The special thing about Tortuguero is that there is a very high return on the guests investment, when guests spend a day in the park they are often rewarded with sightings of three different species of monkeys, multiple species of tropical birds, reptiles such as boa constrictors, eye-lash vipers, land turtles, sloths, caimans and crocodiles, playful river otters and much more. When you visit Tortuguero National Park by motorized boat or by kayak, you hold your breath because you just know that you will see some new creature around the next bend.

Sightings in Tortuguero are potentially intimate. By this I mean that I have sat in a boat that is so close to a male Howler Monkey that I could have reached out and touched him. He was chewing on the new born leaves of a bush on the bank of the river and I could see his torn ear, the scars on his face I imagined that they were his battle scars from territorial fights, I could even see the chewed up leaves inside his mouth, his teeth.

I've been on a boat and watched a troop of Spider Monkeys cross the river. The really strong ones, flying through the air from one side to the other, the branches dipping low with their weight and then back almost to their original position. Then moms and grandmas make a bridge and baby monkeys walk across them to get to the other side. Always the cocky adolescent thinking he or she can make it unassisted and then missing it and having to scramble to the top. You have front row seats to this theater here.

As your boat coasts down the creek a Slattey Tailed Trogon on a branch over the river, you see it coming and hold your breath as you glide under it, next a pair of Tiger Herons have a fantastic nest built on a branch hanging over the creek. They seem to be having a discussion that I decide to interpret as a disagreement about whose turn it is to sit on the nest. This goes on for a very long time, we sit and watch. They negotiate until finally dad sits and mom goes hunting.

Sometimes it's as much fun watching the guides react to nature as it is to see the wildlife. I've seen guides get so excited about a Green Ibis or the Great Green Macaws that I've actually reached out to steady someone that I was sure would end up in the water.

The sounds are tropical rainforest sounds, monkeys crashing through the trees, birds warning off a predator of their nest, the chirping, bickering and banter that accompanies flocks of birds foraging. In the distance a seed pod that filled with gas finally explodes sending out a cloud of seeds that will fly somewhere and land in the mud and fight to grow. The river water is a mirror reflecting the trees on its bank.

In Tortuguero you'll hear the hardest rain you've ever heard. I don't know what rain sounds like in India or Bangladesh for example, but it Tortuguero it rains hard and the sound is impressive.

If you lie in your hammock in front of your room and close your eyes and just listen, you will hear life going on in the forest.

Tortuguero is the closest thing we have to an African Safari, the dynamic is similar, you get into a motorized vehicle and go out with a gifted local guide to navigate the creeks of the park and look for a creature, tree or flower to add to your list of things experienced.

I've been to the Amazon and I'm sure many of our guests have been too. Although the Amazon is fabulous because of the river system and sheer expanse, it's so big that it's hard to really grasp. It's also harder to see animals because they are hunted much more than in Tortuguero and much more afraid of humans. Costa Rica also has the advantage that you don't have to worry so much about getting sick. Our water and food is safer.

Kayaking gives the rainforest a different perspective. You're in the water where you can paddle past the turtle sunbathing on the tree trunk and you can watch the croc swim by. I like to lean back as far as I can and look up and see the pattern of the leaves against the sky. On a kayak you're down in the water so you have an eye level view of the understory of the forest. I've seen agouti digging for seeds and other species of birds gingerly walking along in search of crabs and bugs.

In Tortuguero it's as humid as you'll ever feel. We love it, but our guests don't especially like it. It's warm to hot. You wear sandals, shorts, t-shirts, caps, sunglasses and lots of sun screen for the boat rides. But then all of the sudden the wind picks up, the smell changes, gray clouds roll in and open up with the epitome of a tropical downpour. Pull out the rain ponchos, hide your face because the rain hurts and hunch over. It rains like hell for 20 minutes sometimes less sometimes more and then the sun comes out again and the wildlife goes back to its business.

