Andrea/Andi always has felt that traveling is in her blood since early ages. So it was very handy to realize later on that she has excellent sense for learning languages, Italian, English, Spanish and a bit of French beside being native in the hardest European language, Hungarian. :-) So for her it was natural to travel and work at several different countries including US, Tunisia, Sicily. She loved taking photos, sharing her knowledge with others so no wonder she became a professional guide.

Andi worked at a large travel agency as a guide and tour operator where she created and lead the Latin American department. She has been several times in Mexico, Cuba, Costa Rica, Venezuela, Brazil, Chile and other Latin American countries.

In 2006 Andi got the possibility to go to Mexico to check out places, hotels, make contracts. She was offered to buy a small company specialized on nature and culture tours in Yucatan, Mexico. She felt that this could be the chance for a fantastic change in her life but wanted to do only if Gabor with whom they met and fall in love in the other end of the World would support the idea.

Gabor, who since childhood was fascinated by especially animals, but basically anything connected with nature became first a biology, geography and environmental studies teacher in different special high schools. Worked in New Hampshire, lead a Natural Science department in a famous high school in Budapest, Hungary and worked at bilingual schools. Got a second masters degree in Zoology, a tour guide license and masters in Tourism Management. Finally combined all these and during the 90-es set up his own travel agency, Ecotours Hungary. First it offered any type of tours connected with nature from hiking through canoeing, biking till birding and nature photographing in Hungary. Later on the thematic portfolio was narrow down to birding tours, other specialized wildlife tours like butterfly or mammal tours, nature & culture and photography tours, but with more and more destinations first in Eastern Europe, later Africa, Latin America and finally Worldwide.

So when Andi presented the Mexico idea it was not too hard to convince Gabor to join their strength, start a new life together partly living half year in Hungary and another half year in Yucatan, Mexico. During the previous years when we not lived together yet we both had extreme hardships in our lives and needed a dramatic change which in this way we made it happen. We put all of our money, enthusiasm, knowledge and hopes into this Mexican adventure and it became a huge success story. We spent 13 seasons in Yucatan and discovered most of Latin America as well.

Andi had the passion for Latin American indigenous cultures, studied linguistics and researched pre-Colombian history as well, so she quickly became one of the best experts of Mayan Archeology and culture. She was amazed by these people and their ancient history, languages. First we worked mainly with Hungarian tourists who wanted to visit Mayan Archeological sites full with history and were ready to hear all the info Andi shared with them. But it was obvious for us that these famous Mayan cultural sites were surrounded by natural vegetation, ancient forests so for Gabor it was easy to point out local endemic birds, colorful reptiles and butterflies and even unique mammals. We both learned a lot from each other and during the years we led hundreds of very successful nature and culture tours literally hands-in-hands and what is more, our guests got 2 enthusiastic professional guides for a price of one!Andi had the passion for Latin American indigenous cultures, studied linguistics and researched pre-Colombian history as well, so she quickly became one of the best experts of Mayan Archeology and culture. She was amazed by these people and their ancient history, languages. First we worked mainly with Hungarian tourists who wanted to visit Mayan Archeological sites full with history and were ready to hear all the info Andi shared with them. But it was obvious for us that these famous Mayan cultural sites were surrounded by natural vegetation, ancient forests so for Gabor it was easy to point out local endemic birds, colorful reptiles and butterflies and even unique mammals. We both learned a lot from each other and during the years we led hundreds of very successful nature and culture tours literally hands-in-hands and what is more, our guests got 2 enthusiastic professional guides for a price of one!This was a perfect match since Gabor was the main guide for birdwatchers and Andrea the “cherry on cake” with her knowledge about the Mayan people and their culture, history in Mexico. When we had guests who were more interested in culture then Andi was the main guide and Gabor was the “cherry on cake" - ok, please do not try to imagine that literally - with showing some beautiful birds, butterflies or other wildlife :-) But year by year we shifted focus on more specialized nature tours, especially birding tours which we organized not only for our direct customers but for many leading British and other international birding companies. Beside the World-famous local archaeological sites like Chichen Itza, Tulum, Coba we started to add more hidden, less touristy places, also combining Yucatan with Chiapas on larger circuit tours. Soon we added Belize, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Trinidad & Tobago, Cuba, Costa Rica, Panama to our destinations.Later we ventured to Colombia, Brazil, Ecuador and some more South American countries where we tried to offer something unique with better price as well than the big companies still offering it a family or friendly style nature holiday experience together.

Years passed in Mexico for Andrea and Gabor and however Mexico was never the safest country in the world, but the Yucatan and the village where they lived was a safe heaven.. Until…. the problems started seriously in Mexico and now being involved almost the whole country. Gabor and Andrea still did not give up this amazing country, it was deep in their heart and they cried with its people for the change, but… safety is a key question when you take people on tours and it is your responsibility as well. They could not tell anymore to their clients that ooh, just relax, those problems in Mexico are far away, in the other part of Mexico, thousands of kms away.., because they were not faraway anymore.. they were close and they were everywhere and the safe heaven has changed dramatically. Gabor and Andrea started not to feel the same as before.. they started to feel the need to change.. change life again after 13years..

