The Riverside Inn ★★★★★

The Sound You Sleep To Is the River

Palo Alto is the road that climbs out of Boquete along the river of the same name, and the Riverside Inn sits on its bank, in gardens that were planted rather than landscaped over. Six bedrooms, a fireplace living room, a library, a fountain garden and a terrace, and the water running past all of it. At twelve hundred metres the air does the rest: Boquete is known for weather that behaves like a long spring, cool at night, mild by ten in the morning. This is a small house that has decided what it is, which is the hardest thing for a hotel to do.

Why It Works

Six rooms is the number that makes it work. Below it a house cannot run a kitchen properly, and above it the owners stop knowing your name by the second morning. The Riverside sits exactly there, and it spends the room on two things. The first is the garden and the river, which is what you came up the valley for. The second is The Rock, a restaurant that would hold its own without a hotel attached to it, which means dinner is not a compromise on the nights you would rather not drive down into town.

Why This Location

The inn is on Avenida 11 de Abril in Palo Alto, above Bajo Boquete, which puts the town within a short drive and the cloud forest within a shorter one. Boquete is the base for Volcán Barú, the highest point in Panama, and for the Sendero Los Quetzales, the trail that crosses the range towards Cerro Punta. The coffee farms that made the valley famous are on the slopes around you, and the best of them run tastings. Down in town there are restaurants and a market. Up here there is a river and the noise it makes, which is why people book this side of the valley.

Fast Facts

• Price: Upscale

• Vibe: Riverside, country, unhurried

• Rooms: Six, each named: the Master Suite Orquidea, the Maracuya and Baru loft suites, the Jardin and Bajareque junior suites

• Best For: Couples, birdwatchers, walkers using Boquete as a base

• Our Favorite Thing About the Hotel: The riverbank garden at The Rock, where dinner happens above the water

• Dining: The Rock, on site, with a chosen wine list, craft cocktails and locally brewed beer, plus an honour bar and live music on some evenings

• Amenities: Riverside gardens, fireplace living room, library, fountain garden, garden terrace, pet-friendly

• Attractions: Bajo Boquete, Volcán Barú National Park, the Sendero Los Quetzales, the coffee farms of Palo Alto and Jaramillo

Five Suites and a Master, All Named

The rooms are named for what grows here and for what stands over the valley. Orquidea is the master. Maracuya and Baru are the two lofts. Jardin and Bajareque are the junior suites, and bajareque is the local word for the fine wind-driven drizzle that comes off the mountain and gives the valley its rainbows, which tells you how seriously the house takes where it stands. Ask which rooms face the water when you book. In a six-room hotel that question is answered by someone who knows, not by a chart.

The Rock, on the Riverbank

The restaurant takes its setting seriously and works the riverbank garden whenever the weather allows. The list is short and thought through: wine that has been chosen rather than bought by the crate, craft cocktails, and beer brewed in the country. There is live music on some evenings, and an honour bar that runs on trust in the way small hotels used to. Guests eat here because it is good, not because there is nothing else within reach.

Coffee, Cloud Forest and What to Book First

Book the coffee first. The estates around Boquete grow some of the most sought-after beans anywhere, and a good tour walks you from the tree to the cup in a morning. Then the trail: the Sendero Los Quetzales runs through cloud forest where the bird it is named for actually lives, and the season for seeing one is worth asking about before you go. Volcán Barú is the harder day, usually started in the dark to reach the summit at first light. Between them the valley fills with hummingbirds at almost every hour, and the garden here is as good a place to watch them as any trail.