just before sunset, a gap appears.
The sun slips underneath the cloud layer.
For ten minutes, everything changes.
The mountains catch the light. The clouds turn gold. The horizon becomes orange and pink, and everybody who was previously sitting inside somehow ends up standing on the balcony.
Then it's gone.
That's one of the reasons you don't really want to arrive at the balcony five minutes after sunset.
Sunset becomes a social event
At many hostels, sunset means taking a photograph and going back inside.
At Lost and Found, it can become part of the evening.
Someone has a guitar. Someone else has found a beer. A couple of backpackers are comparing where they've travelled from. Somebody is trying to photograph the same cloud with a phone that has seen better days.
People who didn't know each other an hour earlier are suddenly standing together watching the same sky.
That's one of the great things about a social hostel. The view gives everyone something to talk about.
You don't need an introduction.
You can simply point at the horizon and say, “That's pretty amazing.”
Conversation tends to take care of itself after that.
Bring a beer
There are few complicated instructions for enjoying a Lost and Found sunset.
Find a comfortable place.
Bring something cold to drink.
Don't stare at your phone.
Watch the sky.
Lost and Found has a jungle lounge atmosphere, so the sunset naturally becomes part of the evening rather than a separate tourist activity. There is no rush to get back to a tour bus or restaurant reservation.
You can sit there and let the day wind down.
And perhaps that is one of the most underrated luxuries of backpacking.
Not doing anything.
The mountains make it different
Beach sunsets get most of the attention in travel advertising.
There is a reason for that. A huge orange sun dropping into the Pacific Ocean is difficult to beat.
But mountain sunsets have another kind of drama.
At Lost and Found, you're watching light move across an enormous landscape. The mountains create layers, and clouds constantly rearrange the view.
You can watch sunlight disappear from one ridge while another remains illuminated.
You can see distant mountains become progressively darker.
You can watch mist and clouds settle into valleys as daylight fades.
And then, suddenly, the landscape that looked enormous during the afternoon becomes a series of dark silhouettes against the last colour in the sky.
It feels less like watching the sun go down and more like watching an entire landscape shut down for the night.
And then comes the best part
Don't leave immediately when the sun disappears.
The few minutes after sunset can sometimes be just as beautiful.
The sky doesn't instantly go dark. There can be a lingering band of colour along the horizon while the mountains become silhouettes.
This is often when people finally put their cameras down.
The conversation gets quieter.
The first stars begin appearing.
And somewhere in the jungle below, the evening shift is getting started.
At Lost and Found, night is when some of the forest's more unusual residents become active. Kinkajous, olingos, armadillos and other nocturnal wildlife can appear after dark, while the forest begins filling with completely different sounds.
The sunset is therefore not really the end of the day.
It's the transition between two completely different versions of the jungle.
A sunset worth staying for
A lot of backpacking is about movement.
Next bus. Next town. Next beach. Next waterfall. Next country.
Lost and Found is one of those places where it is worth slowing down.
Sit on the balcony.
Watch the mountains.
Have a beer.
Meet somebody new.
Wait for the first stars.
You might have arrived at Lost and Found thinking about getting to Boquete or Bocas del Toro the following day. You might have planned to stay one night and move on.
Then the sun starts going down.
Someone says, “Wow.”
You sit back down.
And suddenly tomorrow doesn't seem quite so important.
Because sometimes the best part of backpacking through Panama isn't finding another attraction.
It's finding a balcony where you can watch the entire day disappear.