Experience the best of Miramar

Miramar is the seat of Montes de Oro canton, a mountainous district in the Cordillera de Tilarán, north-east of the port city of Puntarenas. The canton's name means mountains of gold. National Route 1, the Pan-American Highway, crosses it. The town sits at several hundred metres above sea level, in cooler air than the coast, among hillsides of pasture and forest.

The Cordillera de Tilarán runs north from here, with the Monteverde cloud forest in the same range further north-west. To the south-west the Gulf of Nicoya opens, with Puntarenas on a long sandy spit and ferries crossing the gulf to the Nicoya Peninsula. The beaches of the central Pacific coast are a drive away.

Gallo pinto, rice and beans fried with onion and coriander, is the standard breakfast, and casado, a plate of rice, beans, plantain, salad and meat, the standard lunch. Coffee from the highlands accompanies both. The green-season rains fall from May to November, and the dry months run from December to April.