Name: Chinitas Eco Lodge
Address: San Francisco de la escuela de San Francisco 25 metros Norte y 65 metros Oeste, Tortuguero, Tortuguero, Tortuguero, 60111, Costa Rica
Rating: 9

Air conditioning

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Tortuguero Airport

Guapiles Airport

Chinitas Eco Lodge

Located in a small town very close to  the beach and tortuguerro . Very hospitable couple . Nice accommodations . Good food . Right on the river. Cute dogs too!  Lots of nature to see just walking around

Visited with my 26 years old son. Stayed there for 3 days. Great authentic Eco Lodge, located in a small and authentic jungle village, 5 min boat ride from Tortuguerro. The lodge is very quiet, surrounded by vegetation and on the canal bank. Don Gerardo, the owner, has been a tourist guide before retiring, not only catered for all our needs - meals, transportation, sightseeing, giving us peace of mind to enjoy - but also spent hours explaining, culture, nature - beyond.expectations. He also connected us with Alex - the best tour guide and outstanding person I ever met, whom has taken us to canoe trip in the jungle and turtle spotting on the beach at night - I cannot reccomend him enough - this was a 120% experience !

The accommodation is basic (although the air-con was a lovely bonus) however the secluded setting and abundant wildlife, the lovely owners, the nearby Toruguero Hill Hike and the delicious home cooked food made it a special experience for us.

Stayed for 1 night which was a great experience.
Located outside of tortuguero town, it was very quiet and secluded place to relax.
The owner organised the turtle tour for the evening and then the canal tour the next morning, both of which were great.
Food was excellent both for dinner and breakfast.
Thank you for an excellent stay! 

I highly recommend this place! Gerardo and Anarita are amazing! Helpful joyful, they treat you like a member of the family! The location is great! You are surrounded by a beautiful nature! The food is amazing fresh, well cocked. Excellent seafood! Geraldo gives you lots of info about everything he is very knowledgeable and funny. I feel like I don’t want to leave this place. Highly recommend if you are in the area! 
Silvia and Valerio

Geraldo was amazing. He connected is with tons of activities in the area, with locals and tours. It's beautiful, peaceful, and relaxing. His wife made us breakfast each morning. He spoke English very well. He took care of us well and beyond our expectations.

We were so happy to stay with Ana Rita and Gerardo at Chinitas in the little village of San Francisco and not being in the messy Tortuguero village or in one of the >250 people hotel/lodges.
Chinitas is absolutely greatly located next to the cerro tortuguero which you can hike up for a stunning view over the coast.
You will find here a quiet place with great people and daily fresh cooked delicous meals by Ana Rita. 
The tours with her husband and local guide Gerardo are also excellent and we were happy to be with him in a small group of only 4-6 people compared to the big boats (>20people) of the other lodges. 

We decided to stay in San Francisco instead of Tortuguero.
Good choice! After parking your car, get your boat tickets and enjoy the wonderful boat ride. From the boat stop it is an easy 500 meter walk.
Warm welcome by Owen and Anarita.

Room, small but adequate.  Good beds, airco and decent bath room.
Breakfast was simple but good. The hammocks are a great asset for a relaxing afternoon. We did the night walk with Owen. Very nice and saw lots of interesting animals. Dinner at a local soda afterwards was great.

Overall a pleasant stay. We went to Tortuguero in the morning and were happy we did not stay there. Staying here meant you get to experience how the local community lives. 

Tip - Be aware and make sure you get the right boat back, the hotel can arrange this. We were waiting for our return boat, the guy said to take us back and we would get refunded. For the original ticket. Do not go there and just wait for your boat to arrive.

Wonderful family owned & operated eco lodge located on the river. Peaceful location on the water to sit back & relax, also walking distance to San Fransisco village and the look out in the national park. Room was basic yet comfortable, a ceiling fan would’ve been nice instead had to use air conditioner (prefer to use less electricity). 

Public water boat into Tortuguero town is right at the door and available numerous times though out the day for CRC1000. 

Access to the lodge was vía small public boat at La Pavona Harbour, with 1.5hrs journey, occasionally stopping due to low waters and hitting the bottom. Catching the public boat return though was confusing as nobody knew which jetty to catch the boat from, so maybe confirm that when being dropped off.

The Eco lodge is a nice place away from the more busy place of Tortugero and bigger hotels. It has a nice garden. The rooms are OK, but don't expect luxury. The shower in our room seemed dangerous with exposed electrical wires for heating the water, but this seems to be common in Costa Rica.

Breakfast & dinner were OK. WiFi was OK-ish: sometimes a bit spotty (but hey: you're in the jungle !)

We had a bit of a dispute with Gerardo as we found him too pushy to sell some tours, right after we arrived. When we told him we hadn't decided yet and had some offers/info for cheaper tours, he got a little upset. We later did the canal tour with him and this was OK. He was very knowledgable as showed animals we didn't see ourselves. One evening he promised to take us to the village by boat, but when we asked for this he said we could better take a watertaxi because it would keep us dry (he has an open boat). It was dry at the moment, so he may have been uninterested or still a bit upset. The taxi costs about 10$.

We did the turtle tour and were lucky to eventually spot one laying eggs. Note we were at the beginning of the nesting season. I found the turtle trip a bit of an anti-climax: you walk on a very dark beach behind a guide, see litterally nothing for 2 hours and stumble a couple of times. The beach is full of groups doing the same. Hopefully one group spots a turtle and then you can queue up in the traffic jam to see her lay eggs. Good thing is that the guides are really mindful of the animals and try to disturb them as little as possible. 

We took a walk from the lodge to the national park close by to hike up the stairs and get an overview of San Francisco & Tortugero. This national park is +/- 5mins away from the lodge and normally costs 8 $ per person, but when we arrived they weren't open, so we skipped the fee. Nice park, we saw several birds, red frogs, howler monkeys, etc. Definately would recommend this.

The area is beautiful. We were there in wet season and had rain most of the time. This takes away from the beauty of the surroundings. Especially the canal tour will be spectacular if you have sunshine. We had this on the way back to the parking lot and this ride was very enjoyable.

All in all, it's a place that I would recommend. Don't expect luxury, but this will be compensated by beautiful nature.

Tortuguero

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Basic accommodation and value for money.

Peaceful location

Great experience in Tortuguerro !

Great stay

Excellent experience 

Nice place to stay a couple of days

Chinitas lodge; 

Our experience there; the accommodations are basic (but very clean), there is a gang of unsavory individuals hanging out in the streets of the village (they are not Ticos), one afternoon the neighbor of the hotel blasted his music so loud that for hours it was hard to think about anything else and we experienced a total electrical black out the day of our departure.
That said Sr. Gerardo and Sra. Ana Rita the owners of the lodge are two lovely people. They went out of their way to make us (two adults, two children) welcome like family. 
The setting of the lodge is perfect, not far from Tortugeros but not too close either, with a beautiful park right behind where we saw many dart frogs and other wildlife.
The excursion with Gerardo was perfect; he is patient and very knowledgeable and we were treated like VIP compare to the other boats around with 10/12 people onboard.   
The breakfasts and dinners were cooked for us by Ana Rita and she can cook! Her food was excellent. We took our meals in their gazebo overlooking the water it was lovely and relaxing.
My wife and children felt completely at home around this more than welcoming couple (and Blacky their little dog) 
We highly recommend Chinita lodge for a reasonably priced stay in the Tortugero park.

Chinitas Eco Lodge

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