San Pablo

About San Pablo:

San Pablo spreads over 78 square kilometres on the gulf side of the Nicoya Peninsula and is home to a little over 2,300 people. Besides the main village, it takes in Canjel, Canjelito, Corozal Oeste, Chamarro, Pavones, San Pablo Viejo, Puerto Thiel, Puerto San Pablo and Isla Berrugate, which is barely cut off from the mainland. Route 21 crosses the district, north toward Nicoya and south to Jicaral and the Playa Naranjo ferry to Puntarenas, and the Nicoya–Jicaral and San José–Jicaral buses through Nandayure use it. Carmona has the municipal offices. For the hospital and the bigger errands, people drive to Nicoya.

The district lives off the land and the water. Inland it is cattle pasture, rice ground and blocks of teak; on the shore, families fish the gulf and work the mangrove estuaries, and boats out of Puerto Thiel are the lifeline for the people living on the nearby islands. Puerto Thiel was the first coastal-trade port on the Gulf of Nicoya, then spent years forgotten. Puerto San Pablo keeps a pottery tradition of its own, with women potters shaping cooking pots, comales and water jars from local clay and sand and firing them with mangrove wood. In the main village you have the primary school, Escuela Nandayure, and a police post.

This is low country, only a couple of dozen metres above sea level, and the Río Nandayure crosses it on the way to the gulf while the Río Morote meets the sea inside the district. That flat ground is what makes the farmland easy to work with machinery. It is also why water decides where you build. In November 2023 the Nandayure burst its banks, flooding homes in Puerto San Pablo and neighbouring Santa Rita, and firefighters rescued families in the San Pablo sector; in later heavy rains overflowing rivers have left the village cut off. Along the coast the edge is mangrove and estuary, not sand.

Most residents belong to local families who have farmed and fished here for generations. Buyers tend to come from the peninsula itself: families after a lot to build on near the school, and farmers looking for more ground. Those who come from further away usually want acreage, a finca with teak or pasture on the quiet gulf side of the peninsula, a long way from the busy Pacific beach towns. The public investment to watch is the floating dock planned for Puerto Thiel, funded by Inder and the municipality in 2024 to support fishing, rural tourism and the boat run to the islands, along with the municipal work to pave the road down to it.

Land and Lots in San Pablo:

Village lots here are modest and close to services: a few hundred square metres within walking distance of the plaza de deportes, or a little over a thousand square metres with a twenty-metre frontage out at Pozo de Piedra. They suit a single family home, and the odd larger parcel is offered as the start of a small residential project. When you look at land for sale in San Pablo, find out how the lot fared in the 2023 flood before you look at anything else. Then ask the local ASADA for the water availability letter, because the building permit depends on it.

Farms and Fincas in San Pablo:

Away from the villages the district opens into flat farmland. Around Pavones, parcels come up that can be mechanised end to end and are suited to rice, pasture and cattle, with space for a farmhouse. Closer to Puerto San Pablo there are fincas of around ten hectares with young teak already in the ground. Flat land near the rivers is the easiest to work and the first to flood, so walk the low corners of any finca and ask the neighbours where the water reached.

Houses in San Pablo:

Homes in San Pablo are family houses on village lots. A typical one is a concrete house of three or four bedrooms on around four hundred square metres, often with fruit trees and room for a separate office or workshop. Most houses for sale in San Pablo de Nandayure sit in the main village or in Puerto San Pablo, close to the school, the police post and the buses on Route 21. Check the floor level against the street and the drainage around the house as carefully as the roof and the walls.

FAQ:

• Which San Pablo does this page cover?

  San Pablo district in Nandayure canton, Guanacaste, postal code 50904. Costa Rica has several places with this name, among them the canton of San Pablo in Heredia, so make sure the cadastral plan of any property you are offered shows Nandayure as the canton.

• How do you get to San Pablo de Nandayure?

  By Route 21. From Nicoya, follow it south through Santa Rita; from the Puntarenas side, take the ferry to Playa Naranjo and drive north through Jicaral. The Nicoya–Jicaral and San José–Jicaral buses run along the same road.

• Does San Pablo flood?

  Parts of it do. The Río Nandayure has two recognised flood areas, one affecting Carmona and the other San Pablo, and in November 2023 it put water into homes in Puerto San Pablo and Santa Rita. Ask the Municipalidad de Nandayure whether a lot falls in a flood-risk area, and if it is anywhere near the river, plan to build the floor well above the ground.

• What should I check before buying near the estuary or the shore?

  Mangrove belongs to the State’s natural heritage and cannot be privately titled, and the first 200 metres back from the high-tide line fall under the maritime-terrestrial zone, where the public strip is open to everyone and the rest can only be held by municipal concession. Look up the property at the Registro Nacional, compare the cadastral plan with the real edge of the mangrove, and get the land-use certificate from the Municipalidad de Nandayure before you sign anything.

• What is planned for Puerto Thiel?

  A two-stage floating dock with access walkways, plus kiosks for local crafts, a kitchen for selling food and a collection centre for the catch. Inder and the Municipalidad de Nandayure are paying for it together, with the aim of reviving fishing, sport fishing and rural tourism and giving the island families a safer landing for school, health care and emergencies.