旦提卡云中森林旅社

I am a tropical ecologist from the Netherlands, and went to study Tapirs (Dantas) in the medio Caquetá region, the Colombian Amazon, during one year for a pilot study with the University of Amsterdam. I had to work closely with different indigenous tribes to visit the sacred ´salt licks´, places rich in minerals where many animals come to eat the soil, and I worked mainly with the Andoke tribe, where I soon got the nickname Dantica (ing´tha in Andoke), meaning little tapir. It is therefore no surprise that the lodge has the tapir as its logo, with tapirs actually living in its forest! After my study I started to buy indigenous art all over Latin America and soon met my wife, Maria Luisa, in Bogotá, Colombia. She worked with different ethnic communities and indigenous tribes in Colombia, designing new products for them using the traditional techniques. We decided to move to San Gerardo de Dota to open a small cloud forest lodge and a gallery on a 20 hectare forest reserve with some clearings, where we are committed to sustainable tourism.

The history of Dantica Cloud Forest Lodge starts with its name. The founders and owners of Dantica ecolodge are a Colombian - Dutch couple, Maria Luisa Castro Fernández who is a textile designer, and Joost Wilms who is a tropical ecologist. When Joost was finishing his studies in 1992 he had to do fieldwork in Costa Rica and resulted to study reforestation with frugivorous birds in the Cloud Forest of San Gerardo de Dota. He fell in love with the place, not knowing he would be coming back 10 years later to built an ecolodge with his new love, Maria Luisa.

The valley of San Gerardo, Copey County, Dota District, San José Province, is located on the Pacific slopes of the Talamancan mountain range. Nowadays it is situated inside the Los Santos Forest Reserve and the Los Quetzales National Park, between 3.025 and 2.000 meters above sea level. There is a 9 kilometer long road that enters the valley at the top end, at 3.025 meters. There are two small rivers, the Ojo de Agua and the Savegre, they come together near the bridge and continue as a larger river called the Savegre, reaching the sea near Quepos. The forest is categorized as Upper Montane Cloud Forest, dominated by oak trees (Quercus spp.) that grow up to 50 meters and can live over 500 years. These forests often experience a diurnal presence of clouds, which is why they are often called "cloud forests". The specific atmospheric humidity regime of these forests represents one of the main factors that cause the large array of differences in forest structure and functioning when compared to other tropical forests.