Pocócí

About Pococí:

The canton covers about 2,188 square kilometres of the northern Caribbean lowlands. Its south-western tip lies inside Braulio Carrillo National Park, where the Río Sucio passes under Ruta 32, and from there it widens north-east all the way to Punta Castilla, at the mouth of the San Juan on the Nicaraguan border; the Chirripó river forms its western edge with Sarapiquí. Ruta 32 is the spine. Guápiles is 64 kilometres from San José over the Zurquí pass, Ruta 247 runs north from it to Cariari, and Ruta 4 links the canton with the Zona Norte. North of Cariari the roads give out: Tortuguero is reached by boat from La Pavona, and Barra del Colorado by boat or light aircraft.

Pococí was split from the canton of Limón on 19 September 1911, with Guápiles as its seat, and takes its name from an indigenous province that early accounts place between Tariaca and Suerre. The railway had reached Carrillo, on the banks of the Sucio, in the 1880s, and families from the Central Valley settled along the road to raise cattle, grow cane and saw timber. Bananas came next with Minor Keith and the United Fruit Company, which left in the 1930s when disease and exhausted soil pushed it to the Pacific; resistant varieties brought the plantations back in the 1960s. In 1965 the state land agency, ITCO, opened an 8,291-hectare colony at Cariari, today the canton’s second town. Bananas, pineapple and cattle still carry the economy, while Guápiles holds the services, from the Hospital de Guápiles and the courts to the municipality and a University of Costa Rica campus.

The land falls fast and then lies flat. Guápiles stands at 262 metres on a fan of boulders and sand washed down from Irazú and Turrialba, Jiménez at 223, Rita and Roxana at about 110, Cariari at 60 and Barra del Colorado at five. The Toro Amarillo, Tortuguero and Pavona rivers wind across the plain, and much of the north is swamp that floods for part of the year or all of it. That matters when you buy: in August 2025 Pococí had more flood incidents than any other canton in Costa Rica, as overflowing rivers and streams reached Roxana, Cariari, La Rita, Colorado and Ticabán. On the coast, Tortuguero National Park and the Barra del Colorado wildlife refuge cover canals, lagoons and the turtle-nesting beach, and Cerro Tortuguero, at 119 metres, is the highest point on the whole Caribbean shore.

Most buyers already live or work in the canton: families leaving a rented house for their own, people employed on the banana and pineapple farms and in the packing plants, and staff at the hospital, schools and courts, many of whom rent first. Finca buyers look at the flat land around Cariari, Rita, Roxana and La Colonia. Tortuguero lives on visitors and works as a market of its own. The map has also moved recently. La Colonia was split from Guápiles in 2012, and in 2021 Ley 10076 transferred Colorado Oriente, including Línea Vieja, Coopemalanga, Jalova and Lomas de Sierpe, to Guácimo, so older paperwork may name a district or canton that no longer applies.

Houses in Pococí:

The typical family home is single-storey, with two or three bedrooms, on a lot of a few hundred square metres in a residential barrio of Guápiles, Cariari, Jiménez or Roxana. In San Luis de Jiménez, for example, a two-bedroom house of 100 m² sits on a 300 m² lot, while in Guápiles houses facing the main street of a residential run to lots of over 400 m² within reach of clinics, schools and bus stops. Others stand near the Polideportivo and the Expo-Pococí fairground on Ruta 247, the road out of Guápiles towards Cariari. Out in the country, a house usually comes with land around it. Most houses for sale in Pococí are priced in colones.

Rentals in Pococí:

Long-term renting is concentrated in and around Guápiles, where the hospital, the courts and the university campus bring in workers from other parts of the country. The everyday offer is a two-bedroom house with one bathroom, a laundry room and a covered garage, let in colones with a deposit equal to one month’s rent. Three-bedroom houses come up in La Colonia, a few kilometres from the city, and Cariari has its own circuit of houses and apartments for rent. Before you sign, drive from the house to work at the hours you will actually travel, because crossing Ruta 32 is where the time goes.

Land and Lots in Pococí:

Buildable land comes in two sizes. Around Guápiles and Jiménez there are residential lots and quinta lots inside private developments with controlled access, some mostly flat, with public services and residential use allowing 80% coverage, about ten minutes from the centre of Guápiles. Along Ruta 32, plots with highway frontage near the Suerre entrance at Jiménez are sold for restaurants, cabinas, machinery showrooms or warehouses. Read each plan carefully. A river protection strip, a narrow frontage or an old railway easement can take a large bite out of what looks like a generous lot.

Farms and Fincas in Pococí:

Working land is what sets Pococí apart from most of the province. Around Cariari, cattle farms of more than 30 hectares change hands with the herd still on them, and smaller fincas of three to five hectares combine a house with plantain, fruit trees and patches of reforestation; near La Colonia, farms of close to five hectares sit a short drive from Guápiles. At the far end of the market are estates measured in dozens or hundreds of hectares. Check the water supply, how the access road behaves after heavy rain and whether the farm lies near a river that leaves its banks. On fincas for sale in Pococí, also ask whether the land is fully registered or still going through a possessory title.

Lodges and Hotels in Pococí:

Tortuguero gives the canton its tourism trade, and hotels and lodges are the property that sells there. Lodges on the Río Tortuguero and small hotels a few metres from the sea are offered with the land around them, and on the mainland there are hotels near Cariari, the gateway to the boat dock at La Pavona. On the coast, read the paperwork before the brochure. Much of the land sits inside the national park, the wildlife refuge or the maritime-terrestrial zone, so a lodge may stand on part-titled ground, on a concession or on a use right granted by the environment ministry, and only what is recorded can be transferred.

FAQ:

• Which part of Pococí should I look in?

  It depends on what you need nearby. Guápiles has the hospital, the courts, the university campus and most shops; Jiménez and La Colonia are smaller and close to it. Cariari, on Ruta 247, is the base for the northern farms and the road to the Tortuguero boats. Rita and Roxana are banana and pineapple country, and Colorado, with Tortuguero and Barra del Colorado, has no road access at all.

• How serious is flooding on the Pococí plain?

  Serious enough to check plot by plot. In August 2025 rivers and streams burst their banks across the canton, and communities such as Roxana, Cariari, La Rita, Las Vegas, Colorado and Ticabán were hit. Ask neighbours where the water reached, look for marks on walls and fences, and compare the level of the lot with the street and the nearest river before you commit.

• What should I check before buying a parcel from the old colonisation projects?

  Land around Cariari was handed out by the state from 1965, and some parcels that came from those programmes may still carry conditions recorded by INDER, the successor agency. Pull the property record at the Registro Nacional to confirm the owner, any liens and any such annotation, and ask whether a farm is fully titled or still in possessory proceedings. Pococí is still drafting its plan regulador, so request a land-use certificate from the Municipalidad de Pococí, backed by a cadastral plan with the municipal approval, before you pay a deposit.

• Can I buy land in Tortuguero?

  Not in the way you would in Guápiles. Most of the area falls within Tortuguero National Park, the Barra del Colorado wildlife refuge or the maritime-terrestrial zone, where land belongs to the state and private use rests on a concession or a use right. Some properties are partly titled. Ask for the registry entry and the concession documents, and confirm what each one actually allows you to build.

• How reliable is the road from Pococí to San José?

  On a normal day Guápiles is about 64 kilometres from the capital, but the route climbs through Braulio Carrillo, and landslides at the Zurquí closed Ruta 32 several times in 2025 and again in February 2026. If you will travel to San José often, follow the MOPT’s road reports and plan for days when the only way round is a long detour.