Mirador de Carrillo

“Sunset changes the mood entirely here”

The lookout sits at the southern headland above Playa Carrillo, and the first thing you notice isn't the view — it's the wind. It comes off the Pacific with real force here, bending the fronds of the tall palms that line the beach below and making the air smell sharply of salt and low tide. From this elevated position, roughly 40 metres (130 feet) above sea level, the full geometry of the bay opens up: a near-perfect crescent of pale sand, the village of Puerto Carrillo to the north, and beyond it the darker headland of Punta Islita curving into the sea. Carrillo sits about 8 kilometres (5 miles) south of Sámara on the Nicoya Peninsula, accessed via a smooth paved road that winds through dry tropical forest. The mirador itself is an informal pull-off rather than a developed viewpoint — no railings, no signage, no vendors. A rough path continues a short distance along the ridge if you want to push further from the road. The bay below is an active small-scale fishing anchorage, and in the early morning you'll watch pangas motoring in and out while brown pelicans (Pelecanus occidentalis) and magnificent frigatebirds (Fregata magnificens) patrol the shallows without apparent urgency. This is Guanacaste's dry Pacific coast, which means from December through April the light is searingly clear and the hillsides behind you are a dusty olive-grey. In the wet season — May through November — the forest greens dramatically, but afternoon cloud can obscure the view entirely. It gets busy on weekends when Ticos from Nicoya and Sámara come to watch the sunset, and the parking is genuinely limited. Come before 7am or after 4pm on a weekday and you'll likely have it to yourself. The payoff is a view that reads as a complete, composed thing — working bay, forested hills, open ocean — rather than just a postcard angle.