Mawamba Lodge Tortuguero

Had an amazing stop with the family here. Definitely the luxury end of jungle Lodges. the rooms are simple but nicely done. the gardens are the best around, the staff are friendly and nice, communal areas are excellent and the food was great to. all very impressive in a location only accessible by boat! The tours and the local area is incredible, even just in the gardens we saw loads of wildlife. we did 3 nights all in and it was brilliant (although the fixed menu gets a bit boring by night 3 - although still delicious).

Beautiful Lodge in the middle of nowhere within the Tortuguero National Park. The rooms are all open, without AC. The good thing is, you are permanently connected the Natur around… but due to the humidity and especially when it rains, you never have a chance to dry your clothes if they get wet. The best is, the lodge is right between the canals and the Caribbean ocean. In both you cannot take a dip… the ocean offers dangerous rip currents and the canals obviously has some caimans. The restaurant unfortunately isn’t really good. You can eat there without getting problems with your stomach or something like that, but the taste wasn’t that good in our eyes - and it’s expensive! Better got 15-20 minutes by foot to Tortuguero town and enjoy food in a soda oder take the boat taxi for $4. Within the lodge you can find a wide variety of wildlife! There are a lot of toucans, macaws, howler monkeys, all kinds of birds, turtles, iguanas, snakes etc. etc. you don’t even need to enter the national park - the animals are all there, right in front of your doorstep! Due to the restaurant and the waitresses their (not really active unfortunately) I have to reduce to 4 stars, but still… the advantages overweight so I can still recommend this lodge!

Mawamba is a beautiful property. We loved our room and the feeling of sleeping in the rainforest. The best part of staying at Mawamba is taking the offered tours. We did a tour of the grounds, wildlife boat tour, Tortuguero Hill hike, and dinner cruise. Our tour guide for most of these was Humberto who was incredibly knowledgeable about all of the wildlife and appears to truly love his job. The food at the onsite restaurant was pricey and fairly basic. The wait staff was always kind but not very attentive to drinks and receiving the check. We also encountered an issue with our shuttle to the property not showing up at the correct time and being very rude about it, but I am unsure if this is Mawamba or a company they contract with. Overall I would highly recommend staying at Mawamba for your visit to Tortuguero.