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Ecolodge Inn at Coyote Mountain
Central America : Costa Rica
Accommodation name: Ecolodge Inn at Coyote Mountain
Savour Tropical Seclusion at Ecolodge Inn at Coyote Mountain of Costa Rica, an exclusive nature retreat providing today’s harried traveler with a superlative location.
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Overview
The Inn at Coyote Mountain counts among the finest eco-hotels or country inns in Costa Rica and welcomes a select number of guests to a secluded universe of natural beauty, Costa Rican hospitality, and elegant dining. Visiting Coyote Mountain resembles staying at a Spanish colonial hacienda of years gone by, welcomed by your Costa Rican hosts to a land filled with enchantment, a place to relax in style amidst hills, forests, and coffee fields.
Guests inhabit an architectural jewel with just four guest rooms, a courtyard garden with two fountains, the Great Room with its handpainted tile fireplace, and numerous public areas, decks, and patios with broad vistas of the Pacific Ocean from 1200 meters in altitude. Imported tiles, tropical hardwood furniture, gentle stucco, and superb Mudejar style blend perfectly with the Mediterranean climate of Cerro Coyote.
An unparalleled place from which to enjoy Costa Rica’s riches, the Inn’s 70-acre forested property boasts a Mediterranean climate and breathtaking vistas of the Pacific and Nicoya Peninsula.
Dining
The Dining Room at Coyote Mountain serves inspired cuisine derived from the traditional Central American cooking and plentiful food ingredients of Costa Rica. The kitchen utilizes Costa Rica's local abundance of fresh tropical and temperate foods, many from the Inn's own gardens and orchards, in a daily-changing fixed menu. The Dining Room is open to Inn guests as well as the general public, with reservations required. Breakfasts offer a choice of omelletes, eggs, or pan perdu with locally made preserves preceeded by a fresh fruit plate. Four-course candle-lit dinners chage daily, usually featuring fresh fowl or seafood.
Facilities
Ecolodge Coyote Mountain offers elegant dining, bird watching, mountain bikes, nature walks, hiking trails, gardens, abundant wildlife, an orchid house, and three kinds of tropical forest amidst the splendor of surrounding coffee fields. Simply relax and enjoy the spring-like climate and home-made meals at the hotel. . . Or take advantage of the Costa Rica Creole Cooking School, where you'll explore the abundance of diverse ingredients and learn new cooking techniques.
Activities
Hacienda Cerro Coyote lies in the Canton of San Ramon at the end of the Tiláran mountain chain, not far from the famed Monteverde Cloud Forest and on the way to Arenal Volcano, the Los Angeles Cloud Forest Preserve, Peñas Blancas Nature Preserve, and other attractions. The Central Valley, Carrara National Park, Poas Volcano, and Arenal volcano are within easy reach for day trips. Pacific coast beaches near Puntarenas are also a day trip away. The secluded property offers abundant resources for guests to explore the flora and fauna of Costa Rica, hike, dine, and relax. With the Hacienda designed for all seasons, Cerro Coyote offers a Mediterranean climate. Our friendly staff--hired exclusively from the local coffee growing communities of La Guaria, San Francisco, and Piededades Sur will treat you with warm Tico hospitality, and provide a way to get to know the real heart of the country.
Press reviews
Ottawa Citizen, Alex Hutchinson, March 3, 2007
"It wasn't until morning, when we were sipping glasses of starfruit juice and watching day break over the Pacific Ocean in the distance, that the spell finally broke. Until then, frankly, we'd felt a lot like the Scooby Doo gang must whenever they get lost in the remote mountains of Transylvania and end up spending the night in a spooky castle staffed by a small complement of the undead.
In fact, we were in the mountains of Costa Rica, about 70 kilometres north of San Jose. The web booking we had made for our last two nights in the country said the Inn at Coyote Mountain was in the hills outside the town of San Ramon. That turned out to mean a 50-minute ride in a four-wheel-drive cab along some of the steepest, most winding and rock-strewn roads I've ever encountered. It was dark and misty -- the area is in a "cloud forest" -- and we quickly left all signs of civilization behind.
Our castle, when we finally arrived, was perched on a promontory in a small clearing in the forest. A luxurious villa built around a courtyard with a fountain, it has just four guest rooms. With 20-foot-high, half-timbered ceilings, four-poster beds and enormous mosaic-tiled bathrooms, it felt hundreds of years old. And we were the only guests.
The Inn at Coyote Mountain is actually best known for its food. It's the sister property of the Trout Point Lodge in Nova Scotia, and both places regularly offer three-day cooking classes taught by the three owner-chefs, Daniel Abel, Charles Leary and Vaughn Perret, who specialize in Cajun and Creole cuisine. The magnificent building, despite its medieval Castilian feel, was completed only in 2004, and the lodge's sustainability policy includes wind-generated electricity, its own organic fruit and vegetable plantings, and staff hired entirely from within a two-kilometre radius.
