La Laguna del Lagarto Eco-Lodge

It's a good place for bird watching but that's all !!!!! The food is terrible, it's a poor buffet for all meals and expensive for the quality. The room was awfull with a dripping smell and at 4am the room was flooded because of the toilet !!!! And nobody at the hôtel except the guard to help us. So we wait outside from 4am until 6.30am that somebody take care of the problem. I won't recommend this place too expensive for what it is. Also I don't recommend the boat tour. It start to late in the morning (8.30am), so you won't see nothing really interesting and the guide was sleeping on the boat !!!!! And for the night tour, the guide yells instead of talking softly so animals escape !!!!

This is great birding lodge, both on its grounds proper and the whole area around it. The rooms and public areas are spacious, clean and comfortable. The beds comfortable, the water hot and with pretty good pressure. Food is good and well done for the most part. The staff is phenomenally friendly, helpful and attentive. The feeders attract all kinds of interesting and not at all run of the mill birds. This was the only place on out trip that had an outside chance of my seeing an Agami Heron. I didn’t, apparently one had ben spotted a week before our arrival. (Two different Tiger-Heron species were super stand-ins.) The only downsides were no AC or Wifi in the rooms. I’d be happy to come again. Forgot to say: The lodge has two vintage Land Rovers still functioning, though exceedingly well worn. Took 78 photos for my son who models miniature R/C cars and he was ecstatic at being able to get rare details.

Had an enjoyable 2 night stay there. Went specifically to see the king vulture and had one visit the feeding blind after an almost 3 hr wait. Thought a shower would discourage the visit but one came. In the meantime the antics of the numerous black vultures kept us entertained. Plus, mealy parrots and other interesting birds added to the scene. Appreciated the varied birdlife on the grounds of the lodge seeing pied puffbirds, becards, barbthroats, and flycatchers not to mention toucans, parrots and others at the main feeder. A not-so-shy coati enjoyed the fruit. Spotlighting the lagoons near the driveway resulted in seeing two caimans with one about 4 ft in length. The last 20 kilometers or so to the lodge is quite bumpy but made for enjoyable birding including our first striped cuckoo! Our accommodations were fine. The ceiling fan made for good sleeping. Food was tasty. The staff quickly prepared an excellent chicken dish for my wife once our guide realized she did not eat seafood. The beer was cold. Yes, be prepared for rain. It was interesting that staff changed the horizontal limb at the main feeder so that moss and leaves made for a more naturally setting for photographing birds before they ventured to the center of the feeder where fruit was attached. Brown-hooded parrots were a main attractions at one time being a few feet from the porch and undoubtedly resulted in 100's of pics being taken by one group. Laguna del Lagarto is a wonderful place to bird. Staff could not have been more pleasing. The rough road is more than worth the trip.

Lodge Laguna de Lagarta-wild birds everywhere! Our room at this lodge was cramped with one queen bed and one single bed. If they'd taken out the single it would have been better. The windows were screened. An oscillating fan provided air movement but was quite noisy. The beds had just a thin blanket but that was all that was needed. There was only one electrical outlet for charging your phone or camera battery. The bed was comfortable, but the pillows were hard and lumpy. The bathroom was oddly designed in that a head high wall separated the shower from the toilet and sink. The top of it was where you are advised to store your toiletries, because the only real shelf was directly above the toilet and I didn't want to think about the possibility of my toothbrush falling into it. The shower head was of a design I've never seen before, with three dots allowing for temperature change. The one to the left was too hot, the one to the right was too cold, and the one in the middle was cold. The shower drained very slowly, forcing one to stand in the water if one didn't have flipflops. The room and bathroom were (with the exception of the slow shower drain) spotlessly clean. I never saw an insect in the room or the bathroom. Outside our room was a covered deck with very comfortable rocking chairs, a decent table and a hammock for a midday siesta. The lodge provides a very large open deck for dining as well as photographing birds. There were MANY species coming to the feeding station, and the star of the entire lodge was Rudy. Rudy is a wild, completely untamed keel billed toucan. He would fly to the feeding pole, where fresh bananas had been hung, and gauge the size of his audience on the deck. He then would begin to 'dance'. He would call 'grick grick' and strike poses, looking for all the world like a fashion model or a Hollywood movie star. He made sure you got great shots of his gorgeous, multicolored bill in just the perfect stance for photography. He would pose for many minutes, knowing how beautiful he was, and I am convinced he liked the applause we gave him! The eponymous lagoon is said to have caimans, but we didn't see any. The staff at Laguna de Lagarta was efficient and friendly without being obsequious. The cooks, especially, took great pains to make sure that I, with some dietary restrictions I had, was fully fed. They even offered to cook something not on offer for me. Meals were buffet, which I appreciated. The lodge provides rubber boots if you want to go hiking on their jungle trail, and you do-because you might see manakins! The lodge has free wifi but is only available on the deck. The lodge, being fairly large, had several groups from places other than the US. There was a group of photographers from India and a smaller group of birders from Germany. A couple of Brits added to the international flavor of the lodge. One can come to bird or photograph for the day and have lunch for a fee, the price of which I have no