Southeast Nicoya
HIGHWAY 21: CARMONA TO PLAYA NARANJO
Highway 21 winds south along the eastern shore of the Gulf of Nicoya via Jicaral to Playa Naranjo, beyond which it swings south around the Nicoya Peninsula bound for Paquera, Montezuma, and Malpaís. When I last drove it, the road was partially paved, with large sections worn to the bone.
Playa Naranjo is one of two terminals for the Puntarenas ferry (Coonatramar Ferry, tel. 506/2661-1069, www.coonatramar.com); use the Naranjo ferry to access the beaches of northern and central Nicoya only. There’s a gas station and supermarket here.
Inland of Jicaral, the Karen Mogensen Wildlife Reserve (tel. 506/2650-0607) protects 730 hectares of tropical moist forest; to get there, turn off at Lepanto, 11 kilometers south of Jicaral. The Costa Rican Association of Community-Based Rural Tourism (ACTUAR, tel. 506/2248-9470, www.actuarcostarica.com; two-day packages $68) arranges accommodation at Cerro Escondido, a lovely simple community lodge with four cabins, plus horseback rides, trails, an orchid garden, and small eco-museum.
Isla Chira
Costa Rica’s second-largest island, Isla Chira floats below the mouth of the Río Tempisque, at the north end of the Gulf of Nicoya. It is surrounded by mangroves popular with pelicans and frigate birds, and uninhabited except for a few fishermen, farmers and others who eke out a living from salinas (salt pans). Roseate spoonbills and other wading birds pick among the pans.
Isla de Chira Amistad Lodge (tel./fax 506/2661-3261, or c/o Costa Rican Association of Community-Based Rural Tourism, tel. 506/2248-9470, www.actuarcostarica.com, $33-36 pp) offers a simple dorm and six quad rooms. ACTUAR offers packages with boat trips.
Isla San Lucas National Wildlife Refuge
Refugio Nacional de Via Silvestre Isla San Lucas (615 hectares), five kilometers offshore of Naranjo, seems a pleasant palm-fringed place where you might actually wish to be washed ashore and languish in splendid sun-washed isolation. Yet a visit to Isla San Lucas once amounted to an excursion to hell.
Until a few years ago, this was the site of the most dreaded prison in the Costa Rican penal system, with a legacy dating back 400 years. In the 16th century, the Spanish conquistador Gonzalo Fernandez Oviedo used San Lucas as a concentration camp for local Chara people, who were slaughtered on the site of their sacred burial grounds. The Costa Rican government turned it into a detention center for political prisoners in 1862. In 1991, it closed. There are still guards here, but today their role is to protect the island’s resident wildlife from would-be poachers. It also has eight pre-Columbian sites.
In 2008, the prison was to be restored as a museum. Should you visit the grim bastion, the ghosts of murderers, miscreants, and maltreated innocents will be your guides. A cobbled pathway leads to the main prison building. The chapel has become a bat grotto, and only graffiti remains to tell of the horror and hopelessness, recorded by ex-convict José León Sánchez in his book, La Isla de los Hombres Solos (The Isle of the Lonely Men).
Coontramar (tel. 506/2661-1069, www.coonatramar.com/paq_sanluca_es.php, $60) offers tours from Puntarenas.
You can also rent motorboats through the Costa Rica Yacht Club (tel. 506/2661-0784), in Puntarenas, or Oasis del Pacífico (tel. 506/2641-8092) in Playa Naranjo.
Accommodations and Food
The nicest of several accommodations at Playa Naranjo is the modern, Italian-owned Hotel El Ancla (tel. 506/2641-3885, $40 s/d fan, $45 s/d a/c), just 200 meters from the ferry terminal, with nine brightly decorated, air-conditioned rooms fronted by a wide porch with hammocks. There’s a pool and thatched bar and pizza restaurant where movies are shown at 8 P.M.
PAQUERA AND VICINITY
Paquera, 24 kilometers south of Playa Naranjo, is where the Paquera ferry (Ferry Naviera Tambor, tel. 506/2661-2084, ferrypeninsular@ racsa.co.cr) arrives and departs to/from Puntarenas. The ferry berth is three kilometers northeast of Paquera. Paquera has banks and a gas station.
Note: If driving south from Playa Naranjo to Paquera, note that this unpaved section is very hilly, with tortuous switchbacks. It’s a despairingly rugged ride: the 2009 national budget includes money to pave this section. No buses run this route. At least you get some marvelous views out over the Gulf of Nicoya—including toward Isla Guayabo, which comes into view about six kilometers south of Playa Naranjo, where the road briefly meets the coast at Gigante, at the north end of Bahía Luminosa, also called Bahía Gigante.
