Ulises Quintero

Was born and raised in Gallardo, a little town of farmers and gold miners north of Pto. Jiménez. He finished primary school and attended high school until the ninth grade, when he started working on farms and looking for gold. But at the 17 he shifted his work to tourism, a career path that interested him. He went to San José to study nature interpretation and guiding with the Neotropica Foundation. During his first years in guiding, Ulises led adventure tourism, specializing in bird watching. Since those exciting first years, birds and snakes have become his true passion. In 2003, he came to the Lapa Ríos team first as trail guard and also worked in maintenance, reception and Brisa Azul restaurant until he moved into the guide team, where he finds himself most satisfied.

Edwin Villarreal

Edwin born in Golfito on the other side of the Golfo Dulce from Lapa Rios, living in a small town called La Virgen until the age of 14. His family moved to the Osa Península, in Palo Seco, where he worked in gold extraction, on a cattle farm with his family but also went to the Caribbean Coast banana plantations. In 1995, Edwin began work at Lapa Ríos and for over 8 years was the leader of housekeeping. In year 2000, he began to develop his special fondness for the forest and its environment and participated in a course offered by the National Institute of Education on natural history. He continued training with our guides, and for more than 5 years Edwin has been exclusively guiding tours, sharing a wonderful local interpretation of the forest. If you have any questions regarding the early years of Lapa Rios, Edwin is the one of our long-standing employees and knows many secrets!

Danilo was born in San José but grew up in Guanacaste where he finished primary school. After that he returned to San José to finish high school and college, majoring in Marine Biology in the National University. The ocean has always been part of his interests since childhood, so he came to live in the Osa Peninsula to do research in different terrestrial and marine animals. Since 1990, Danilo has worked in different areas of the Peninsula: Puerto Jiménez, Corcovado National Park and Drake Bay. He first became part of the Lapa Ríos family in 1999 and stayed with us for five years, then began work at other hotels in this area. In 2009 he returned to share his expertise and lead our naturalists and guide department. Danilo and his family live north of Pto. Jiménez on their beautiful rain forest farm overlooking the Golfo Dulce.

Alberto was born in San José, where he studied for Tourism Planning and continued his studies in the National University in Forest Engineering. Since he was young he continued to develop his love for nature. He began doing volunteer work in the National Parks in Costa Rica where he learned about most of the existing ecosystems in Costa Rica. He came to the Peninsula at the end of the 1990’s to work as an Environment Educator with the NGO, Neotropic Foundation. As a nature interpretive guide, Alberto has more than fifteen years of experience, knows most of the country’s zones having managed groups of students from different US universities. Since 2009, he has been one of the Lapa Ríos guides. He is very interested in fields like ornithology, zoology and entomology, but his passion is in botany. Don´t be surprised if you see him hugging or talking to some plant or tree…