Gringo Petes Too — Hotel in La Fortuna

First place up hill from the super Christian grocery store. It's purple/pink. Cheapest place in town and on our 5 weeks of traveling. Our room was quiet and clean. NO Frills very basic but that's why cheap. Our room and private bath was $16 and it was clean. We stayed 3 nights. ||Juan Carlos was running the joint when we were there and he was the reason stayed 3 nights. Right away he showed us a sloth and a huge iguana. He pointed us towards a swimming hole 1km walk down the road. He has bikes available and he provides the cheapest tours in town. He took us to the hot river one night and hung around with us. We were new on our travels and a little spooked at the idea being there after dark with mostly locals. He said no problem for us but he could tell we were a little uncomfortable still so he just hung and played on his phone. Super nice dude. ||Next day we floated the arsenal river with him just Us three( Juan Carlos Tim and me). He took great care of us made share we were safe and showed us all sorts of lizards monkeys birds snakes. Toooo cool. ||Next day he took to the blue river!!! Unreal color to the water. He took "behind the rope" to a friends property that had direct access to the river like nobody else. Hike down a canyon to a Bright blue river. The color changes based on volcano activity. On the drive over we stopped so he could show us some trees and birds and a snake. We tubed down some natural rock slides and had pineapple under a water fall. Then went up another river visited a different waterfall that had just washed out the river below at Easter. He was able to show us how much it changed in one eruption. ||The view from gringo Petes is pretty impressive too looking up the hill towards volcano arenal. We got to see the clouds blow away a few times. ||Juan Carlos made our stay great by being an honest and welcoming host. Funny as hell and we had a great time driving around picking up food and helping him learn to drive. 😆😆😆😜||Thanks again Juan Carlos!!! We had an amazing time!||This is also where we met Johnny of Johnny Loves Nature. Find him here on trip advisor or his website named the same. Can't say enough great things about both these guys. Trust them when they give you suggestions! They have best prices and best...

We could not have had a more perfect stay. I'm really surprised by recent reviews complaining about the service, because Gabriel and his family made our stay unforgettable. It's the first time I've ever stayed in a hostel where I really felt like I was part of the family. They were so friendly and welcoming from the moment we arrived.

Several things happened that really showed just how lovely Gabriel is. The booking website had made a mistake with the price, but Gabriel honoured the much cheaper price that we had been charged. For our second day we planned a big hike, starting at 4am, and hadn't noticed the sign saying that the kitchen doesn't open until 8am (our fault). We woke Gabriel up so that we could get our food out, and he helped us out with no complaints and sent us off with a smile. I was absolutely blown away by his service. I don't usually leave reviews, but this hostel definitely earnt it.

The accommodation is nice. The top balcony has good views of Mt Arenal, and the location is close to the bus and shops. The kitchen is shared with the family and it is big and...

Is it worth 5 stars, yeah! It's what you need for a price to die for. See my earlier re-view from years ago at tripAdvisor. Friendly people you join with every evenings to walk to a great place to eat called Snappers (seafood), yumm. They said you can't/shouldn't/won't walk up to Fortuna Falls late in the day, but I did and it gets STEEP! It finally gets steep & I had only 20 minutes there taking off late, but it was so great. Want quads of steel, do what I did. Walk down to the falls with huges stone steps, & then walk up the TALL stone steps & down & up again! It's gorgeous there. To trip to see the lava "flow", nice trip but you can hardly see ANY specs of lava, they are that small, like imaginary!!! WHAT A WATER FALL!!!!! AND THE JUNGLE!!!! I walked back in the dark, till this guy picked me up to Fortuna - great, I was done way at the top end. As you will see, Fortuna is a sweet, nice town, easy to walk in. What's not to like? More thrills, tourist stuff? Pete is a real guy. And I'm NOT talking about Gringo Pete's...