Cabañas Don Ramiro

The meals were very good, and the staff were welcoming. The accommodation was clean and pleasant, in a really quiet spot. Getting there is the hard part. The access road is rough enough that you need a vehicle with high ground clearance. The national park entrance is on the other side of the volcano, and the drive over there is difficult and takes a long time.

The villas are beautiful and the welcome was lovely, and there’s an excellent soda on site. But the road in is extremely rough for a car. We’d rented a 4x4 for the trip, but the rental company gave us a regular car instead. Large rocks on the road damaged the oil pan and engine under-tray, leaving us with $575 USD in damage.

We’d planned a trip to Upala and booked your cabins for a few days of rest. This morning, we learned from your nephew, not from you directly, that road repairs mean the property can currently only be reached in a 4x4. We had already told you our vehicle is 4x2. You refused even a partial refund of our 25,000 pesos deposit, saying that “we don’t want to go.” That’s a significant cost for each of us, set aside for a planned vacation. The only alternative you offered was to come next week, as though we were just five minutes away. If we’d driven all the way to Upala without hearing this and then couldn’t reach the property, would you have helped us? Or would you have washed your hands of it and taken no responsibility for failing to tell us about the road conditions? We feel it’s completely unfair and unethical to keep the money. You have a responsibility to ensure guests can access your facilities, or at least to tell them clearly and promptly if something could prevent them from arriving. The lack of information caused a lot of trouble and wasted valuable time. We lost the deposit and had to rent other accommodation unexpectedly, so it also cost us money directly.

Don Ramiro’s cabins feel like a little paradise after a challenging drive. We definitely recommend bringing a 4x4. The area is still relatively untouched by tourism, so it has a wild, authentic feel, and there’s a lot of beauty around you. Service was excellent. The women working in the restaurant were friendly and kind, and the food was delicious. It’s a true oasis in the middle of nowhere. Tours need to be done with guides because most of the land is private, but they’re well worth doing. The cabins recommended Ever, who was very friendly and took us to see Morpho Waterfall.