El Retiro Lodge

I can absolutely recommend this place if you are looking for some relaxing days in nature! The staff are super friendly people and the food at the restaurant is delicious. If you have time, dont miss out on the Tubing Tour with Tali on the local river! 🙌🙌

The lodge has a great vibe. They had hens and peacocks on their property with a lot of hammocks everywhere. They offer free filtered water to refill and the restaurant has amazing food. They do have a table tennis and snooker table made of wood, and a Jenga.
They have happy hour from 5 to 8pm, and the kitchen closes at 8pm.
We can also swim and jump into the river water.
The market is also 10 mins walk, and they close at 7pm. There is also a bank 15mins away.

Lovely place. Very serene. On the riverside, but surprisingly no issues with mosquitos. The staff are excellent, friendly and professional, attentative, always asking how everything is, whether they can help in any way. Good food on site, cheap and huge portions (but dont order anything with honey, the bees will not let you eat it). Great social spaces, hammocks, pool table, ping pong. Rooms and bathrooms clean, spacious, hot water.

We would absolutely recommend this to everyone. We also did the tubing and Semuc Champey tour with them, which was amazing and definitely worth the money. And absolutely 5 starts for the super friendly personnel and good and affordable food!

This is the perfect backpacker’s hostel! It is next to the river, has a great bar and restaurant that serves high quality meals. They organize lots of activities and the people that work in the hostel are extremely friendly and helpful. When we arrived, they told us “welcome to our little jungle paradise”, and it really is a little jungle paradise.

Very nice hostel in a beautiful environment right next to the river. We enjoyed the people, the bar / food and the games in the evening (Billard, Table Tennis). The staff was always very friendly and helpful.
Would love to come back some day! 🙂

Beautiful place in Lanquin. You wake up with the sound of the forest surrounding you. Very cool place to stay!

AMAZING HOSTEL! We adored El Retiró. The buffet nights were such a great way to meet other guests, and the food was amazing (breakfast burrito, veg curry and Ana Banana smoothie are our faves!). Having the river there for a swim at any time was heaven.

The Semuc Champey tour with Jose was super fun, well organised, and absolutely worth the money.

If in Lanquin, I can definitely recommend El Retiro hostel. Everything is very clean, the beds are good, the location at the river is really nice, the bar area has fun games… so no complaints from me. My two favorite things were the food (the breakfast menu and the buffets in the evening are really good) and the staff is absolutely amazing. Everybody was so welcoming and friendly. I really enjoyed my stay.

Absolutely loved this place!!! Couldn’t say enough about the relaxed atmosphere!

Very nice place for the small town of Lanquin. Freddie took care of us just like I read in other reviews. our family did not speak very much Spanish at all and I was able to use WhatsApp to communicate before the trip. The staff is very nice, the restaurant has reasonable prices. Our kids love to play pool and ping pong at the restaurant. The pool is connected to the river with a rope swing, although we didn't really use it and didn't see very many people in their swimming. Tubes are free from the hotel to float down the river if you want. coffee is complimentary in the morning although it's a little weak. :-) our rooms were adequate, I didn't expect much. The shower in one of our rooms did not heat up in one of the toilet seats was loose/broken. Minor issues, I'm still giving it five stars because overall our experience was great. The roosters are very loud in the morning right outside the rooms, expect wake up calls starting as early as 5:45. :-)

We just parked out front with our campervan, but could use the facilities. We were also able to park here while we went up to Semuc Champey for a couple of days (didn’t want to attempt it without 4wd). The restaurant area by the river is beautiful and comfortable. Tasty food. Nice people working there. Good wifi in the restaurant area too. Showers hot and toilets clean. Great spot.

Such great memories from this lovely guesthouse. I stayed there quite a while ago so of course the videos look different from what it is today. It's great to see so much upgrade and of course happy to see that they made it through the pandemic. Best place to stay on your way to semuc champey and the bat caves. Well deserved 5 stars.

My fiancé and I stayed here for 5 days and it was amazing. We stayed in the summer room with private bath and a view of the river. It was just far away from the restaurant/bar that the noise did not disturb us. The staff was amazing and super friendly. We did a tubing tour on the river and also a tour to semuc booked through the hostal and both were perfect. The staff even helped me change my flat tire and took me into town to get it repaired so I didn't have to travel on my spare. Can't say enough good things about this place. Absolutely loved it!!!

I really love this place and can't wait to go back. Great location and it's a perfect to go alone or with the family. Rooms are super clean, food is amazing and the staff is so friendly. I really enjoyed my time there. I highly recommend it!

Location and serenity

This place is located in what seemed to be a safe location in Lanquin. It is easy to access from the "main" road.

The place is owned and ran by Guatemalans and offers multiple lodging options. I stayed in a dorm which offers a comfortable single bed and a locker big enough for a back pack or for your personal good. As expected, there was no heat or AC as it is not necessary. The showers are nice and hot, but don't forget to turn on the breaker!

There was a buffet style supper at 730 pm which brought everyone together. You need to sign up in advance and there is plenty quality fresh food to be had for everyone. It is a nice way to mingle with people.

I did not witness any kind of party as most people seemed to enjoy the this place to relax.

The views are incredible and only made better by the beautiful people occupying the place.

I would recommend. If you want a party though, go to Zephyr.

I wish I could give this place more stars. Very comfortable room. I slept like a rock. The food is delicious. The ambiance at the bar / restaurant at the river is awesome.
I arranged my tour to Semuc Champey through the front desk and it was spectacular as well. I cannot say enough positive about my stay here.

The hostel is picturesque, clean, vibrant, friendly. The hostel sits a top a hill on the river bank overlooking rolling grassy Hills. You can swim in an enclave, take tubes, play pool, swing over the river. The staff are friendly and helpful, free lifts from the shuttle drop off points. Tours are cheap from here. A daily buffet dinner brings the entire hostel together for a delicious meal. Happy hour keeps them together. Two for one night special. So good we did it twice.

The staff and grounds are amazing. The staff is very nice and accommodating. They even helped me out with my flat tire on the day of check out. The room was perfect for our stay and we loved every moment at this amazing hostel.

The mixed dorm was very comfortable and clean. The staff was extremely friendly and always willing to answer whatever questions we had!
Nice offers for tours and shuttles as well. And at the restaurant there are about 7 different kinds of breakfast you can buy, which was really nice as well!