Guanacaste & the Nicoya Peninsula
-- The northwestern corner of the country near the Nicaraguan
border is the site of many of Costa Rica's sunniest and most
popular beaches. Because many Americans have chosen to
build beach houses and retirement homes here, Guanacaste in
particular is experiencing quite a bit of new development. Don't
expect a glut of Cancún-style high-rise hotels, but condos, luxury
resorts, and golf courses are springing up like mushrooms. That's
not to say you'll be towel-to-towel with thousands of strangers.
On the contrary, you can still find long stretches of deserted
sands. Maybe not for long, however. When the new international
airport in Liberia is up and running for real, and it will be
possible to get here from North America without so much as a
stopover in San José.
With about 65 inches of rain a
year, this region is by far the driest in the country and has been
likened to west Texas. Guanacaste province sits at the border of
Nicaragua and is named after the shady trees that still shelter
the herds of cattle that roam the dusty savanna here. In addition
to cattle ranches, Guanacaste boasts semiactive volcanoes, several
lakes, and one of the last remnants of tropical dry forest left in
Central America. (Dry forest once stretched all the way from Costa
Rica up to the Mexican state of Chiapas).
