How do you get here from San Jose?
Please refer to: www.sabalolodge.com/faqs.html

What is the best access to the lodge?
The best way to access the lodge is by boat from the little port town of Sierpe. It is a beautiful 35 minute ride along the Sierpe river and through the mangroves of which I never get tired of. Access by boat is limited by the tides so you have to plan your exit and entry based on the high tide (there is about a 3 - 4 hour window for entry and exit at each high tide). You can also access the lodge by car in the dry season December - May and it is about a 45 minute drive from Sierpe. They are in the process of fixing the road so that there is year around access by car.

Does the high tide access limit when your guests can arrive and when the lodge is open for business ?
Every dry season the Municipality in charge of public roads sends someone out with a tractor to smooth out the ten mile road from Sierpe to Sabalo so it is easily accessible by car from Dec. to April. We use this road to bring guests in and out when the high tide does not work out for their arrival and departure times. We do not close during green season due to the road being impassable. It is actually easier to get in and out by boat (a longer window of time during high tide) because there is a lot more water in the mangrove channel during rainy season. We will get some guests from June to August during the summer vacation months for North Americans and Europeans but rarely have guests from September to mid December due to the heavy rains during that time.

Do you offer tours to Corcovado or Caño Island directly from Sábalo Lodge?
Most people who contact us and are interested in doing a tour to Corcovado or Caño Island, we will try to sell them on our Tour Pack A which is a combination of 3 nights at Sábalo Lodge and 2 nights at a hotel in Drake Bay to do the Corcovado or Caño Island snorkeling tour. Sometimes guests only want to stay at our lodge but still want to do one of the above tours. In this case, we hire a local tour company from Sierpe to take them on the tour. The way we get around the tide issue is in the morning we will drive our guests three miles to a little port along the river that is deep enough for a boat to come right up to. The tour boat will pick them up at the port at a predetermined time and then in the later part of the day when the guests need to come back to Sábalo Lodge, the tide will be high enough for the boat captain to bring them back in (the pick-up and drop-off may be vice versa depending on if it is a morning or afternoon high tide that day).

Is the lodge on the river?
We have year around river access but the lodge is not right on the river. From the main river about half way to the boca, you will take a left into a wide mangrove channel and wind through it for about five minutes until you reach the lodge. The mangrove channel gets more and more narrow as it continues into our private entry that goes right to the back of the lodge property. Here is the little dock where we keep the boat.

Why are we selling the lodge?
We have spent the last five years living our dream of building and then running an eco lodge. We are now ready for our next adventure as we have accomplished our goals in this endeavor.

Is there phone service at the lodge?
This lodge is truly off the grid. There is no phone line or cell service available. We do have satellite Internet however which we use for our communication needs. We have had good success using Skype as a substitute for the telephone.

How well does the satellite internet work?
The satellite internet works great! It was touch and go for a while there. Our provider, Inasol, who pretty much has the monopoly for satellite internet in Costa Rica, finally found a good provider in the states. He recently switched his customers over to this new provider (about 4 months ago) and we are very happy with the new service. Even the Skype works great. As with all satellite internet it will cut out occasionally when there is heavy rain – other than that it's been very stable.

How well does the self-generating electricity work?
With our solar panels and back-up generator there is enough electricity to power lights, a small fridge, one laptop and one desktop computer and a 23" monitor, a satellite modem and a router. Unfortunately during rainy season we have to run our generator more often to charge up the batteries (about one and a half hours per day) due to there being a lot less sun. In the dry season we run the generator about 1 - 2 hours per day.

What is your source for drinkable water?
We do not have a source for drinkable water; even if we lived in the towns of Costa Rica and had public water, we would not drink it. It is highly chlorinated and tastes awful. We purchase and bring in five gallon water bottles from town as is what most of the other lodges in Drake Bay do as well. The water for dishes, sinks, toilets and laundry is pumped from the fresh water mountain stream that runs along our property.

Do you have hot water?
We do not have hot water. In the dry season it is hot so we don't really need it. This has not been an issue for us nor our guests but if you are planning to use travel agents to send a number of guests to you, we recommend installing some sort of hot water system. Most of our guests have been from our web site, Lonely Planet, Responsible Travel, InfoHub and referrals. They will contact us directly and we let them know what to expect when they come here so there are no unpleasant surprises. However, we have heard from another owner of a lodge in Drake Bay who uses travel agents quite a bit that they tend to be very remiss at informing guests about what to expect at more remote, rustic type lodges (such as places having no hot water) and it can often lead to problems. Also, Travel Agents get very touchy about the lodge owners having direct contact with their clients and will often forbid it. Therefore having hot water may be one less potentially troublesome issue you'd have to deal with if you have travel agents sending you guests.

How difficult and expensive would it be to add more cabins?
It would not be difficult at all to add more cabins. The nice thing about having a business in Costa Rica is if you want to expand the business and add more rental units and employees, labor and construction costs are still relatively inexpensive. The average salary is about $1.75 per hour for non contract employees; it's a little higher for contract employees because you have to pay their taxes, holiday pay and Christmas bonus (equal to one month's salary).

