Narrow dirt roads run between a long,white-sand bay and mountains covered in jungle,where howler monkeys (the world’s fifth loudest animal) scream,and where occasionally – if you believe the locals – huge snakes like boa constrictors exit to find temporary homes within the cafes in town.
There are many hip places in Central America,but nothing’s hipper than Costa Rica’s Nosara province. It just doesn’t look like it.The New York Times calls Playa Guiones “the anti-resort resort” because there are no high-rise,no walled-off resorts,no McDonald’s,no Starbucks and no late-night beach bars. Nosara reminds me of Thailand,without any of the Australians. Located two-and-a-half hours’ drive south of Liberia International Airport,you might also take a small propeller plane from there to a tiny airport a few minutes’ drive from your resort (which means you could be in your room in less than four hours from the US).
If Hollywood is here,I don’t recognise its stars. On arrival into Playa Guiones,I’m surrounded mostly by attractive alternative types with yoga-fit bodies who wear next to nothing as they ride golf carts,quad bikes and bicycles down Playa Guiones’ quiet main street. The town is full of yoga studios and alternative health therapists:though we’re already located within one of the world’s five blue zones here – where people live the longest of anywhere on Earth. Just west of town,the beach stretches for five kilometres. Perfect waves are ridden here by surfers,and at sunset each evening,the whole town converges to watch the sun dip into the Pacific.
My hotel,The Gilded Iguana,is about as close to the beach as it gets in Nosara:that’s 200 metres. The Costa Rican Government acknowledged the region as a protected wildlife refuge in the 1980s,so strict laws keep the town smaller,and humbler,than its burgeoning reputation might otherwise allow it to be. There’s a biological reserve here too,home to 270 bird species,and off-shore is a marine sanctuary for everything from migrating whales to the second-smallest sea turtles on Earth.
That must be why it still feels wild. Streets are cut straight out of the jungle,and they’re so narrow that few cars enter. Instead I take tuk tuks to cafes and restaurants at the end of twisting,turning dirt trails through the forest. Locals on horseback pass by me on trails beside the beach,and there’s a sign warning about caiman (small alligators) just beside the sand.