Tortuga Lodge

Perhaps the best lodge in the area, Tortuga has 29 spacious, comfortable riverfront rooms set in 20 hectares of landscaped grounds and forest. Delightfully remote, the colourful wooden cabins allow guests to feel truly immersed in the Costa Rican rainforest.

Sixteen new suites and an impressive villa have been added to the accommodation options, allowing for a wider choice of standard. All rooms have stunning river views and modern facilities, offering a comfortable base from which to enjoy the nature of the region. The lodge’s open-air restaurant – the Green Turtle – offers a variety of Costa Rican Carribean dishes as well as fusion options, and complementary tea and coffee all day.

Tortuguero National Park, a vast alluvial plain, is heavily forested and contains an abundance and variety of wildlife, especially as regards monkeys, frogs and the 309 bird species recorded. It is also an important nesting site for turtles, and guests may have the chance to see the tail-end of the nesting season or the young hatching early in the morning. As well as guided activities further into the park, there are trails from the lodge on which can be seen poison arrow frogs and other wildlife.

Tortuguero (“place of turtles”) is most famous for the thousands of sea turtles that come ashore to lay their eggs on the beach and bury them in a ritual millions of years old. Nighttime excursions to watch nesting turtles is the area’s most popular adventure, along with boat tours of the huge network of canals.