Puerto Limon

About Puerto Limon

Puerto Limón is Costa Rica's Caribbean-coast cruise port and gateway to the country's eastern rainforests. Ships dock at the downtown pier; most passengers leave town quickly on excursions — Tortuguero canals, aerial trams through the forest canopy, or a banana-plantation tour. Sloths, toucans, and poison-dart frogs are routine on guided walks. Ship-organized tours are the safer play over independent exploration.

• Puerto Limón (officially Limón) is Costa Rica's main Caribbean port and one of the country's seven 'middle cities' — with a population of about 71,500 it is the most populous city outside the Greater San José Metropolitan Area.
• Christopher Columbus anchored near Limón on 25 September 1502, during his fourth and final voyage to the Americas, making it one of his recorded landings on the mainland.
• The city's large Afro-Costa Rican community — primarily of Jamaican descent — arrived to build the Atlantic railway in the 19th century; a subsequent government travel ban kept Afro-Caribbean people confined to Limón Province for decades.
• The port is home to the Moín Container Terminal, operated by Dutch company APM Terminals, which is the main economic gateway for Costa Rican imports and exports.
• Residents speak both Spanish and Limonese Creole, an English-based creole language that developed from the Jamaican workers' English and is unique to this region of Costa Rica.