Offshore, Islas Guayabo and Negritos Biological Reserves protect nesting sites of the brown booby, frigate bird, pelican, and other seabirds, as well as the peregrine falcon. They are off-limits to visitors.
Dolphins and whales are often sighted offshore (January is the best month for whales).
Tiny Isla Gitana, in the middle of Bahía Luminosa, was once a burial site for local peoples (hence its other name, Isla Muertos—Island of the Dead—by which it is marked on maps). The undergrowth is wild, and cacti abound, so appropriate footwear is recommended. You can hire a boat on the main-land beach. You can also reach the island by sea kayak from Bahía Gigante, a 30-minute paddle journey.
Curú National Wildlife Refuge The Curú Refugio Nacional de Vida Silvestre (tel. 506/2641-0100, www.curu.org, 7 A.M.-3 P.M. daily, $10 adults, $5 children) forms part of a 1,496-hectare cattle finca, two-thirds of which is preserved as primary forest. It is tucked in the fold of Golfo Curú, four kilometers south of Paquera, and is part privately owned. The reserve includes 4.5 kilometers of coastline with a series of tiny coves and three beautiful white-sand beaches—Playas Curú, Colorada, and Quesera—nestled beneath green slopes. Olive ridley and hawksbill turtles nest on the crystalline beaches. Mangrove swamps extend inland along the Río Curú, backed by forested hills. Monkeys are almost always playing in the treetops by the gift store, and agoutis, sloths, anteaters, and even ocelots are commonly seen. The facility has a macaw reintroduction program and a reproduction and rehabilitation program for endangered spider monkeys; you can spy them living freely behind an electrified fence (the trail to the enclosure is boggy, so bring appropriate footwear).
Trails range from easy to difficult. You can rent horses ($10 per hour). Guided tours are offered (your tip is their pay). The bus between Paquera and Cóbano passes the unmarked gate. Ask the driver to let you off.
It has basic cabins ($8 pp) and serves meals.
Turismo Curú (tel. 506/2641-0004, turismo curu@yahoo.com) offers snorkeling, kayaking, and scuba diving.
Accommodations
Cabinas y Restaurante Ginana (tel. 506/ 2641-0119, $33 s, $38 d), in Paquera, has 28 simply furnished rooms, some air-conditioned; all have private baths. The restaurant serves hearty local dishes.
You can also bunk in basic rooms with private cold water-only bathrooms at Curú National Wildlife Refuge ($35 pp, including meals). Bring a flashlight, as generator-powered electricity shuts down at night.
ISLA TORTUGA
This stunningly beautiful, 320-hectare island lies three kilometers offshore of Curú. Tortuga is as close to an idyllic tropical isle as you’ll find in Costa Rica. The main attraction is a magnificent white-sand beach lined with coconut palms. Tortuga is a favorite destination of excursion boats. Cruises depart Puntarenas and Los Sueños marina, at Playa Herradura, near Jacó. It’s a 90-minute journey aboard any of a half dozen cruise boats. The cruise is superbly scenic, passing the isles of Negritos, San Lucas, Gitana, and Guayabo. En route you may spot manta rays or pilot whales in the warm waters. Even giant whale sharks have been seen basking off Isla Tortuga. You’ll normally have about two hours on Isla Tortuga, with a buffet lunch served on the beach, plus options for sea kayaking, snorkeling, volleyball, and hiking into the forested hills. It can get a bit cramped on weekends.
I recommend Calypso Cruises (tel. 506/ 2256-2727 or U.S. tel. 866/887-1969, www.calypsocruises.com), which runs daily trips from Puntarenas aboard the luxurious Manta Raya catamaran with full bar, a fishing platform, and two whirlpool tubs. Trips depart from Puntarenas ($109 low season, $119 high season, including transfer from San José).
The company also has cruises to Punta Coral Private Reserve (www.puntacoral.com), where snorkeling, sea kayaking, and other activities are offered, and monkeys and other animals abound in the adjacent forest, with trails. It offers “Paradise Weddings” in a South Seas setting.
Bay Island Cruises (tel. 506/2258-3536, www.bayislandcruises.com) offers cruises year-round aboard the Bay Princess, an ultramodern 16-meter cruise yacht with room for 70 passengers. The ship has a sundeck and music, and cocktails and snacks are served during the cruise. And 2008 saw the introduction of a sleek new 200-passenger catamaran with Jacuzzi. Trips depart Los Sueños marina, near Jacó.
TAMBOR
Tambor, 18 kilometers southwest of Paquera, is a small fishing village fronted by a gray-sand beach in Bahía Ballena (Whale Bay), a deep-pocket bay rimmed by Playa Tambor and backed by forested hills. I find the setting unappealing, but many readers report enjoying Tambor.
