Finding peace (and Quetzals) in San Gerado de Dota

Since we’d had such a hard time spotting Quetzals in Guatemala – we tried three separate places with no luck, I hedged my bets here in Costa Rica, and although we’d already had an amazing Quetzal experience in Monteverde, our next stop was another quetzal haven (just in case we hadn’t seen one) and was already booked…

We were heading to the cloud forest reserve called Parque National Los Quetzals, and more specifically, the private valley just next door called San Gerado de Dota. It’s supposed to be the best place in the world to spot a resplendent quetzal, but is very good for hummingbirds and is way off the tourist trail too and quite remote.

The valley was crowned a nature hotspot after some pioneers saw how beautiful the valley was and built the first hotel: Savegre Hotel. They preserved the region and noticed the high volume of quetzals here, promoting this region as a hotspot. To this day, Savegre is still one of the top hotels in the region for seeing the birds, and they have tonnes of private trails only accessible from the hotel. It sounded idyllic, but expensive, so I decided to finally use my hotels.com points which I’d had saved (I did this for countless epic hotels in the past, including Mashpi even!). This meant we could book Savegre hotel for the measley price of £0.58p per night 🤣 and it was definitely worth every penny!

To get here we had to transit through the capital San Jose, we got the 5am bus from Monteverde, which arrived about 1pm, then we did some much needed resupplying in the malls. I got all the essentials (my la roche posay face sun cream, MAC mascara and my favourite decathlon t-shirt to replace a trashed one). Plus we both decided it was time for new trainers, and I found some AMAZING hokas, perfect for travel with really grippy soles for hiking, but still nice enough for day wear. 😍

The next morning we headed over to a different bus station to get a bus which was heading to the border with Panama, but hopefully would stop and let us out at the turn off to San Gerado valley. We got there with plenty of time to spare as we needed to go to an ATM too… But when we arrived, none of the ATMs were in service! Eeek… We literally had just enough for the bus and the taxis to and from the bus stop. So we kept our fingers crossed it was ok!

The journey was stunning, along winding mountain roads covered in cloud. We arrived at the turn off and the bus did indeed stop for us, and we were met by the taxi from the hotel.

Savegre was amazing. We had a private little cabin with huge twin beds and a massive bathroom. And the grounds were stunning, we instantly saw about 5 species of Hummingbird as soon as we arrived, including the Talamanca, volcano, fiery-throated (my fave), white-throated mountain gem and the lesser violetear.

We had some lunch and whilst we were eating we saw Long-Tailed silky fly catchers which were beautiful too, flame tanagers and silver throated tanagers.

After lunch we attempted to walk one of the famous trails, but not long into the walk a thunderstorm rolled in, it was ok at first, since we could hear the thunder in the distance, but it was getting closer and closer, and after one huge clap of thunder which was basically over our head, we decided that walking in a forest with an umbrella was not the best idea and headed back to walk along the road instead.

The next day we planned to get up mega early and walk the quetzal trail from 6-8am – the best time to see them apparently. We got up at 5am and headed up the steep road. The walk was lovely and in the cool morning air, the clouds clung to the trees.

However the forest was quiet, we saw only a handful of birds, mostly wrens and redstarts, and no quetzals… We were a bit disappointed… We’d been to Monteverde and seen them on our own, and here was supposed to be BETTER, plus it was perfect time, 7am etc… but no… Nada.

About 8:30am we headed back to have our free breakfast before 9am.

After brekkie, we visited the hummingbird garden again, with the aim of taking photos of all the different birds. I was walking ahead of Dave and watching a little volcano hummingbird feeding in the bushes, when a blur of green swooped low over my head and landed (no exaggeration) about 2 metres above my head…. It was a male quetzal! What the….

What was it doing here in the hotel grounds, an apparently elusive and shy bird, which almost flew into me haha. It jumped up and grabbed a aguacatillo (a mini wild avocado) from the tree. I signalled to Dave, by clicking my finger and mouthing “QUETZAL” and he literally didn’t believe me 😂, but moved over silently. We were both gobsmacked.

It was hopping between the branches and honestly we were both so shocked to see it so close and in next to the hotel we barely took any photos (well, no good ones at least). It flew to another avocado tree near by and we silently followed. It tried another Avo, but it mustn’t have been good either as it dropped that one too!

Then it flew away into the forest. How magical!

Like most birds, quetzals are also creatures of habits, with favourite perches, favourite trees and quite regular routines. So we basically spent the rest of the time here waiting by this avocado tree for it to return. Which it did…

This time, when it flew away, we followed it, into the grey water area behind the hotel, we could still see it flying between branches looking for food. We watched it for a while.

The rest of our time here at Savegre we spent in the hummingbird garden or the grey water filtration area, watching the quetzals and the amazing other birds here. It was such a wonderful and peaceful stay in the end, and way better than I could have ever imagined.

We were sad to leave San Gerado de Dota, and our new quetzal friends. But if we return to Costa Rica, I’d definitely come back here to this hotel. ☺️