Playa Tambor occupies Bahía Ballena, at the southern tip of the Nicoya peninsula. It is a deep, well-enclosed cove where the sea stays flat nearly all year, with grey volcanic sand and wooded hills running down to the shore. The area has stayed rural: a few hundred residents, an airstrip, one or two resorts and a great deal of forest.
The essentials in four lines
- Fly into San José (SJO), then a twenty-five-minute domestic flight, or an hour and a half by road to Puntarenas plus an hour-and-ten ferry.
- Costa Rica runs one hour behind Montreal in winter and two in summer.
- No sargassum. The sand is volcanic grey and the sea very calm inside the bay.
- December to April is the dry season. Green season from May to November.
The bay
Ballena means whale in Spanish, and the name is not decorative: from July to November, humpback whales from the southern hemisphere come into the gulf to calve, and a second population, from the north, passes through from December to April. Few places in the world offer two distinct viewing seasons.
The beach runs about six kilometres, with a very gentle slope and practically no waves. It is among the safest swimming on the Costa Rican Pacific, which makes it a solid choice with young children. The water is not Caribbean-clear: the bottom is sandy and the gulf carries sediment.
What lies around
The Curú reserve
Twenty minutes away, a private refuge of fifteen hundred hectares protecting dry forest, mangrove and three beaches. Howler monkeys, capuchins, deer and a hundred or so bird species are seen on easy trails. It is also the departure point for boats to Tortuga Island.
Tortuga Island
Thirty minutes by boat: two uninhabited islets with white sand, clear water and coconut palms, the exact contrast to Tambor beach. Day trip with lunch on the beach, snorkelling and kayaking.
Montezuma and Santa Teresa
Montezuma, forty minutes away, is a seaside village known for its three-tier waterfalls, climbed on foot from the beach. Santa Teresa, an hour and a half by a partly unpaved road, has become one of the great surf gatherings in Central America.
Cabo Blanco
An hour away, Costa Rica’s first protected area, created in 1963 at the initiative of a Scandinavian immigrant couple. The trail crosses the forest to an isolated beach in two hours; the reserve closes two days a week.
Accommodation
The area has one large all-inclusive resort on the bay, plus a few small hotels and rentals. There is no tourist village, no shopping street and very few independent restaurants within walking distance.
So it is a choice for anyone who wants calm swimming, rural surroundings and nature within excursion range, accepting that you stay at the resort or rent a car. Our criteria for choosing an all-inclusive hotel help judge what the plan actually covers here.
Getting there
Three options. The domestic flight from San José, twenty-five minutes to the Tambor airstrip, is fastest and most comfortable. The ferry from Puntarenas, an hour and ten to Paquera plus thirty minutes by road, is cheapest and lets you bring a car. The full drive around the north of the peninsula takes five hours and only makes sense if you are stringing together other stops.
When to go
From December to April the sky stays clear and the air holds around 32 °C. That is the dry season and the Quebec high season, with the first whale-watching window.
From May to November, late-day showers become daily, the forest greens again and prices fall. The second whale season, longer and richer, runs from July to November. Our guide on when to travel south from Montreal sets out the pricing calendar.
To plan this trip, see also our Costa Rica page, Jaco beach, Liberia and our month-by-month calendar.