In other words, it's a luxury retreat -- but one whose seclusion and small-yet-grandiose scale made it unlike anywhere I've stayed before, even once the sun rose and the mists cleared.
The dinner choices were very simple: "When would you like to eat?" our host asked us. "How about 7:30?" we suggested. "It will be served in the dining hall," he said. And that was that.
In the stately dining hall -- where, had there been other guests, we would have shared the long table -- we were served a four-course meal: a velvety eggplant soup with an undertone of smoked pepper, a salad, then a main course of marlin with a citrus, honey and tarragon glaze accompanied by sauteed cauliflower and carrots. Dessert was banana-chocolate bread baked in individual custard pots.
It was exceptional.
The cost -- though such vulgarities were not mentioned at the time -- was $35 (all figures U.S.) per person, and well worth it. The three-course breakfast the next morning was a less-palatable $20 each, worthwhile mainly for the indescribable lightness of the starfruit juice.
It's possible to make daytrips from the inn to major tourist destinations like the Monteverde Cloud Forest and, farther afield, the famous Arenal volcano. But after 10 days of travel, we were eager for a break from the ravening tourist hordes, so we decided to make our day's entertainment the quest for a less expensive lunch than the inn would have offered. Armed with a complete ignorance of the area's geography, we headed for the surrounding valleys.
After a 90-minute hike through farmers' fields and past occasional houses, we came to the village of Piedades Sur, where we found a small restaurant with two tables and no menus. With sign-language and smiles, we signalled our willingness to eat whatever they offered us, and enjoyed an ample lunch of rice, beans, vegetables and pork for a little less than $3. When we left, the proprietors came to the door and shook our hands heartily.
Back at the inn, time passed pleasantly: we hiked around the inn's 30-hectare private nature preserve, watched Austin Powers with Spanish subtitles (Si, nina!) on satellite TV in the lounge, and sampled the inn's eclectic library -- a P.D. James for me, a guide to Sri Lankan cuisine for my girlfriend.
Coyote Mountain isn't the place to try the standard Costa Rican tourist activities like canopy tours and zip-lines. But its isolation from the usual tourist routes gave us our best opportunities to interact with ordinary Costa Ricans, and its sedate pace allowed us the rare pleasure of finishing our vacation more rested and relaxed than we started it.
It's luxurious -- rooms start at $153 a night, or $219 for the third-floor tower room with 360-degree views -- but we got one of the regularly available online specials for just $79 a night.
And it's not as inaccessible as we first thought: with daylight to help navigate the rocky roads, the $12 cab ride back to San Ramon took less than half an hour. And it was a lot less spooky."
Rooms & Accommodation
Nicoya Room (1)
Nicoya Room (1)
Sleeps: 2 Cost: from USD 153
Spacious guest room with high ceilings and full ensuite bath, courtyard and porch access. Canopy queen bed.
The Observatory (1)
The Observatory (1)
Sleeps: 2 Cost: from USD 219
A suite-sized room located on the third story of the Hacienda's tower, this spacious location with windows on all sides boasts stupendous 360-degree views of Pacific Ocean, forest, and mountain, making it one of the most stunning bedrooms in all of Costa Rica. It has full ensuite bath with a spacious, custom-built round tub, tropical hardwood floors, handmade furniture including a sofa bed, and a queen bed with mesh canopy. Access is by a spiral staircase that climbs to the third story through the tower.
The Tamarindo Room (1)
The Tamarindo Room (1)
Sleeps: 2 Cost: from USD 175
A large, distinctive guest room with high ceilings and both courtyard and porch access. The large bathroom has a custom-built, extra-large, round bathtub and dressing area with makeup table and mirror. King canopy bed.
Guanacaste Room (1)
Guanacaste Room (1)
Sleeps: 4 Cost: from USD 153
Ground-floor room with high ceiling and full ensuite bath, porch and courtyard access. 1 full and 1 queen bed.
Our Trusted Partner's Responsible and Sustainable Travel Policy
As a boutique eco-lodge located on a private nature preserve with substantial water and forest resources, The Inn at Coyote Mountain and the Costa Rica Cooking School (Cerro Coyote, S.A.) carry out various policies and practices that:
- Encourage appropriate and sustainable use of the local environment - Diminish or eliminate negative impacts on the local environment and culture - Create positive impacts and inputs in the local economy, infrastrucutre, and society - Encourage self-sustaining systems using local and renewable resources and diminish or eliminate the use of non-renewable resources - Encourage and innovate sustainable agricultural practices for tropical areas.
