Puerto Viejo de Talamanca

Before the Spanish arrived, the Bribri, Kekoldi and Cabécar peoples were the main inhabitants of Costa Rica's southern Caribbean, and the Spanish struggled to subdue Talamanca, which some historians have called "La Rebelde Talamanca". Later, Afro-Caribbean settlers, many of them from Jamaica, arrived and made their homes in the coastal settlements of Puerto Viejo, Punta Uva, Manzanillo and Monkey Point, fishing and farming. The town was then called Old Harbour; its name, like those of Bluff, now Cahuita, and Fields, now Bribri, was changed when the government made Spanish the national language and replaced English names with Spanish or Indigenous ones.

Until the late 1970s Puerto Viejo was largely cut off from the rest of the country. A road to San José and the Central Valley opened in 1979, electricity arrived in 1986, private telephone lines in 1996 and high-speed internet in 2006. Surfers drawn by the Salsa Brava wave helped turn the fishing village into a busy tourist town.

Growth brought conflict over land. The Gandoca-Manzanillo refuge was created in 1986, and in 2012 seventy-six homes and businesses in the area were cited for breaking the maritime zoning law, with demolitions planned. After a long public debate the legislature in 2014 passed laws allowing residents to stay and recognising the existing coastal towns, and land containing several small settlements was removed from the refuge.

Puerto Viejo is one of the centres of Afro-Caribbean life in Costa Rica. A substantial part of the population is of Jamaican descent, and because of that heritage many people born in the town speak English as their first language; Limonese Creole is heard in the streets alongside Spanish. Rastafari culture has a firm place here, and Rastas sell handmade jewellery and crafts along the main road.

Music is everywhere. Calypso limonense is the coast's own tradition, and the singer Walter Ferguson, known as the King of Calypso, lived in neighbouring Cahuita; in 2018 the legislature declared his birthday, 7 May, National Calypso Day. In Puerto Viejo, reggae is heard alongside calypso.

The town's mix is part of its identity: Afro-Caribbean families, Costa Ricans from the rest of the country, Europeans who have settled and built here, and the Bribri people, who live on the outskirts and in the mountains of Talamanca. Bribri communities keep their own language and traditions, and some welcome visitors for cacao and forest tours. Surfing, bicycles and an unhurried pace complete the picture, and visitors are expected to greet people and slow down.

Puerto Viejo belongs to Cahuita district, which had an estimated population of about 13,500 in 2022 and takes in the coast from Cahuita to Manzanillo, including Cocles, Playa Chiquita, Punta Uva and the Kekoldi community. The district is part of Talamanca canton, whose head town, Bribri, lies inland.

Tourism is the main source of work in town, from hostels, cabinas and restaurants to surf schools, tour guiding and bicycle hire, and a growing number of European settlers have made their homes here. Inland, Talamanca grows cacao, and the canton as a whole suffers from pervasive poverty. Puerto Viejo is also the last town with a full range of services before the border crossing at Sixaola, and travellers to and from Bocas del Toro in Panama pass through.

Bicycles dominate the coast road, many with baskets for shopping, beach gear or children, sharing the way with buses, scooters, cars and dogs. Days follow the light, with sunrise and sunset near six all year, and landslides after heavy rain can close Route 32, the link with the capital.

Caribbean cooking sets Puerto Viejo apart from the rest of Costa Rica. In the sodas, rice and beans, made with red beans, coconut milk and Panamanian chilli, is served rather than gallo pinto, and fish is often cooked in coconut milk. Rondón is a rich fish dish cooked in coconut milk with hot Panamanian chilli. Fresh fish is everyday fare along the coast.

Baking is a strong tradition. Bakeries sell patí, a spicy savoury pastry similar to an empanada, pan bon, a dark spiced bread, and home-made breads made with ginger, cassava, banana or coconut. Afro-Caribbean baking here combines Caribbean traditions with a British heritage.

Talamanca's organic cacao is a point of pride: grown in the area since before the Spanish arrived, it is counted among the ten best in the world for its quality and made into a wide range of chocolates, and tours take visitors to an organic chocolate farm on the Indigenous reserve. The settlers who have arrived in recent decades have added vegetarian and vegan cafés, Thai fusion, Italian and Argentine cooking and crêpes to the town's menus.