Selva Bananito is inland, up the Bananito River at the foot of Cerro Muchilla, and that is what separates it from everything else we use on the south Caribbean coast. The reserve is a buffer to La Amistad International Park, so the forest behind it carries on into the Talamanca.
The family bought the farm in 1974 and set aside the untouched two-thirds as a private reserve. It runs from about 120 to 450 metres, by the lodge's figure, and the lodge says about 300 bird species have been identified on its land.
There is no electricity in the cabins, on purpose. You are up when the birds are, and the lodge's ornithologists take the morning walk through the trees and pastures of the farm.
The bird walk leaves early in the morning, about two hours in a small group, led by the lodge's ornithologists through the trees and pastures of the farm; the Bananito River valley is the stretch the lodge points birders to. For the canopy, there is a platform 100 feet up over primary forest, and an introduction to tree climbing that takes you up a 30-metre tree. The lodge says the raptor migration passes over the Caribbean lowlands and the Talamanca twice a year, and that the birding is best then.
Photo: Selva Bananito Lodge
Cahuita
Get Back To Nature at This Sustainable Eco-Retreat
★★★
A 2,000-acre private reserve above the south Caribbean coast, cabins with no electricity and floor-to-ceiling folding doors that open onto the forest. You wake with the birds because there is nothing else to wake you.
The lodge's own pages name the Great Jacamar, the one ornithologists come looking for, and the Red-lored Amazon (your field guide may still call it Red-lored Parrot) in the canopy.
With them, the birds of the whole Caribbean lowlands: the Keel-billed Toucan, the Great Green Macaw, the Great Potoo on a dead snag at dusk and the Sunbittern along the river.
| English | Scientific | Spanish | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Great Jacamar | Jacamerops aureus | Jacamar Grande | |
| Red-lored Amazon | Amazona autumnalis | Loro Frentirrojo | |
| Keel-billed Toucan | Ramphastos sulfuratus | Tucán Pico Iris | |
| Great Green Macaw | Ara ambiguus | Guacamayo Verde Mayor | |
| Great Potoo | Nyctibius grandis | Nictibio Grande | |
| Sunbittern | Eurypyga helias | Garza del Sol |
This is the most remote stay in the slice, and that is the reason to come. The cabins are raised on stilts and screened from each other by heliconias, each with a deck and hammocks, and folding doors that open the front of the room to the forest. There is no electricity in the cabins by design, so evenings are lit by lamps and end early. Meals are at the rancho, a short walk downhill, where guests and guides eat together at a shared table and there is a bar and a small library upstairs. Days start at dawn and run on foot or horseback: birding, waterfall hikes, forest walks, and for the energetic, rappelling and tree climbing.
Meals. at the rancho, family style at a communal table. Breakfast is included (site); tell the lodge about dietary needs in advance.
Perfect for: a birder who wants to switch off the phone and wake up inside the forest.
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Or call us: 1 (800) 996-1139 from the US and Canada, +506 4052-2140 in Costa Rica.
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