In Tortuguero there are two communities. One, the Tortuguero Village, is the original town. The people that live there are African Americans that are descendants of mostly Jamaicans from either Nicaragua or Costa Rica. If you read the biographies of the staff at Tortuga Lodge you will see that we have employees that immigrated to Tortuguero from Nicaragua running from Somoza and others that immigrated running from the Sandinistas. The descendants of the first 5-6 families that settled in Tortuguero are still there and tell of hunting for food, fishing, swimming in the river and eating sea turtle meat during the season.

The second town is San Francisco de la Boca de Tortuguero. This town is the home of the Word Adventure. This town was originally a squatter's town; they took over a piece of the park where there is an ancient volcano. The parks service actually burned the town down a couple of times trying to get them out. Now they have everything that a town in Costa Rica has to have to be considered a proper town, a church, a school and a cantina.

The lodge itself is very laid back. It sits right on the Tortuguero River and everything you do is done in the company of the river. Motor boats are often cruising up and down the river; very brown people are paddling by in dugout canoes.

The rooms are simple, very simple. It's a real testament to the work of the lodge staff and the guides that our upscale guests leave the lodge extremely happy. The rooms are clean, with lots of air circulating.Tthe rooms do not have windows, they have screens which help keep you cool and have the added advantage of letting you listen to the sounds of the rainforest. Each room hot water showers with tired tiles, a front porch with a River View and a hammock and that's it. The best amenities we have are Mantled Howler monkeys that bark starting at about 4am every day!

Guests often ask us why they should go to Tortuguero when the Atlantic Green Sea Turtle isn't nesting (late June - September). What I've written up until now tells you why guests should go even if the turtles aren't nesting. The turtles are a big plus, a once in a lifetime experience, but I think everyone that travels to Costa Rica and is interested in wildlife and the rainforest should go to Tortuguero rain or shine, turtles or no turtles. If you have the opportunity to travel during turtle season, fantastic, but if you can't, don't miss out on the monkeys, crocs, tropical birds and expanse of rainforest.

There are two different ways to get to Tortuguero. We offer a comfortable van for either 6 passengers or 18 passengers with A/C and a bilingual guide. The van leaves San Jose in the early morning and drives 3 hours to the dock where a Tortuga Lodge boat is waiting to take guests the rest of the way.

The ride in the van can be fascinating. Less than 30 minutes after leaving the crowded, dirty, bustling city of San Jose you are surrounded by what you've seen on TV, tropical rainforest. The vistas are truly fantastic. When I drive I have to constantly remind myself to keep my eyes on the road. First guests drive through the Braulio Carrillo National Park. We don't stop here because there are very few worthwhile trails and it's also an extremely busy highway and not a good place to have bus stopped by the side of the road that is obviously full of tourists. The traffic is the main concern, but there have also been incidences of theft.

In an hour you will feel the change in elevation and the humidity of the lowlands of the Atlantic Coast. This is banana, pineapple and ornamental plant territory. The highway is busy on both sides with farm machinery, people walking and people on bikes, lots and lots of trucks coming and going.

This highway is the gateway to one of the most important port cities in Costa Rica, it requires extremely careful driving.

The final leg of the drive takes you through miles of banana plantations. Guides often stop at the processing plant to allow guests to see how banana's are sorted and packed. We don't promise this because there is no way to know when they are going to be working and when not. They work according to when they need to ship.

The Caño Blanco dock is a busy place. We try to get guests off the van, to the bathrooms and on the boat as fast as possible. It's really just a big parking lot, a convenience store, a long line of bathrooms and lots of tourism buses and their guests coming and going.

The trip on the river is nice, but not as nice as the experience when you take a boat or kayak tour of the park. The river has farm land and cattle farms on either side. BUT for people that have never experienced this, it's interesting. Very quickly they will see crocodiles sunbathing, roseate spoon bills fishing and the homes of country people that live on the bank of the river.

