About La Leona

La Leona Eco Lodge was born as a dream of a visionary. Salma Polanco and Walter Morales invested their life in this beautiful project and teaching the respect and love of nature to their 7 children who latter help to develop La Leona Eco Lodge.

Don Walter Morales arrives in the Osa Peninsula when road access in the area did not exist.

He was a pilot and came to transport meat, cheese, beans, and corn from Rio Oro, Carate and Sirena to Golfito and Puntarenas. He also carried in his plane diesel, beer, Coca-Cola, and other products to supply a local market located close to where La Leona Eco Lodge is today.

In 1969, while he flew for the first time over Corcovado he fell in love with the unique beauty of the location. Where the powerful greens of the Rain Forest merge with the turquoise-blue color of the Pacific Ocean.

Don Walter return to Puerto Jimenez in 1976, not as a commercial pilot any longer but as a crop duster for rice fields. During that period he established relations with the families living north of Puerto Jimenez. These families told him about the tremendous richness of biodiversity in the Corcovado area.

In Don Walter's vision of showing the world of tourism the huge potential of the area, he saw 10 years before. He bought several pieces of land between 1984 and 1989 and started the process of his dream.

It was until the year 2000 that the family was able to initiate the project that La Leona Eco Lodge has become.

The idea of ecotourism is minimizing environmental impacts; it is also a model of improving local economies and preserving cultural traditions; all aspects can be comprised by the term ‘sustainability’. Costa Rica is world-famous for this ecotourism tradition and its corresponding well-developed infrastructure. Since several years now Costa Rica is following the new and successful concept of sustainable tourism and has developed the Certification for Sustainability in Tourism (CST) by the Costa Rica Chamber of Tourism (ICT). Hotels and lately tour operators can obtain this certification for demonstrating a difference.

Ecotourism facilities are designed to include existing natural attractions without altering them too much. Costa Rica is the perfect example! In this beautiful country, you can experience a very close contact to nature, can count on the widest variety of flora and fauna and the incredible marine biodiversity of the two oceans surrounding Costa Rica – the Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean Sea.

The natural essence , particularly of this area, is the great nature of Corcovado; Ecotourism here gives you the chance of getting in touch with real life, environment, culture , and society. The famous Corcovado National Park is one of the most important and pristine national parks in Costa Rica. National Geographic once described Corcovado as ‘one of the most biologically intense places on earth’.

At La Leona Eco Lodge you can experience a very special form of ecotourism. The hotel is surrounded by pristine nature. All activities at La Leona Eco Lodge in Corcovado consider the environment; we are involved in conservation, recycling and the preservation of our natural resources. We from the Morales Polanco family share our privately protected rain forest with our guests for providing a nature paradise at La Leona Eco Lodge