Average construction costs for a rustic wood cabin with bathroom works out to about $30 per square foot. There is plenty of room for adding more cabins here and that is what we recommend as a starting point for the future owner(s) of the lodge as a means for increasing the bottom line profits. Not only will you be able to fill up the cabin(s) during the two weeks around the Christmas holidays (often we have to turn people away during these weeks) but in two years the extra cabin should pay for itself and increase the overall value of the property. Also it allows for larger groups to stay (the larger the group the more profit you will make) and occasionally we have had to turn down large groups too.

We can recommend several good contractors/builders in town to help you with your projects.

How far away are medical services if needed for emergencies?
The town of Siepre has a medical center for basic needs such as stitches for a cut, anti-venom for a snake bite, etc. Sierpe is a 30 - 40 minute boat ride away. There is a very large, full service hospital that was just recently built to service this area of the Osa Peninsula in the town of Cortez which is just thirty minutes further from the town of Sierpe.

How many tourists come to this lodge per year?
Sabalo Lodge is a husband and wife operation with help from a few locals when needed. We have purposely kept the operation small so we would not burn ourselves out and possibly sacrifice the level of service by over-extending ourselves. We have been averaging about 60 guests per tourist season mostly from promoting our lodge on the internet. This has worked well for us. If someone wanted to expand the operation there are plenty of avenues to market the lodge as well as plenty of room on the grounds to expand the capacity for guests with additional cabins.

When is the high tourist season?
The high tourist season is from mid-December to the end of April. May through August has slower traffic and more Europeans visit this area. The European market is another market that is available to explore as we did very little marketing in this area.

What is the most number of tourists we have had at one time?
We have had up to nine guests at one time and everyone semed to enjoy themselves. One of the nice things about Sabalo Lodge is its eight open acres of land that allows for a lot of space so people can enjoy themselves and not bump into each other.

What is the lodge capacity for tourists?
The current lodge capacity is twelve guests: five in the Deluxe Rainforest Cabin, three in the Rainforest cabin and four people (two each) in two of the guests rooms in the main lodge.

How much can we expect to make a year in profit from the lodge?
We can make our accounting information available to serious inquiries. In the two years we have been operating the business, with the profits from the lodge we have been able to cover our basic monthly expenses. Click here to find out more about the business we have established.

How many employees do we have and do we usually hire more during tourist season? We have one part time person, Melvin. He is wonderful and a true jack-of-all-trades. He is proficient at taking care of motors from our quads, motorcycle, and generator to building experience, plumbing, cement work, painting etc. He is a wonderful gardener and grounds keeper too. He can do just about everything you need to maintain the lodge.

During tourist season we hire a few women from the nearby village to help us in the kitchen and for laundry as all the laundry here is done by hand. We also hire a woman on a part time basis for laundry and detail cleaning of the lodge at least a few days a month.

What are our average monthly expenses for employees, internet and maintenance?
Expect to spend about $500 - $700 per month for these expenditures.

How do we advertise the lodge?
Right now we have strickly used the internet to promote the lodge with our website and we recently started a blog and are expanding into Social Networking. We do utilize several websites that help find us leads for our business to such as ResponsibleTravel.com, TripAdvisor.com, InfoHub.com and AdventureHotelsOfCostaRica.com.

What travel guidebooks are we featured in?
Sabalo Lodge had been around for many years before we purchased it and it has been featured in all the major tourist books such as Lonely Planet, Moon, Frommers and Fodors. Lonely Planet gave our lodge a wonderful review from its 2008 edition and this has really helped us procure more guests.

What types of activities are there in this area?
There are many great activities here that are off the beaten path. We are the only lodge in this area so guests are able to do unique things here without the crowds that many other more more touristy places have. The main draw for tourism to the Osa Peninsula is Corcovado National Park. We offer day trips to the park and we offer a very popular package of a 3 night stay here and 2 nights in Drake Bay plus a Corcovado guided tour. You can view the details of this package at: www.sabalolodge.com/tours.html. Also please refer to our web site for more information about the activities we offer: www.sabalolodge.com/trip_planner.html.

How many people live in the local community?
The community of Sabalo has about 50 people in it although you would not know that walking down the main road. The families are all spread out and some are somewhat secluded making this a very quiet area.

Are there any “gringos” living nearby?
There are no gringos in the immediate area although there are a few that own land out here and some have mentioned interest in building vacation homes in the area so there may be a small community in the future. There is a nice community of gringos living in the little port town of Sierpe about 35 minutes from our lodge by boat.

Do we ever get lonely being this remote?
I personally do not and that was one of my motivations for moving here. There is always plenty to do and admire and it did not take that long to adjust to our new lifestyle. We do believe we’ve saved ourselves a few grey hairs by slowing down the pace of our lives from what it used to be in the states. Holly is more content during tourist season when we have interesting guests stopping by that she can chat with. During rainy season when there are fewer guests coming, Holly will tend to plan a trip to see her parents and friends in the states or we will travel and visit friends we have made in other parts of Costa Rica.

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