If you're planning on driving yourself, keep in mind that finding your way through the banana plantations is not easy and a bit scary. On the website in the section titled, "How to Get Here", you will find detailed driving instructions. I suggest that you rent a car with a GPS and use the written driving instructions. It's tricky.

The second way to get to Tortuguero is to fly. What freaks people out about flying are the Single Engine Cessna 206's. They look something like an older version of a Volkswagen bug with a propeller. Michael (CEO & President) likes to watch to see how people are going to react when they see the plane and time it so that just before they say that they won't get on the plane he asks them, "window or isle seat"? That usually breaks the ice and they get in.

The flight is 30 minutes, on the way you will see the park that we drive through, several different volcanoes, sometimes smoking, and the patterns of the earth where the pineapple and bananas grow and finally the broccoli like image interspersed with the river system that looks like a mirror that cuts through Tortuguero National Park.

Regardless of how guests arrive at Tortuga Lodge, the lodge staff in their mostly white uniforms line up on the dock and wave hello to arriving guests. You are offered a cold tropical drink and welcomed to the lodge.

If Tortuga Lodge sounds fascinating and full of rich experiences at this point, you might wonder if you should also go to Monteverde Lodge. It turns out very different experiences you might crave await you there….

Although it's possible to fly to Monteverde and land in a helicopter on a day where there isn't the normal amount of wind, it's not done very often, 99.9% of our guests go by land. The drive is a couple of hours on a Costa Rican highway, the drive itself pretty straight forward, the difficulty lies in dealing with other Costa Rican drivers. The last 1 ½ hours is on a winding mountain road with hairpin curves and cliffs on one side. Just in case that's not enough, big trucks come barreling down the road with little concern that you're the one on the cliff side of the road.

Personally, in 26 years of working with Costa Rica Expeditions, I've only driven to Monteverde myself a handful of times. I consider myself a hardy driver, having grown up in Costa Rica and driven everything from rice harvesting combines to big trucks I think I can hack it. BUT! Truth be known, I feel much safer leaving this road to our drivers. Our drivers navigate this road many times a week and know what to watch out for, that leaves me time to pay attention to what our guests will be experiencing on the way.

It's worth it not to have to keep your eyes on the road, the views are really beautiful and it is possible to stop for photos or just to take it in. The cloud forest that you are driving towards faces you.

Monteverde was originally settled by Quakers from Alabama that had been put in prison for refusing to be drafted for the Korean War and refusing to pay taxes that would fund the war. After serving their sentence, they decided that they wanted to move to a place where they wouldn't have to deal with war. They considered many locations but in the end, Costa Rica the country that abolished its army to spend those funds on education and health, won.

They went through a lot to get there. There was only a trail for ox carts up the mountain. It was rainy, very cold and extremely windy. Some of the founders of the community are still alive in Monteverde today. They did it all; bush whacking, hunting for food, beating off jaguar wanting to eat their livestock. Not all that different than in Tortuguero, but much more difficult given the climate and terrain.

Monteverde Lode & Gardens sits on a bluff and is mostly surrounded by forest. Some of the forest is primary but most of it is secondary. A creek runs below. There is an early photo of the lodge where the grounds are grass only and a horse is grazing. Today, the forest comes right up to our doorstep, a combination of landscaped gardens and forest growing freely.

The primary attraction of the Monteverde region is the Cloud Forest. This is a high elevation forest where the trees have very thick sturdy trunks and the canopy of the trees is more compact and tight. They evolved this way to be able to deal with the winds that prevail in this area.

The most important sightings in Monteverde are sightings of special birds. The most looked for species the Resplendant Quetzal, the national bird of Guatemala. The Three Wattled Bell bird, the Emerald Toucanet and the Sabre Winged hummingbird also have their claim to fame.

