Hey gringos! It’s time to get away from all those foreign influenced towns and head on down to some real desert life in Santa Cruz. It’s hot, hot, hot! And no, we don’t mean sexy, we mean it’s the hottest (temperature-wise) town in Costa Rica, but don’t let that put you off. Santa Cruz is an important administrative centre in the Nicoya region and is a good base for visiting Guaitil, a small pottery making community about 12 km away, where local potters make lovely, vivid, ceramics in the pre-Columbian Chorotega style. There are no real sights in town so many travellers tend to remember Santa Cruz as a place to change buses and buy mangoes, but make the effort, meet the locals and you can have some real fun!

History and Culture
A fire ripped through three blocks in the city centre in 1993, which explains why an important landmark known as the Plaza de Los Mangos, is nothing more than a vacant lot! It was once a large grassy square with three mango trees. Not long after the fire though, the attractive and shady Parque Bernabele Ramos was opened up just south of the plaza, which is still used as the point of reference when giving directions.

Sightseeing
If you’re around during the second week of January drop on down to the local rodeo, kick back with the locals, check out the sabaneros, admire prize bulls and drink plenty of beer. How macho is that! If you can’t make it in January, the Dia de Guanacaste fiesta is on 25th July and you can repeat the whole exercise then. Oh, and did we mention you can drink lots of beer while mixing it with the locals?

Getting there
Santa Cruz is on the main peninsular highway, 57km from Liberia and 25km south of Filadelfia. It is a popular overnight stop for people visiting the peninsula. A paved road leads 16km west to 27 de Abril, from where a dirt road continues to the beach towns. There are also plenty of bus services. Ask around as timetables are unreliable.