Puerto Jiménez

“Rainy season brings this place fully alive”

Puerto Jiménez is a small grid of streets on the eastern shore of the Osa Peninsula, the primary staging point for expeditions into Corcovado National Park and the supply hub for the communities and lodges spread across the peninsula. The town operates at a pace that makes it legible without effort — a main street of sodas, tour operators, the SINAC permit office, and the small ferry dock for the Golfo Dulce crossing to Golfito. Scarlet macaws — the species that has made the Osa one of the most significant conservation successes in the Americas — are routinely present in the palms and almendro trees at the town's edges, flying in pairs at dawn and dusk in numbers large enough to be audible before they are visible. The permits required to enter Corcovado are issued at the local SINAC office and must typically be arranged days in advance for the main La Leona and San Pedrillo entrances. The unpaved road south to Carate and Matapalo is accessible by 4WD.