You can play a round of golf or tennis at the nine-hole Tango Mar Golf Club (tel. 506/2683-0001, www.tangomar.com). Play is free for guests; others pay a $25 greens fee ($15 club rental). Tango Mar also offers tours, sportfishing, and horseback riding.
Ultralight tours (tel. 506/2683-0480) from the Los Delfines airstrip give a fantastic bird’s-eye view of the area.
Seascape Kayak Tours (tel. 506/2747-1884, www.seascapekayaktours.com) offers sea kayaking.
Tambor ferry to Paquera, Puntarenas
Accommodations
Budget hounds might try Cabinasy Restaurante Cristina (tel. 506/2683-0028, eduardon@racsa.co.cr, $20 s/d with shared bath, $22 s or $27 d private bath, $35 casita), with nine simply furnished but clean and adequate rooms with fans and cold water only. It also has an air-conditioned casita with kitchen, sleeping four people.
I like the flame-orange Hotel Costa Coral (tel. 506/2683-0105, www.hotelcostacoral.com, $80 s/d weekdays, $95 s/d Fri.-Sat. low season; $105 Sun.-Thurs., $120 Fri.-Sat. high season), a colorful little beauty of a hotel on the main road in Tambor. It has six air-conditioned rooms in three two-story Spanish-colonial structures arrayed around an exquisite pool with whirlpool. The charming decor includes wrought iron, potted plants, climbing ivy, ceramic lamps, and a harmonious ocher-and-blue color scheme. The upstairs restaurant offers ambience and good cuisine, and its gift store is splendidly stocked. Another lovely property is Villas de la Bahía (tel. 506/2683-0560, http://villasdelabahiacr.com, $30-65 s/d), with two-story villas painted in tropical ice cream pastels.
The architecturally dramatic Tambor Tropical (tel. 506/2683-0011 or U.S. tel. 866/ 890-2537, www.tambortropical.com, $140- 190 s/d year-round) is a perfect place to laze in the shade of a swaying palm. Ten hand-crafted two-story hexagonal cabinas (one unit upstairs, one unit down) face the beach amid lush landscaped grounds with an exquisite pool and whirlpool tub. The rooms are graced by voluminous bathrooms with deep-well showers, wraparound balconies, and fully equipped kitchens. Everything is handmade of native hardwoods, all of it lacquered to a nautical shine. A restaurant serves international cuisine. Snorkeling and horseback riding are offered. Rates include breakfast.
My favorite hostelry here abouts is the Belgian-run Tango Mar (tel. 506/2683-0001, www.tangomar.com, $170 s/d room, $225 suite, $400-899 villas low season; $190 s/d room, $240 suite, $450-999 villas high season), five kilometers southwest of Tambor. It enjoys a beautiful beachfront setting backed by hectares of beautifully tended grounds splashed with bougainvillea and hibiscus. In 2007 rooms received a much needed and more stylish refurbishment, and in late 2008 the public spaces were being totally remade, and conference facilities and a spa were being added. It has 25 rooms, including five Polynesian-style thatched octagonal bamboo Tiki Suites raised on stilts, 18 spacious oceanfront rooms with large balconies, and 12 Tropical Suites with romantic four-poster beds with gauzy netting. You can also choose four- and five-person luxury villas ($400-900 low season, $450-999 high season). It has two swimming pools (one a lovely, freeform, multitiered complex), a nine-hole golf course, stables, water sports, Internet, plus massage and yoga. It rents 4WD vehicles. Rates include American breakfast.
If all-inclusive package resorts are your thing, consider the controversial Barceló Playa Tambor Resort & Casino (tel. 506/2683 - 0303, www.barcelo.com), with 402 rooms sprawling across a 2,400-hectare site. The sibling Barceló Los Delfines Golf & Country Club (same contact information), adjacent, comprises 64 Spanish-style, two-bedroom air-conditioned villas arrayed in military camp fashion around a nine-hole golf course.
Food
Restaurant Cristina (tel. 506/2683-0028, 8 A.M.-9 P.M. daily) proffers good seafood and pastas on a shady patio for those on a budget.
The Restaurante Arrecife (11 A.M.-2 P.M. and 6-10 P.M. daily low season, 11 A.M.-11 P.M. daily high season, $4-9), in the Hotel Costa Coral, is a charmer with its lively color scheme, and dishes such as ceviche, club sandwich, burgers, fettucine, chicken with orange sauce, and sea bass with heart-of-palm sauce. It has a large-screen TV and karaoke.
New in 2008, the roadside Trattoria Mediterranea (tel. 8821-7357, 5:30-10:30 P.M. Wed.-Sun.) has a special pizza Sunday.
The elegant new restaurant at Tango Mar (6:30-10 A.M., 11:30 A.M.-3:30 P.M., and 6:30-10 P.M. daily, $4.50-22), under construction at last visit, promises fine dining when completed.