Guiding and Guiding Policies
Excellence in guiding is our goal.
The lodge has a capacity for 10 guests, so during the busier seasons we have more than one guide available so that we may give everyone the attention they deserve. We customize all our guiding to fit the interests of our guests so we do NOT have a standardized program. We try to keep groups to 5 or less participants and always consider compatibility of participant’s, both their interests and physical capacities. Although not always possible, we attempt to give all our guests some private guiding time if they desire it.
All our guides are highly qualified, experienced and have spent many hours in the immediate local area learning the the habits of the wildlife of the Rio Tigre forests.
Booking Policy for Guiding:
We book our guiding as carefully as the rooms.
We book guiding on a first come, first serve basis.
During the busier months we often have both our guides booked and it is difficult to find a qualified guide at the last minute. AND if we are not full and there is no guiding booked for one of the guides, we give them the liberty to take outside work. Our high season is short and everyone needs to make the most of it.
The all inclusive packages include discounted guiding and this discounted rate is only available in pre-booked packages. The difference is approximately $2 per hour per person with 2 participants.
Abraham Gallo
Abraham, who has been walking the mountain trails of this peninsula for over 45 years, loves to share his accumulated knowledge of the trees, plants, birds, reptiles, frogs and mammals of the forest. His passion for birding and naturalist study started seriously, when he first met Liz, in 1996 and saw his first field guides. Within several years, he quickly became the foremost bird guide on the peninsula. Although, undeniably, his greatest expertise is birding, he also has enthusiasm and strong skills in amphibian identification, medicinal plants, tree identification and a well rounded understanding of general local ecology. He never tires of watching and observing all the activity surrounding the lodge.
Between 1997 and 1999, Abraham and Liz worked together on a study of the Ecology and Distribution of the Endangered and Endemic Birds of the Osa Peninsula, supported by Friends of the Osa, partnering with American Birding Conservancy and USFW. Some of this work is now published in the peer reviewed journal, Ornitologia Neotropical. Abraham won an Evergreen Grant for his work in 2008. In August 2009 he was co-author on a paper “Nest description of the Black-cheeked Ant-Tanager” that was published in the Wilson Journal of Ornithology.
Liz was introduced to biology and birding by her mother at an early age, while living in Southern New Jersey near the Pine Barrens. She developed a passion for forests that never diminished through out her adult life, although study and birding were put on the back burner for many years of adulthood. In 1993, a spontaneous trip to Costa Rica re-ignited her interest in wildlife and birding and the strong pull of the forests lead her to the Peninsula de Osa and Dos Brazos.
She met Abraham in 1996 after purchasing the property near Dos Brazos. Together they got serious about studying the local ecology. She has studied most fields of natural history, but birding is her favorite pastime and occupation. Other interests include local sociology, history and conservation.
For the first 7 years the lodge was open, Liz did much of the guiding, but due to the overload of lodge management work in recent years, she no longer guides in the field. She still fills in occasionally guiding guests that need special attention due to health issues and helps guests around the lodge with spotting and identification.