We enjoyed our stay at Casa Carmel. You cannot beat the views and privacy. The drive up to the house was bumpy and took 20 min, but on the way we saw toucans, javelinas, crazy bees and a coati. We enjoyed every sunrise and sunset - always different. The stars were stunning too - we saw the Southern Cross. Casa Carmel is in a great location for local day trips to Manuel Antonio (ziplining and kayaking), Hotillo (hot springs), and the beaches of Dominical and the Whales Tail. It was a great choice for my family of four.

House and location is great

We (my husband and another couple) had a relaxing week at this house. It has beautiful views of the ocean and is high enough above the coast that you can watch birds, and some people! gliding. We saw lots of birds including toucans and hummingbirds and so many blue morphos when we went for walks around the estate. The house is well appointed/provisioned (with two puzzling exceptions below). You definitely need a 4x4 and the drive is not for the faint of heart (20-25 minutes of rugged, twisty, narrow roads).We took advantage of the restaurant a relatively short drive down the road - called Scala - which was excellent.The puzzling things:1) nowhere to hang clothes in the ‘master’ bedroom. Really - no hooks, except a few in the bathroom for towels and no closet. I think the actual closet was locked for the owners belongings (which is not unusual) but there wasn’t any attempt to replace it with somewhere to hang the few things we did want to hang. We resorted to leaving the dresser drawers open and draping things over the edge of the open drawers. There is a closet with a few hangers in one of the other bedrooms, but nothing in the third bedroom either.2) nowhere to hang wet suits and towels outside. We enjoyed the swimming pool and tried hanging things in the bathrooms but they really needed the sun to dry between swimmings. It seemed odd to us to have a pool and not provide a place to hang wet things.

The house and views were beautiful. Upon arrival, the house was incredibly clean. John was really great and helpful. Thank you for sharing your home with us.