After two years that we started migrating seasonally like strange birds between Mexico and Hungary once we came back to our native country with the strong desire to move out from Budapest to a more natural place in the countryside. When we were not on tours we crisscrossed Hungary checking out different properties close to National Parks or at least excellent birding and wildlife habitats. We just wanted a tranquil, cozy house for ourselves. Never crossed our mind to have 4 thatch-roofed traditional buildings, 12-rooms, wine-cellar, professional kitchen, restaurant, bar and many more. But when we found this place we felt again the similarly strong heartbeat and adrenaline rush when the Mexico idea came along. Of course we have not had either even half of the needed money, nor real previous experience how to convert a place like that into a real ecolodge or run a business like that but again a dream started to form. We will not bore you with the details but within half year we made a decision and went for it. It took long years but we made it. It became not just our lovely home but one of the best places to stay for any nature enthusiast who wants to be surrounded by unique birds and other wildlife at a National Park. We have created ponds and professional wildlife watching & photography hides, put out hundreds of nestboxes for Rollers, Hoopoes, Little and Scops Owls. By now we have had guests from all over the World from each continent.

What is more after buying the place it turned out that it is miraculously exactly the same place where Gabor started birding as a little boy at Lake Kondor which at that time was one of the most famous bird ringing/banding station. So the leaders of those camps are now our neighbors and best friends. Kata is an essential help at our lodge while Laci is an amazing artist with incredible knowledge of local wildlife. Thanks to global climate change Lake Kondor has dried up but not our friendship.

Many busy years passed migrating between Mexico and Kondor Ecolodge Hungary, loads of tours at both and Worldwide. While at our lodge things improved year by year with hard work in the meantime in Mexico unfortunately just the opposite happened. Mexico was never the safest country in the World, but the Yucatan and the simple place between the mangrove and the amazing Caribbean beach where we lived seemed a safe heaven. It was for many years. But more and more problems started to happen and within years they became really serious and shocking. Drug and related crime became almost a daily issue. We started to feel that Paradise is getting spoiled and lost. We could not tell anymore to our friends, clients, partners that relax, these problems in Mexico are far away at other states thousands of miles away. We witnessed and felt too much. The safe heaven has changed dramatically. We were so happy that we although played with the idea before not started to get our own property in Yucatan. Instead we felt we need another big change after long years.

Since in Hungary we learned how to manage a lodge and run tours from there as a base we started to dream about doing something similar in Latin America.

So during our extensive travels we kept our eyes open for potential properties. We have found excellent candidates in Panama, Colombia, Costa Rica, even in Brazil. Andi favoured Costa Rica, Gabor was fascinated by Colombia and Panama seemed an acceptable compromise between these 2 countries. After lot of pros and contra at one of the British Birdfairs where we were exhibitors for 20 years we asked our former guests and visitors which country they would choose? Based on that and on our experience we decided for Costa Rica.

Gabor’s first visit to Cost Rica was in 2005, but since we lived in Mexico we had more chance to go and even took tours there. We fall in love with this little lovely country which has the most biodiversity on Earth compared to the size!! 6% of the Globe’s total biodiversity can be found in Costa Rica which is quite amazing considering how tiny is the country. Safe, clean, loads of protected areas, big variety in small country, friendly people, so what we are waiting for?

Finally in 2018 the decision was made after some more research and traveling we narrowed down the region and the potential properties which we should consider in Costa Rica. We shared all the info and enthusiasm with Gabor’s lifelong friend who helped him change, improve his life several times. Without him probably he would never become an owner of a birding and nature company. As a financial investor he also managed all the money we saved during the long years of work at both continents. He persuaded us to dream even bigger promising to lend a large sum and thus double our financial resources.

We narrowed down our pre-selected properties to 5, visited and negotiated at each except one which we could not find since we had no address and contact just a photo and name of the region. On our last day we gave another chance and as we crisscrossed the regions dirt roads once we were stopping with the car in the middle of the road to decide whether we should continue or give it up when Andi looked through the roadside bushes and saw the marvelous building surrounded by the forest exactly as on the promo photo.

Our hearts were beating strong from the first look and excitement was even stronger as later on we hit the trails at the first time with the owner and heard and seen the wildlife there. Toucans, guans, parrots, oropendolas, hummingbirds... and more and we did not to say a word, just looked at each other and we knew and felt THAT THIS IS THE PLACE! :-)

So after a lot of research and with a miraculous luck we found a dream place in January 2019, a lovely quinta surrounded by 23 hectares of primary and secondary forest at a superb location.

From this point the story could be in any twisted Hollywood movie or a Latin American soap opera. I am writing this 6 years later and still can not believe all the twist and turns. Perhaps once we will write a novel based on the true story, so I will not detail it here If you come with us on any of our longer Worldwide tours we might have enough time to tell you all the twists and turns. It was like an emotional and financial roller-coaster sometimes with extreme speed, sometimes as painfully slow as a snail, one minute Sun hot and another ice cold. All this throughout almost 6 years, including the Covid years. To put it short we got and lost the property where we lived for one season, had guests and tours there, had a separate company, website, brochures and so on. We lost all of that, including the money for which we worked close to 15 years and more painfully we lost that dream. But...

When we finally learned what really has happened after the shock we realized that we have to stand up and keep going. Adjust our dreams, help each other to clean our thoughts, souls and start all over. After trying to live both on the Pacific slope and the Caribbean side at different altitudes finally we ended up living at 2750 meters or nearly 9000 feet. It is again a fantastic place and although our guesthouse is not as luxurious like the previous one but the panoramic view is unbeatable, friendly families are nearby and with the always fresh and cooler air we feel better than at the lower elevation heat and humidity.