For the best weather, visit Puerto Viejo from February to April, or between September and October. However, when the rest of Costa Rica is rainy, the southern Caribbean is drier (or, at least tends to be). Puerto Viejo’s climate, like most of the Caribbean, is often rainy. Beachfront cabins, restaurants and shops line the streets almost all the way to Manzanillo numerous budget hostels cater to surfers and young backpackers who frequent the area, while posh resorts offer comfort and luxury as you move south outside Puerto Viejo toward Playa Cocles, Playa Chiquita and Punta Uva. Puerto Viejo's a conglomeration of low- and mid-range accommodations featuring hostels, cabins and bungalows inside town and along Playa Negra. Canopy tours through the Carbon Mountains propel you through the rainforest at heights of more than 200 feet in the air while whitewater rafting trips along the Pacuare River send you surging through some of Costa Rica's most pristine habitats on class II-IV rapids.
Among them, you'll find chocolate tasting tours and rainforest retreats to learn about all the jungle has to offer from medicinal plants and construction materials to raging waterfalls and spectacular wildlife.
Indigenous reservations, cacao farms and coastal rainforests frame the other side of Puerto Viejo, a series of rambling hills in the lower Talamanca Mountains. Snorkeling and diving tours visit off-shore craters, sea walls, reefs, coves and more within warm Caribbean waters where the visibility reaches 30 to 50 feet on a clear day. Puerto Viejo's barrier reef runs along the coast flourishing with more than 35 species of coral and hiding magnificent, bizarre and beloved sea life that includes sea turtles, eels, lobsters, nurse sharks, octopus and hundreds of species of tropical fish. Nearby Playa Cocles offers beach breaks for more casual surfers looking for good waves without the dangers of Salsa Brava. World-renowned surfers ply the waves of Salsa Brava from December to March looking for steep, powerful swells with world-class barrels. Off-shore, barreling waves form over the shallow reef at Salsa Brava creating Costa Rica's most infamous surf. White sand beaches form the lip of Puerto Viejo's conch shell, a spiraling fusion of Spanish, Afro-Caribbean, Italian, German and American culture exuded from beachside bars, out-door cafes, thatch-roof restaurants and Rasta-dyed tapestries blowing in the breeze outside makeshift souvenir stalls. But the nights are longer: happy hour becomes dinner followed by live music and DJs, beer-pong and pool, dancing and late-night strolls along the beach.
The days are long and filled with adventures: world-class surfing, snorkeling, diving, sunbathing and hiking. For many, Puerto Viejo isn't a vacation, it's a lifestyle. September and October are generally very rainy all day and night long but there still are a few beautiful days during this period.Puerto Viejo attracts the young and old inspired, retired, artists, hippies and surfers from all over the world. The rains increase in August and often times start in the morning.
In May the rains arrive but mornings are usually sunny with rain in the afternoon and evening, This continues in June and July. Days are generally sunny, hot and few, if any, clouds. Prime or "high season" is December through the end of April. Best is to plan to arrive just after high tide so that you don't have to worry about an incoming tide.Īvoid weekends, especially Sundays, the two weeks around Christmas, the first week of January, Semana Santa (the week before Easter) and the first two weeks of July as crowds from San Jose Costa Rica come up to this area. Puerto Viejo beach is a perfect example of this with water up past the canopy shown above during high tide. At high tide, many beaches will have no exposed sand to set up on. The tides in Costa Rica are extreme and can vary over 10 feet between low and high tides. As with many beaches in Costa Rica, check the tides before heading out.