Holiday review by Mr. Andrew Thompson
Name: Mr. Andrew Thompson
Date of trip: 06/02/2018
Number of people: 2
Tribes Overall:
A memorable, inspiring trip, with great wildlife!
An excellent choice of hotels/lodges
(thanks Alex) for a first visit to CR – many different habitats and associated
varied wildlife, especially birds. Favourite accommodations were Rancho
Naturalista and Macaw Lodge, as their smaller set-ups allowed for greater
attention to detail and care by the staff. The food at these two was excellent too.
Another time, I would definitely stay at these two again...
The places you stayed

Trapp Family Hotel
Monteverde
Spacious room, though rather cold; asked
for space heater!
Food 7/10
Guided walk of Curi-Cancha with guide Eric = good, but wet,
windy, cold conditions – not ideal!
(Impromptu walk to) Hummingbird café 1km up the road from hotel = fun – a bit touristy, but
so many hummingbirds !

Macaw Lodge
Costa Rica
Isolated,
stunning setting. Self-sustaining regime: impressive. Welcome and food = equal
to Rancho Naturalista.
24 person capacity, in lodges built from
the forest.
Trip to Carara National Park ( 1 ½ hours: driver
Carlos = v chatty, attentive and cheery), north sector, primarily to see
scarlet macaws. Good guide (Franklin), but we weren’t expecting to be part of a
group – another couple were also present. However,
we had excellent sightings of scarlet macaws.
Changed itinerary so we stayed at Macaw
Lodge an extra day (as it was so beautiful there)instead of going back to San Jose.
SwissTravel re-arrangement: fast efficient, easy!

Hotel Presidente
San Jose
We were given a double bed, though we had
asked for a twin. They moved us to a twin room immediately.
Neither of us keen on air conditioning, but
we had to use this as window wouldn’t open. Otherwise, the room was clean and
acceptable. We ate dinner in the city (Sylvestre’s – excellent) and the hotel
breakfast was perfectly adequate.