Uvita

"Recently stayed at Villa Mayana with a group of friends & family. The house was as stunning as the pictures depicted. The property is nestled up in the forest canopy, with incredible views of the Pacific and Playa Hermosa. The grounds are spacious and well-manicured, providing a tranquil and lush aesthetic. The staff was very personable and accommodating. Roberto and Ya prepared excellent meals for us with special attention to fresh and local ingredients. Ana, the concierge was extremely responsive and thorough leading up to our stay, providing all the necessary information and travel plan coordination. She continued to assist us on a daily basis (along with Kit) with restaurant selections, activities and local attractions. I've rented nice houses across the Caribbean before but they haven't come close to the quality of food preparation and service that we were treated to at Mayana. We all left a little happier heading back to the Northeast."

"My 6 day visit (2/18 - 2/23) was set up to assess Costa Rica as a final destination for this retired marine biologist and especially its offshore big game fishing situation. As someone who has fished all over the world (see www.BigMarineFish.com), I had selected CR as the best potential spot for my retirement and I was not disappointed! I also chose to stay at the Jungle Mountain Bungalows, owned by Capt. Kevin Malone and his wonderful wife, Alyson, to see what living up high in that less developed part of CR might be like. You can see from their website’s photos that the bungalows are really nice, stocked with everything you might need, bathed by cool breezes each evening (no AC needed up there on the mountain), surrounded by virtually pristine tropical rainforest (CR has the greatest biodiversity of any place in the world), unspoiled yet largely un-populated beaches along the beautiful coast, with dramatic sunset views of the Pacific from the bungalows’ porches. Idyllic. Driving up and down the mountain (4x4 required) was an adventure in itself. Kevin Malone is a top notch charter captain, extremely skilled in all the little details of big game fishing (such as rigging ballyhoo baits to look to a sailfish as if it were a real swimming baitfish) that make all the difference between just a nice boat ride vs. a day filled with the best fishing one could possibly enjoy (as I experienced with him, twice). The night before, we had decided to target sailfish offshore on my two days, so we got up early and Kevin drove his center console about 25 miles across a choppy Pacific to an underwater mountain known as the Furuno Bank where we fished both days. On day 1 we raised 9 sailfish and brought 7 to the boat to be fully revived prior to their release – which I viewed as an extremely good day’s outing. But he topped that performance the following day, going 9 for 11. These sailfish are big, 7 to 8 feet long and ours were about 90 to 125 lbs – more than twice as large as those I’ve caught in the Florida Keys – and since they spend a lot of energy jumping, sailfish are spectacular to fight. Ours usually took about 20-25 minutes to finally bring close enough for Kevin to grab their bill and remove the circle hook before release. On day 2, I had 30 minutes left on my charter “clock” but told Kevin to just “head for the barn” as I was exhausted and had had enough. All told, our sailfish would have added up to about 2,000 lbs! Can’t imagine better fishing."