Bosque de Paz

This was an amazing stay, the showers were amazing and the people were even better. Everything was very nice and comfortable. The food was delicious and they accommodated for all of the dietary needs of our group. There are amazing hiking trails to waterfalls and around the area. It was a great stay.

Amazing! The staff was extraordinary. The room was beautiful. The food was GREAT. You are steps away from the cloud forest. Wildlife comes right up to the lodge. The drive in is breathtaking. Close to the waterfalls. Hummingbirds galore all around the lodge. Great for a retreat.

We stayed two nights at Hotel Bosque de Paz at the beginning of June with rain in the afternoons. The dining hall served excellent “home cooking” style meals and had the best coffee. We were in Costa Rica for almost a month, I swear this place really did have the best coffee. The lodge promotes the natural beauty of the forest to be the landscaping. The hummingbird feeders were great. So many hummingbirds. We saw a lot of birds and agouti at the fruit station adjacent to the dining hall. The property has undergone reforestation for the past 27 years and is now a biological reserve with a huge secondary cloud forest. Our host, Mario, led us on a guided birding tour on our first morning stay. There are well marked trails throughout the lodge grounds. We hiked a little later in the afternoon prior to the rain and again the next morning before breakfast.

I visited as part of a college biology (natural history) class (I am an ecology professor). Bosque de Paz is a wonderful place, with a wonderful and friendly staff, owners that care personally about you and the habitat they protect, and visited by fellow lovers of nature. The expert guides, Mario and Noelia, are super awesome and know their stuff. The place is a gem. Also…great rooms with good hot showers; the food was superb! We had a blast!

My wife and I have stayed at Bosque de Paz about 30 times since first coming to the Reserve in 1999 when we fell in love with the place. It is the definitive cloud-forest reserve and lodge with up to 8 meters of rain annually. Although such high rainfall might seem excessive, it occurs mostly in the afternoon and brings with it an exceptional diversity of wildlife: more. than 200 bird species, including 20 species of hummingbirds, mammals, and plants. It is a large reserve at 1000 Ha with 20 km of marked trails, waterfall, and dozens bridges to cross streams. The Lodge is at elevation 1550 m (5085 ft.), so it gets cool at night. Typical of Costa Rican hotels, the rooms are unheated, but plenty of blankets are in each room. The rooms are what we call elegant rustic. The Reserve has reforested hundreds of acres of former pastures and the trails also take you through ancient cloud forest. Make no mistake, there are some places on the trails that are muddy, but consider what wonders these trails take you to. The food is a step above just simple rural food and plenty of it. All the desserts are home made, including ice cream. The staff is friendly and helpful and the owners are attentive. Check out the orchid garden, one of the best reserve orchid gardens in the country. So bring your boots, a rain parka, a fleece jacket, and binoculars and prepare yourself for a treat. A 2022 Four-star National Blue Flag Award for biodiversity, one of just a few in Costa Rica.

Lodge Bosque de Paz A very twisty and potholed road leads to this cloud forest lodge. Our room was fairly spartan, with two queen beds, a table with two rather uncomfortable chairs, and a rack for our gear. The room was poorly illuminated, with just ceiling lights and a small, low wattage table lamp in between the beds. I relax after a busy day by writing the daily events in a journal and the lamp wasn't up to the job. There were only two electrical outlets, and of a design that demanded an adapter. Mario, the manager, was more than happy to provide the adapter. The room was unheated, and due to the high elevation, was cold and damp. There were plenty of blankets available and we used them all. The bed was comfortable, but the pillows were lumpy. The towels in the bathroom were never truly dry, even after laundering. While the bathroom sink only had hot water in the evenings, the shower had plenty of hot water. Both the bathroom and the room itself were spotlessly clean. We never saw an insect in the room at any time. The opportunities for photography or birding were everywhere. The lawn fronting the dining hall had numerous hummingbird feeders and beyond it, an area were agoutis, pacas, squirrels and coatimundis came to feed. In the morning I heard howler monkeys. We hiked through the beautiful forest, appreciating that it had never, ever been logged or managed. The staff of Bosque de Paz treated us like visiting royalty. There was nothing we wanted for (well, perhaps a little warmer weather, but it IS cloud forest). Our meals were fabulous, the portions huge. No fear of going hungry here! You could have '''typical food", the term for regular Costa Rican fare, that usually meaning the ubiquitous black beans and rice dish served with most meals. Or you could ask for 'american' cuisine, meaning eggs, toast, etc. Breakfast was eggs, or cereal, along with freshly picked fruit like mangos, papayas, watermelon and pineapple in the morning. My coffee hound husband adored the coffee so much we eventually brought home several bags. "American" food was staple in the evenings, the cook showing her expertise with perfectly cooked fresh tilapia (a farmed fish), or pork chops, chicken, etc. Their attention to service was such that I'm betting I could have asked for barbecued hippo and somehow, it would have been arranged. Bosque de Paz was the perfect introduction to life in Costa Rica.