Chachagua Rainforest Hotel - Retired in Costa Rica

I went here because a friend recommended it and I did like it and got a lot of good nature photos with some new butterflies. They have natural hot springs that you can go get in any time of the day or night. It is kind of a cool place with lots of nature trails and beautiful gardens and a lot of birds. So a very nice place I can recommend, just not my favorite. Read more about it on their website: Chachagua Rainforest Hotel.

Would I Go Back There Again?

Yes.

Likes

All the many birds & other wildlife I got to photograph.
A very nice room with a couple of dislikes listed below.
Good food.

Dislikes

I was in a row of cabins almost side by side and I could hear the conversations next door.
Though the photo below doesn’t show it, the lighting was not good and thus difficult to read in the room at night.
Their main nature trail used for both day & night hikes was in bad maintenance and very muddy. No excuse for that!

BIRDS Slideshow from Chachagua . . .

Yellow-throated Toucan
Fiery-billed Aracari
Variable Seedeater
Muscovy Duck
Great Kiskadee
Rufous-tailed Hummingbird
Great Egret
Scarlet-rumped Tanager female
Band-tailed Barbthroat
Yellow-throated Toucan

Nature & Other Activities

As noted in my likes above, I got a lot of photos of both birds and other wildlife.
Plenty of trails, roads, and sidewalks to walk around the property on your own looking for things to photograph.
Multiple kinds of guided hikes during the day and an excellent night hike.
Their website has a page full of “Rainforest Experiences” that include the above hiking, horseback riding, hot springs (feature photo) soaking on your own, a Coffee and Cacao Tour, Outdoor Cooking Class, a swimming pool, and a map to help your get around the place! 🙂

OTHER WILDLIFE Slideshow from Chachagua Rainforest Hotel . . .

Simple Sarota
Hourglass Tree Frog
Unidentified Grasshopper
Blue Jeans Frog
Doris Longwing
Emerald Basilisk
Green-eyed Dancer Damselfly
Eastern Amberwing
Rainbow Trout
Skimmer Family of Dragonflies
Many-banded Daggerwing
Three-toed Sloth
Barnes’ Metalmark

Rooms & Food

Very nice & comfortable room with my couple of dislikes noted above and the food was very good, gourmet at times.

Getting There

Driving it is 82 km or about 2 hours.
I haven’t checked bus schedules or what is the closest town for a bus, but if it is Ciudad Quesada, you would have a pretty long taxi ride from there. Study maps with thebusschedule.com/cr open to get your closest arrival place or ask the lodge, but because it is a more expensive lodge, I doubt that many if any go by bus.