Montezuma

“Something different happens before 9am”

Montezuma occupies a small cove at the southern end of the Nicoya Peninsula, reached by ferry from Puntarenas or by the rough coastal road from Mal País, and it has maintained a bohemian character over decades of development pressure from the Guanacaste resort coast to the north. The town is small — a few blocks of restaurants, art galleries, and small hotels — and the jungle presses close on all sides, which means howler monkeys appear in the trees above the streets at dawn and dusk without requiring any particular effort to find them. A twenty-minute walk from the centre leads to a three-tier waterfall system on the river that descends through the forest to the sea. The lowest pool is the most visited; the upper pools, reached by rope-assisted scrambles above the lower fall, are quieter and colder. Cabo Blanco Nature Reserve is twelve kilometres south. The overall pace of the town is slow, oriented toward long-term visitors rather than tour-group logistics.