Parrita

About Parrita:

Parrita is the ninth canton of Puntarenas, created by law on 5 July 1971 when it was split off from Aguirre, the canton now called Quepos. It has a single district, also named Parrita, and its 483 square kilometres reach 46 kilometres from the top of Cerro San Jerónimo down to the mouth of the Tusubres river. Garabito lies to the west, Quepos to the east, and the hills of Turrubares, Puriscal, Acosta, Aserrí and Tarrazú close it in to the north. Ruta 34, the Costanera Sur, runs the length of the coast: Esterillos is about twenty minutes from Jacó, Parrita town a further quarter of an hour on, and the drive from San José takes under three hours. Some 20,000 people live here.

Parrita town started as a company town. A German, Agathón Lutz, planted bananas on the Pirrís in 1924, and after a 1938 contract between the government and the Compañía Bananera de Costa Rica, a United Fruit subsidiary, workers arrived from Nicaragua, Guanacaste and the Central Valley. They settled at Barbudal, on the east bank near the river mouth, and the town spread across the water to La Julieta, where the present church went up in 1967. When the war years hurt the banana trade, the company tried oil palm at Palo Seco from 1945, and by 1956 palm was the only crop on the plain. Palma Tica still runs an extraction plant at Palo Seco, and palm, cattle and tourism keep the canton going.

On the plain, the river comes first. The Parrita is short, fast and heavy with silt, fed by the Pirrís, the Candelaria and the Parritón from the hills of Los Santos, Puriscal and Acosta, and that silt is what made the lowland so good for farming. It is also why the town floods. In November 2010 the water broke through the dike, opened three channels and covered almost all of Parrita: the INVU and Sitradique barrios, dry in earlier floods, went under, and the old iron bridge was swept downstream. Heavy rain can still flood stretches of the Costanera near Palo Seco, so on low ground you check a house’s flood history and floor level first, and in the hills you check how the gravel road and the creek crossings hold up through the wet months.

The canton splits into three markets. Parrita town, with barrios such as Pueblo Nuevo, La Julieta and Barbudal, is home to families who work in palm, commerce and services, close to the Social Security clinic, the schools and the technical college that opened in 1973. The coast is a string of beach communities: Esterillos Oeste has most of the hotels and restaurants, a surf break and La Sirena, a two-metre bronze mermaid you can walk out to at low tide; Esterillos Centro is quieter, Esterillos Este and Bejuco have hotels on the sand, and Playa Bandera and Playa Palma have small gated communities of houses. Isla Palo Seco is a long strip of sand between Bandera and the mouth of the Parrita, with mangrove channels behind it that you can explore by boat. Costa Rican families from the Central Valley buy weekend houses along this coast, foreign buyers lean toward Esterillos and the hills behind it, and many of them let their homes to visitors when they are away. Every February the Festival Nacional de las Mulas brings mule and horse races, a tope and concerts to the fairground a few kilometres from the centre.

Houses in Parrita:

In town, houses are family homes on their own lots in the barrios that grew up around the old banana settlement, within reach of the church, the clinic and the shops. On the coast the stock changes. Esterillos has beach houses from a few steps to a few blocks back from the sand, and around Playa Bandera there are small gated communities of pool houses, some sold as a house with a separate apartment that can be let on its own. In the hills outside Esterillos stand larger homes with ocean views, many owned by foreigners and rented to guests for part of the year. If you are comparing houses for sale in Parrita on the plain, ask the same question at every door: how high did the water come in 2010?

Rentals in Parrita:

Long-term rentals are mostly in Parrita town and its barrios, where people who work locally rent houses close to the clinic and the schools. Along the coast the market is holiday lets: bungalows and condo units in Esterillos, beachfront apartments at Bejuco and gated-community houses with private pools near Playa Bandera, taken by the night or the week. Owners count on the dry months from December to April and on long holiday weekends, when Central Valley families drive down to the beach. Before you buy with holiday rentals in Esterillos in mind, measure the walk to the nearest beach access and find out if the road in is paved.

Land and Lots in Parrita:

Lots come in three settings. Near the beaches at Esterillos and Bandera, residential lots of a couple of thousand square metres sit a short walk from the sea, some inside gated developments. On the first slopes behind the coast, building sites well above the plain, some at 170 metres, are sold for the view over the palms to the Pacific. Around town the lots are flat and close to services, and the river decides which of them are worth building on. Anything within 200 metres of the high-tide line is maritime-terrestrial zone, held by concession and not by title, so make sure the lot you are shown starts behind it.

Farms and Large Parcels in Parrita:

Inland, the canton climbs toward the mountains of Puriscal and Tarrazú, and land is sold by the hectare. Fincas of ten hectares and more change hands with forest, old pasture, waterfalls and, from the higher ground, a view of the sea. Villages out this way, such as Playón, El Carmen and Río Seco, are far enough from town that the technical college once ran boarding houses for their pupils. Most access is gravel, and some of it crosses creeks that rise fast after heavy rain, so drive the road in October before you agree a price.

FAQ:

• Which beach in Parrita suits what I want?

  Esterillos Oeste has the surf, the restaurants and the most going on. Esterillos Centro is the quiet middle stretch, while Esterillos Este and Bejuco have hotels right on the beach and holiday homes behind them. Playa Bandera and Playa Palma suit buyers who want a house in a small gated community a few minutes from shops. Palo Seco is for solitude: a long beach with few roads and currents strong enough that you should know where you are swimming.

• Does Parrita town still flood?

  It can. A dike protects the centre and Pueblo Nuevo, but the river has topped or broken it before, and in November 2010 most of the town went under, including barrios that had always stayed dry. Ask the neighbours how the street fared, look at the floor height and the drainage, and check the canton’s hazard map from the national emergency commission, the CNE, before you buy on the plain. On the slopes behind the coast, flooding gives way to other questions: the road and the run-off.

• Can I own a beach house outright at Esterillos or Playa Bandera?

  Not within the first 200 metres of the high-tide line. The 50 metres closest to the sea are public; the next 150 can only be occupied under a concession from the Municipalidad de Parrita, and only where an approved coastal plan is in force. Parrita has plans approved for Esterillos, Playa Bejuco, Playa Palma and Palo Seco, several of them dating from the 1980s and 1990s, so ask which plan covers the lot and what it lets you build. Behind the zone, land is ordinary titled property.

• I’m looking at a finca in the hills behind the coast. What should I check first?

  Start with the road. Drive it in the rainy season, count the creeks you have to cross, and find out who keeps it open. Then look the property up in the Registro Nacional for the owner, liens and annotations, walk the boundaries with the plano catastrado, and ask the Municipalidad de Parrita for a land-use certificate. Forest cover and the protected strips along rivers and springs can take a large share of a hill finca out of use, and you will want to know where the house’s water will come from.

• Where do people in Parrita shop, study and see a doctor?

  Parrita town covers daily needs: grocery stores and shops, a petrol station, schools, the technical college and the Social Security clinic. For a hospital, people go to Quepos; for bigger shopping, to Quepos or Jacó. Households in Esterillos tend to shop in Jacó or Parrita depending on which is closer, while Bandera and Palo Seco look to Parrita town.