Looking for a spectacular view? At about a one hour drive from Mangífera Hostel, there’s the place to be: Cerro Tinajitas.
This ‘cerro’ or hilltop offers an impressive panorama over the peninsula of Puntarenas and the Golf of Nicoya. The hills surrounding Cerro Tinajitas are covered with farmlands that paint geometric forms over the landscape. A magnificent spot to take some memorable pictures!
In the picture below, you can see the Golf of Nicoya and the Nicoya Peninsula in the distance:
Click on link to open Waze and get to the parking lot where we parked our car and found the wonderful viewpoints of Cerro Tinajitas. In the following screenshots you can check out in which direction we walked.
In this screenshot you can see where you have to leave the main road to get to Cerro Tinajitas. The parking lot is at the green balloon with the triangle.
Cerro Tinajitas is very popular to go and watch the sunset. During that time of the day it can get pretty crowded, so be aware! We went to Cerro Tinajitas during the day, and we had a great view and a great time. There was almost no one else, except for some cyclists (respect for cycling all the way up!).
Most people just drive up to Cerro Tinajitas viewpoint to check out the view / sunset and continue their journey. There are some opportunities to hike around in this area though. There are no signs, so be careful that you always know your way back. In this blog post (coming soon) we share some of our experience and a couple of points of advice considering visiting, hiking and travelling around in Costa Rica.
We visited Cerro Tinajitas on a daytrip and we actually didn’t really have a plan. For us it often turns out that ‘No plan is the best plan’! After admiring the views from Cerro Tinajitas, we stopped by Río Jesús Maria, dipped our feet in the river and had some delicious fried yucca at Restaurante Las Damas. If you want to stop over at Río Jesús Maria, just click on this link and Google will get you there. You can choose to park your car on the side of the road and enter the river for free or you can park your car at Restaurante Las Damas and pay 1000 Colones to get to the river through an easier path.
We ended up watching the sunset at Playa Tivives. Because of its central location, a visit to Cerro Tinajitas can perfectly be combined with other nearby visits, like a stopover at the waterfalls and natural pools of Minas del Aguacate, or as a pits stop while heading to Costa Rica’s West Coast.
On this screenshot, you can see the different locations of the places mentioned in this blog. The red circle represents Grecia. the green balloon with the triangle is Cerro Tinajitas, the purple circle shows the location of Río Jesús Maria and the blue circle represents Playa Tivives. We also really enjoyed the landscapes while driving from one spot to the next.
Enjoy the ride!!!