How San Gerardo de Dota Was Born: The Story of the Chacón Brothers

Historia del valle · 2 min read · Updated August 2026

San Gerardo de Dota did not exist before 1954. That year, two coffee labourers from the Los Santos region — Efraín and Federico Chacón — lost their way while hunting in these mountains and spent the night in the open. At dawn they decided they wanted to live here. Seventy years later, the village they founded lives on nature tourism, and the hotel is still run by the third generation of the same family.

A night lost in the mountains

In 1954, a group of men followed their quarry deep into the forest and lost the trail. Among them were the brothers Efraín and Federico Chacón, who worked as labourers in the coffee plantations of the Los Santos region.

They spent the night in the open, in the cold of 2,200 metres. At first light, the beauty of the place gave them a concrete idea: to own land there, work it, and provide for their families.

Coming back, and staying

Back home, the idea did not fade. Over time, and with the help of other men who joined them, the Chacóns brought the rest of their families and founded the village now known as San Gerardo de Dota.

At first it was farming and livestock — the logic of any mountain settlement. Trout farming came later, with the introduction of trout to the river, and with it the first visitors.

The 1980s and the discovery

In the early 1980s, a group of nature-loving tourists arrived in the valley and were astonished by what they found: the vegetation, the variety of birds, and a number of quetzals they had not encountered anywhere else.

That moment changed the valley's economic history. What the family saw as land to work turned out to be one of the finest birdwatching destinations on the planet. Conserving the forest stopped being only a matter of attachment and became the business as well.

Three generations later

Today the community prospers on nature tourism and non-traditional fruit crops. The hotel remains a family business into its third generation, and the private reserve protects more than 500 hectares of the same forest that astonished those first visitors.

There is a continuity worth pointing out: the decision not to log is what made everything else possible. The quetzal a guest sees at dawn today is there because seventy years ago a family decided that forest was worth more standing.

Frequently asked questions