Finca Lindora Hot Springs & Horses — Local services in Monteverde

False advertising on their poster as "free guide". They refused to provide a guide on the long trek down and up the hill after I paid the 20 usd fee. Safety of the guests seems to be unimportant to the hosts. They need to put up at least some signs on the trek uphill. It takes one wrong turn to lose your way and end up on a different side of the mountain where the path stops and you're in the middle of nowhere. The only signage they have are two small arrows at the end of the trek, close to the water. They didn't answer the many calls I made to them on the way uphill when I had some phone signal, to tell them that I was lost alone and might need someone to help me out. Even my hostel staff called them over 10 times but no answer. Luckily I had a bit of phone signal to send my location updates to my hostel staff and some water on me but it could've been a lot worse. The lady host thankfully arrived on a horse after an hour, when I had walked back down to the water and found the right trail, after being lost for an hour. The hosts were laughing and taking it very lightly when I told them that I had this scary experience of being lost alone on the long hike uphill. And the water is not hot in the "hot spring" which is a barely warm manmade pool. Not worth the trouble of hiking all the way up and down, in my opinion. The horse seemed very tired and burdened and refused to move at one point. I walked for the most part uphill while the host ride along. At the bare minimum I would expect the host to answer their phone or reply to texts. Very...

Family are really friendly but Horses are really unhappy and apathetic. They do this every day and they lost being happy and being horses. I did horseriding for 13 years. When you have a little knowledge about horses in general and then compare it to them on this farm you know that this horses are sad and unhappy. I know it‘s their daily buisness but maybe there is time for a change of the whole concept. In my opinon you really can‘t get a connection to the horse because when you arrive you just start the horseback riding. It would be more nice, if you could make the horse ready and have more time with cuddeling, cleaning etc. And also the horses maybe need new routes and more breaks of the buissnes. My horse didn’t have 4 horsehoe. So it had to go with only 3 horsehoe down to the hotspring. And the way has a lot of stones. The horse was so slow and sometimes it just stand still, I knew it doesn‘t want to do this tour. I hope the owner can some changes that the horses can be happier! When horses are happy then human can be...

A great activity to do from Santa Elena. We walked there which took about 45 minutes and we were joined by a stray dog. The hike to the hot springs cost 3000 colones and we were allowed to bring the dog along as long as we could keep it from bothering the cows and horses. We got there about 9am and reached the water around 9:30. The hike is rocky and has a lot of uphill and downhill so wear good shoes. The pool was lovely and we had it all to ourselves, it was pleasantly warm and overlooked a river. There are little shacks were you can change or leave stuff as well as rocks you can pop your clothes on. We saw a snake, squirrels, lizards, butterflies, and birds. The hike back is more uphill and the walk back to Santa Elena is also uphill. We managed to hitchhike with the dog back to town just as it...