Llano Bonito

About Llano Bonito:

At 34 square kilometres, Llano Bonito covers more ground than any other district of León Cortés Castro, and it was one of the five the canton started with when it split from Tarrazú in 1962. San Rafael Arriba, the head village, has the church, the park and the Liceo Llano Bonito. The rest of the district is San Rafael Abajo, San Francisco, San Luis, Santa Juana, Bajo Mora and Concepción, plus parts of Bajo Venegas and Santa Rosa. Route 313 is the spine: one way it climbs to San Pablo, the canton seat, and the other way it runs out through San Francisco toward La Legua and Monterrey in Aserrí, a back road to the south of the capital. From San Francisco a dirt track drops to the Pirrís reservoir, passable in a high car, though most people heading for the dam come up the paved road from San Marcos instead.

Coffee is the living, grown on small family farms by several hundred growers. Coopellanobonito, the growers’ cooperative founded in 1972, has around six hundred members and built its own mill to wash and dry the harvest. More and more families now process their own beans as well: micro-mills such as Cerro Alto work coffee grown at 1,750 metres, and coffee from the district sells abroad under farm names or as community lots, one of them from seventeen families in the district. Hass avocado is the second crop. The Asociación de Fruticultores de Llano Bonito started in 2005 with ten growers fresh from a training course, and by 2020 its thirty members were bringing in about nine tonnes a week, nearly all of them growing it alongside coffee.

The valley runs from roughly 1,400 to 1,900 metres, and slopes of 70 or 80 per cent are ordinary. Hard rain on ground that steep strips soil, so erosion control is part of everyday farm work, not least because the streams on the San Rafael and San Francisco side feed the Pirrís reservoir. Below the district, the Pirrís hydroelectric plant has run since 2011 behind a 113-metre concrete dam. Slides are the other price of the gradient, and banks along Route 313 between San Pablo and Llano Bonito have come down onto the road. Forest has not gone, either: one family holding here keeps all but seventy of its 400 hectares as protected woodland.

About 1,900 people live in the district, fewer than at the 2011 census, and all of it is rural. Most households earn from coffee, avocado or day work on neighbouring farms, and land usually moves from one local family to another. Outsiders who buy here want a farm to run, or a lot looking over the valley in a place where the loudest season is the harvest. The town hall is in San Pablo, and for bigger shopping people head to San Marcos de Tarrazú, the main town of the region.

Houses in Llano Bonito:

Houses here are family homes on their own lots, lined up along Route 313 through San Rafael Arriba and San Rafael Abajo or scattered among the hamlets. Behind many of them is a strip of coffee or an orchard, and a house often comes with land attached. Simple rentals turn up too, such as three-bedroom houses with a carport, at rents far below anything in the Central Valley. On this terrain, look at what the house stands on before you look at the kitchen: retaining walls, drainage on the uphill side and any cracks running with the slope.

Land and Lots in Llano Bonito:

Lots range from small roadside parcels of about 300 square metres on Route 313 to half-hectare plots with an open view across the valley. Frontage on the national road makes access and a power connection easier, but it also brings the road’s banks and its runoff in the wet months. Bigger lots away from the road are usually reached by farm tracks, so walk the access yourself after a downpour. Before you discuss a price, ask for the plano catastrado and a water availability letter, since the municipality asks for that letter before it will process a building permit.

Coffee and Avocado Farms in Llano Bonito:

Most land that comes up for sale is already planted. Farms run from a few manzanas to around ten hectares, in coffee and often banana or Hass avocado, and some have springs of their own. Altitude and variety set the value: the specialty trade pays more for high blocks and for farms already selling processed lots, and a few growers here have planted Geisha. If you are looking at coffee farms for sale in Llano Bonito, ask where the cherry is delivered, whether the farm has an arrangement with a mill, and how old the bushes are. Where avocado is planted, find out how the fruit is sold, as the growers’ association runs its own collection centre.

FAQ:

• There are several places called Llano Bonito. How do I know I have the right one?

  Costa Rica has communities of the same name in Cangrejal de Acosta, San Miguel de Desamparados, Naranjo and Guatuso, and Panama has a Llano Bonito next to Chitré. This one is district 12003 of León Cortés Castro, which is also its postal code. Write “Llano Bonito de León Cortés” in every search, offer and contract, and confirm the district on the plano catastrado.

• How do I get there, and what happens to the roads in the rainy season?

  The usual way in is from San Pablo on Route 313, which also links the district with La Legua and Monterrey in Aserrí. In heavy rain, banks along it have slid onto the road. The track from San Francisco down to the Pirrís dam is unpaved and rough. Visit any property you are serious about in October as well as in the dry months.

• What should I check before buying land on these slopes?

  Start with the water and the gradient. Under the Forestry Law, the ground within 100 metres of a permanent spring and a 50-metre strip along rivers on steep terrain are protected, which can take a large bite out of a hillside farm, so mark both on the plan before you agree a price. On steep ground, pay for a soil study before you commit to building. Ask the Municipalidad de León Cortés for the land-use certificate, then confirm every registered owner, the area and any liens at the Registro Nacional (Registro Inmobiliario), and walk the boundaries with the plano catastrado in hand.

• What services are there in the district?

  San Rafael Arriba has the church, the park and the Liceo Llano Bonito, and there are primary schools in the villages, including one on Route 313 at San Rafael Abajo, as well as a CEN childcare and nutrition centre. The municipality is in San Pablo, and San Marcos de Tarrazú is the closest larger town.

• Can I visit the Pirrís dam?

  Yes. You can park and walk across the crest, with the 113-metre wall on one side and a reservoir of more than a hundred hectares on the other. Most people drive in on the paved road from San Marcos de Tarrazú. The shorter way from Llano Bonito through San Francisco is a dirt road that needs a high-clearance vehicle.