These practices include:
- A completely gravity-fed freshwater system, with no pumps, pressure tanks, or electrical supply - All water from local springs - The use of wind energy for electrical power and an ultimate goal of using micro-hydro and solar power for all electrical needs - Preservation of the local watershed and of natural freshwater springs - Reforestation of areas formerly used for cattle grazing, planting more than 1000 new trees per year since 2004 - Hiring locally as a way to support the local community, where unemployment is high, and where there exists great opportunity for improving the financial well being of our neighbors. All employess live within 2 km from the Inn, and provide a way for guests to get to know the true face of traditional Costa Rica. - Separation and recycling of plastics, glass, and paper - Use of non-bleached toilet paper and paper towels - Composting of organic wastes for use in the vegetable and herb gardens - Encouraging guests to use towels over more than one day, thus cutting down on detergent, water, and electricity use - Use of dispensers for shampoo, body wash, and conditioner instead of packaged containers - Laundering sheets only on every third day, or upon check-out, unless requested sooner - Line-drying laundry instead of using an electric dryer whenever possible - Use of energy-efficient lighting and refrigeration - Installing a professionally designed and large-capacity waste treatment facility that provides a fruit-tree orchard with nutrients - Having a grey-water system that provides water to fruit orchards - Providing guests with information about the local environment and the Coyote Mountain preserve, in particular - Encouraging low-impact enjoyment of the property, local wilderness area, creek, and forest amongst guests - Encouraging guests to visit Costa Rica's parks and protected areas using LEAVE NO TRACE principles - Utilizing high ceilings, cross-ventilation, and overhangs for cooling the building, and not using any mechanical systems for air conditioning - Designing the building to utilize natural light in guest and public areas whenever possible so that electric lights are not required except at night - Purchasing locally-grown food products whenever possible - Maintaining on-site organic and sustainable vegetable and herb gardens - Building and creating roads and paths that minimize impact on the local environment and forest - Encouraging car-pooling among employees and for all supply-purchasing trips - Regular maintenance of hotel vehicles - Supporting other local businesses through purchasing - Encouraging employee continuing education and on-the-job training - The use of natural materials in constriction; no use of endangered woods - Making minimal use of paper products for marketing efforts--reliance on the web site - Encouraging and contributing to the development and maintenance of the local community infrastructure, including roads
About our Trusted Partner
Coyote Mountain is a small & secluded place--with just 4 guest rooms--and a true eco-lodge. The hotel is managed by Costa Ricans from this traditional coffee-growing & ranching area and hires exclusively from the local community (within just a 2 km radius), uses wind power for electricity, maintains its own organic vegetable and fruit tree plantings, conserves energy and resources, and engages in local reforestation and nature preservation. Coyote Mountain is a great place to get to know the authentic Costa Rica, in comfort but without pretension, and knowing that your patronage will help improve the local environment and economy.
Centrally located within Costa Rica, Coyote Mountain offers elegant dining, bird watching, mountain bikes, nature walks, hiking trails, gardens, abundant wildlife, an orchid house, and three kinds of tropical forest amidst the splendor of surrounding coffee fields. Simply relax and enjoy the spring-like climate and home-made meals at the inn.
The Inn & Ecolodge : Ecolodge Inn at Coyote Mountain at www.NatureandKind.com (THE.NATURAL.CHOICE)
The Inn & Ecolodge
The Views : Ecolodge Inn at Coyote Mountain at www.NatureandKind.com (THE.NATURAL.CHOICE)
The Views
MotMot: a great place for bird watching : Ecolodge Inn at Coyote Mountain at www.NatureandKind.com (THE.NATURAL.CHOICE)
MotMot: a great place for bird watching
Monte Verde Cloud Forest : Ecolodge Inn at Coyote Mountain at www.NatureandKind.com (THE.NATURAL.CHOICE)
Monte Verde Cloud Forest
Poas Volcano : Ecolodge Inn at Coyote Mountain at www.NatureandKind.com (THE.NATURAL.CHOICE)
Poas Volcano
The Inn & Hacienda : Ecolodge Inn at Coyote Mountain at www.NatureandKind.com (THE.NATURAL.CHOICE)
The Inn & Hacienda
The Inn & Eco-lodge : Ecolodge Inn at Coyote Mountain at www.NatureandKind.com (THE.NATURAL.CHOICE)
The Inn & Eco-lodge
Nicoya Room : Ecolodge Inn at Coyote Mountain at www.NatureandKind.com (THE.NATURAL.CHOICE)
Nicoya Room
Hacienda amidst montane forest : Ecolodge Inn at Coyote Mountain at www.NatureandKind.com (THE.NATURAL.CHOICE)
Hacienda amidst montane forest
Sunset over the Pacific Ocean : Ecolodge Inn at Coyote Mountain at www.NatureandKind.com (THE.NATURAL.CHOICE)
Sunset over the Pacific Ocean
Sloth : Ecolodge Inn at Coyote Mountain at www.NatureandKind.com (THE.NATURAL.CHOICE)
Sloth
The Observatory Room : Ecolodge Inn at Coyote Mountain at www.NatureandKind.com (THE.NATURAL.CHOICE)
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