Looking for wildlife in Monteverde requires hiking, sometimes for long distances. A lot of people do it on their own and see very little. A Naturalist Guide will greatly increase the number of sightings and also the quality of the view. Our guides carry telescopes which make it much easier to see birds that are way up in the trees. Guests mostly book half day hikes but some opt for a full day hike and a sack lunch. The day consists mostly of looking for birds and learning about the environment. It's likely that the trail will include a stop and a discussion about conservation and the impact of preserving the forest going forward or not.

Although mammals can be seen in Monteverde, the reserves usually only offer glimpses of a monkeys butt. Guests will see more mammals at some of the private reserves or even in the gardens of Monteverde Lodge than in the Reserves.

In the Monteverde areas there are many exhibits and activities for guests, a frog pond or reptile and amphibian zoo, a bat exhibit, a butterfly garden, horseback riding and walks on trails owned by private organizations.

There are two well known reserves, the Santa Elena Reserve and the Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve. There are detailed descriptions of both and a comparison chart on the site.

When visiting the Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve, guests will see the Continental Divide a place where water that falls on one side ends up in the Pacific Ocean and water that falls on the other ends up in the Atlantic Ocean.

Monteverde is one of the great places to hike in Costa Rica. There are many kilometers of trails for all levels of ability. Many of our guests are serious hikers and this is a good location for that activity.

The sounds of Monteverde are more subtle than the sounds of Tortuguero, but there are some landmark sounds, the wind the calls of several the iconic birds of the region. The gong of the Three Wattled Bell Bird, the chirp of the Resplendent Quetzal and the courtship song of the Long-Tailed Manakin lek, if you're lucky you'll get to see their courting dance.

Monteverde Lodge & Gardens is a great place just to spend time at the lodge. Rooms are cozy, the fireplace in the bar area which can be seen from the front door is lit all the time and food is fantastic. The garden is a great place to sit and read, meditate, bird watch, talk. There are normally mixed flocks of birds in the yard going about their business, the stream in the garden makes its music. Daily visitors to the gardens include the Coatimundi, Agouti, White Faced Capuchin monkey and the sloth. I once saw a mama Coatimundi walking down a garden path with her half a dozen babies following. When she saw me she froze abruptly and those babies all crashed behind her like a 6 car pileup. It was hilarious.

Rooms at Monteverde Lodge are also quite simple, but less so than Tortuga Lodge. The Forest View Balcony Rooms are especially nice. The bathrooms have just been remodeled and this is the most important thing they have going for them when compared to Tortuga Lodge. The public areas have a lot of comfortable places to sit and read or write in your journal. Since you tend to be so busy coming and going while in Monteverde, it feels good to sit on a leather couch and have a cup of coffee and a homemade cookie.

When you read about Monteverde on internet, you are going to read about canopy zip lines and hanging bridges. We don't sell these activities in Monteverde because none of the ones that are offered are safe. We'd love to be able to send our business to one of these organizations, but they either aren't built correctly or they're not operated safely.

We normally recommend that our guests visit one of the two reserves or both if they have the time and like to hike, in my opinion, Monteverde is the best place in Costa Rica to go horseback riding and if there are kids involved the butterfly garden and bat jungle are fun. The frog pond is very close to the lodge and guests often walk there to see the frogs. It's a fun exhibit, how fun depends a lot on the quality of the guide that they get.

The largest town near Monteverde is the town of Santa Elena. This is fairly small but has several restaurants, shops, coffee shops, bakeries and a grocery store. Up and down the road that leads to the Monteverde Reserve there are more restaurants, shops, art galleries and places to stop and have a look.

You will be greeted warmly by our staff in the lobby of Monteverde Lodge & Gardens, the fireplace will usually be blazing and depending on the weather you'll quickly be offered either a refreshing drink or a hot toddy and a genuine smile…Welcome to Monteverde Lodge & Gardens.

So back to the original question…which lodge? Tortuga Lodge, Monteverde Lodge, or both? If you'd like help with your decision, I'm happy to correspond with you, just click on Contact Us and send me an email.