Costa Rica's Caribbean coast is a world completely apart from the Pacific side that most visitors know — wilder, greener, more Afro-Caribbean in culture and character, and home to some of the most extraordinary wildlife experiences in Central America. It is the Caribbean that adventurous travelers discover when they go looking for something beyond the ordinary.
The town of Puerto Viejo de Talamanca has developed into a vibrant hub of Afro-Caribbean culture, surf, yoga and some of the best food in Central America — all against a backdrop of jungle that comes directly to the water's edge. Tortuguero National Park, accessible only by boat or plane, is one of the most important sea turtle nesting sites on earth.
The Afro-Costa Rican culture of the Caribbean coast is distinct from the rest of the country — rooted in the Jamaican and Caribbean communities that came to build the railroad in the 19th century and stayed to create something entirely their own. The food, the music, the pace and the feeling here are genuinely Caribbean.