• Introduction:
Hotel Bougainvillea is the perfect place to start and end a Costa Rica birding tour. It is conveniently located at only 15 to 30 minutes from the airport, in a quiet residentual neighborhood surrounded by a large garden full of beautifull flowers, birds and butterflies.
• Location:
Hotel Bougainvillea is located in the town of Santo Domingo de Heredia, about 8 km north of the center of San José and about 20 km east of San José airport.
• Facilities:
Hotel Bougainvillia offers 77 spaceous standard rooms and 4 junior suites. All rooms are modern and are elegantly furnished. Room amenities include flatscreen Cable TV, airconditioning, ceiling fan, safety deposit box and a sitting area on a private terrace with either garden views or panoramic views of the Central Valley. All bathrooms have been recenlty renovated, have stylish sinks and showers and include a hairdryer. The hotel is located in a 4 ha well maintained garden, exclusively accesable by hotelguests. There is a swimming pool, souvenir shop and even a tennis court. The restaurant serves delcious Costarican and international dishes and there is a well-stocked bar. Free Wireless internet is availble in the rooms and in the common areas.
• Birding and wildlife attractions:
Besides being the ideal place to relax after or before a long international flight, Hotel Bougainvillea is probably the best birding spot in the whole San José metropolitan area. The beatifill gardens dotted with tropical representatives like heliconia’s, gigers, bromelia´s and even orchids attract many butterflies and some of the more common birds of Costa Rica. A morning birdwalk here is the ideal introduction to birdwatching in Costa Rica; the birding is relatvely easy and can produce the beautiful Blue-crowned Motmot, Rufous-tailed Hummingbirds, Squirrel Cuckoo, Crimson-fronted Parakeets, Hoffman’s Woodpeckers, Great Kiskadeee, Tropical Kingbird and Social Flycatcher, House Wren, Rufous-naped Wren, Blue-gray and Palm Tanagers, and Grayish and Buff-throated Saltator. A little harder are the Rufous-capped Warbler and Plain Wren. Hotel Bougainvilla is known to be a good spot for the local Prevost-ground Sparrow and White-eared Ground-sparrow. These skulkers can be hard to see tough, especially the Prevost Ground-sparrow. Try to look low in the thick vegetation in the center of the garden. Also Ferruginous Pygmee Owl can be around sometimes and at night on the parking Common Paurques become active. A Tropical Screech-owl can sometimes be heard at night and used to have a stake-out in the large bamboo-thicked in the garden. Ask the gardeners if they have seen the owl lately (La lechuza ?). Hotel Bougainvillea is about 1 hour drive from Parque Nacional Volcan Poas, with very good highland birding and about 1,5 hours from Parque Nacional Tapanti, a national park on the Caribean side of the Talamanca mountinas. Hardly anybody goes here, eventhough it offers some of the best birding in Costa Rica… If interested contact us to hook you up with a good local guide to take you on a day trip birding in the Central Valley.