Roxana

About Roxana:

Roxana covers 166 square kilometres of flat lowland between Guápiles and Cariari. It borders Cariari to the north, La Rita to the west and Colorado to the east, with Guápiles and Guácimo’s Duacarí district to the south. The village of Roxana, the district seat, is 10.7 kilometres north of Guápiles, and San José is a little under 80 kilometres away once you join Ruta 32 over Braulio Carrillo. Ruta 247, the Guápiles–Cariari road, runs up the western side through El Prado and Las Palmas, and the buses between the two towns stop along it. Ruta 248 heads south-east to Duacarí and Ruta 810 links Roxana with Jiménez. Beyond the centre and its barrios La Cruz, Lesville and Punta de Riel, the district takes in San Antonio de El Humo, Las Gardenias, Urbanización Guadalupe, Llano Bonito, Aguas Frías, Mata de Limón, Maravilla, Anabán, Luis XV, Londres, Millón and Vegas del Tortuguero.

Export bananas and pineapple pay most of the wages, and the packing plants sit right among the houses. Londres is the name of a village and of a packing station; Valkiria, Támesis, Banatica and the Lomas de Sierpe farms run across the north. Not every job is in the fields. The Los Diamantes centre covers more than 700 hectares of trial plots and forest, the fisheries institute keeps a fish-farming station beside it at El Prado, a plant making dehydrated pineapple for export opened in 2021, and the Carlos Luis Fallas prison has stood at Las Palmas since 1991, built on what was a banana farm.

Day-to-day needs are covered locally. Roxana centre has an EBAIS clinic with a public park next to it, a primary school rebuilt in 2019 with a gym and five new classrooms, and shops selling food, clothes, shoes and household goods. San Antonio de El Humo has its own EBAIS, a hardware store and a secondary school, the Liceo San Antonio del Humo, in new buildings, and Llano Bonito has an environmental high school. The new Cariari health area, handed over to the CCSS in 2026 with urgent care, X-ray and a laboratory, is built to serve Roxana too, while the hospital and the banks are in Guápiles.

The whole district sits at around 106 metres, laced with rivers: the Roxana, the Santa Clara, the Esperanza, the Tortuguero and the Guápiles, crossed in places by hanging footbridges. Rain falls in most months, and when it settles in, the rivers leave their banks. The La Muerta sector and the Santa Clara are the spots people talk about, and Roxana was among the Pococí communities hit by the floods of August 2025. Much of the land is first-rate farmland, which is why the plantations are here, while the far north shades into protected land on the way to Tortuguero. Buyers are mainly families from the canton, people who work on the farms or in Guápiles and Cariari, and farmers adding hectares.

Houses in Roxana:

Houses here are mostly single-storey family homes on village lots. In Barrio Pueblo Nuevo, a three-bedroom house of 137 square metres stands on a 391-square-metre lot with parking for two cars, and in the centre houses go up on lots as small as 200 square metres. Out of town, rural houses come on lots of more than 1,000 square metres, such as one twelve kilometres from central Guápiles on 1,125 square metres. Gated properties with gardens and a pool exist, though they are few. If you rely on the bus, measure how far a house is from Ruta 247 or the main street before you compare houses for sale in Roxana on price alone.

Land and Lots in Roxana:

Building plots of around 1,100 square metres are sold with owner financing, sometimes with no down payment, and some are pitched to families planning to build with a housing bono. Larger parcels sit on the main roads, such as one of 7,042 square metres a kilometre and a half from the Roxana school on the road to San Antonio de El Humo. Land on the commercial main street of the centre is valued at more than twice the rate of the residential barrios, and smaller commercial pieces come up too, such as a 523-square-metre lot with a 150-square-metre warehouse in Punta de Riel. When you look at lots in Roxana de Pococí, walk the boundary to the nearest river or quebrada, because the protected strip along the bank cannot be built on.

Farms and Fincas in Roxana:

Farmland changes hands in whole fincas. In Aguas Frías, a 4.5-hectare finca comes with a two-bedroom house, water and power, two frontages on a public gravel road a kilometre from the asphalt, a stream for irrigation, a corral and a quarter-hectare patch of forest. Sellers pitch places like this for cattle, crops or small tourism projects such as horse riding. The forest patch and the stream count against the area you can clear or build on, so get the plano catastrado and check the protected strips before you work out what the land is worth per hectare.

Rentals in Roxana:

Long-term rentals are mostly modest houses in the village barrios, such as Las Gardenias, close to the school, the colegio and the supermarket, and they let at low monthly rents in colones. They suit workers and young families who want to stay close to a job in the district. At the other end, the occasional gated house with air conditioning, a pool and a garden of 2,000 square metres is let by the month in dollars. Ask who pays water and power, and whether the house kept dry in the last big rains.

FAQ:

• Where is Roxana, and how do I get there?

  Roxana is the district between Guápiles and Cariari in Pococí. The centre is 10.7 kilometres north of Guápiles, and Ruta 247 crosses the district on its western side, with buses running between the two towns. From San José you take Ruta 32 through Braulio Carrillo to Guápiles and turn north, a trip of a little under 80 kilometres.

• Which parts of Roxana flood?

  The low ground near the rivers. The La Muerta sector and the banks of the Santa Clara go under in heavy rain, a car went into the water trying to cross a flooded bridge there, and Roxana was among the Pococí communities hit in August 2025. Before you buy, find out which river drains the lot and whether the access road stays open when it rises.

• What should I check before buying a lot in La Cruz or with owner financing?

  Part of La Cruz grew up as an informal settlement, so make sure any seller there holds registered title in the Registro Nacional and not just possession. With an owner-financed lot, agree in writing when the transfer will be signed before a notary and recorded, because until then the lot is still the seller’s, and a housing bono can only be used on land registered to the family. In both cases ask for the plano catastrado and a land-use certificate from the Municipalidad de Pococí.

• What is it like living next to a banana or pineapple farm?

  It means truck traffic on the farm roads and, on some plantations, crop spraying, sometimes from the air. It also means work close to home, which is why so many families live here. If a lot backs onto a plantation, ask how close the nearest rows are and how the farm is sprayed.

• Where are the nearest clinics, schools and hospital?

  Roxana centre and San Antonio de El Humo each have an EBAIS, and there are primary schools in most villages, with high schools in San Antonio de El Humo and Llano Bonito. Urgent care is at the new Cariari health area, and the hospital is in Guápiles.