Long Trip from Coronado to Puerto Jimenez, Costa Rica

Bienvenidos,

I’m writing this from Puerto Jimenez, Costa Rica with butterflies batting about in front of a beach and already love it… Ever take a day long journey into the unknown and finally arrive to be like “WORTH IT!!”? Port Jimenez from what I’ve gathered is a town along a peninsula in Costa Rica right near the border of Panama. It has a huge national park behind it so besides a 4 hour dirt road, boat is the only real option… It’s like being at an eco-lodge but in a town so you have what appears to be both of best worlds!?

At 7:35am yesterday, we pulled over to the side of the highway in front of Coronado and a bus was loading up, what timing! Sure enough it was heading from Panama City to Santiago. It blazed like a frozen freezer on hell’s highway and this odd creepy guy sat in front of me and stared me down for 1 hour, it was bizarre and I finally fell asleep with tired eyes. We had continued luck to David and similar from there when we caught the one marked “Frontera”. The bus was filthy and blared English Christian music with a sinister looking driver.

It was torrential rain crossing the border and it’s sorta interesting as you stamp out, walk through this town for a few hundred meters and stamp in. There is no bridge or anything it’s just like a random street and with people going about their life, no sure how they even monitor who gets a stamp or what not!? From there it was off to Golfito which is where you catch the ferry to Porto Jimenez. I will note that the Jerusalem Mall at the border has some decent places to eat.

It’s about a two hour bus ride to the ferry dock so basically from Coronado to Golfito is 9.5 hours if you make all your connections, definitely a long day. The last ferry from Golfito to Porto Jimenez is at like 3:15 or so, if after that you’ll need a private water taxi. The taxi is about a 30-40 minute ride and costs $50-60. Upon arrival we met a cool captain who had two people waiting already and went over splitting the $50 four way, indeed. Supposedly the ferry costs like $6, fyi.

This place has all the things I love which is a remote location, cool views, crazy biodiversity, cheap food, good wifi and interesting people. I think I’m going to stick around for a bit and glad my friend called his friend and suggest we come here. Also sometimes when traveling you need to make things happen while other times let them happen. Making it here from Coronado in a day super unlikely but possible, sometimes you need to make things happen and just get lucky with how they happen.

All the buses and random mishaps on the road are speed bumps to somewhere like this…

Tips hat,

P.S: Saw dolphins surfacing and playing around on the way over, this place is very much alive.