Palmar Sur: Budget Travel Guide, Palmar Sur, Costa Rica

If you’re fed up with following the well-worn tourist trail in Costa Rica and looking for somewhere other tourists don’t go to, consider exploring the mysterious stone spheres at Palmar! These perfectly-spherical stone balls are between 500 and 1500 years old, the last vestiges of a thriving, complex civilisation based in the Diquís Delta. They have become a symbol of Costa Rica and remain the only cultural UNESCO World Heritage Site in the country. They are incredibly unique and distinctive. Much technical knowledge and understanding of their meaning and significance has been lost to time. 

By this point of our Costa Rica leg we were pretty disillusioned with the tourist bubble, desperate to meet real people and experience the true Costa Rican life away from the tourist hordes. Our time in Palmar Sur was a great antidote to the overly touristic nature of the rest of the country.

Palmar Norte and Palmar Sur are twin towns linked by a large iron bridge over the river, and are accessible by bus en route to Panama. The bus station is in Palmar Norte, but it is possible to walk between the two. This place felt much more authentic than anywhere else we visited in Costa Rica. ...... (follow the instructions below for accessing the rest of this article).