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Monte De La Cruz- Costa Rica

How to get to Monte De La Cruz, Costa Rica Introduction If you grow weary of the hassles, pollution, and grit of San Jose or Heredia, Costa Rica and want to go for a nice walk in the countryside, you can take a bus and within thirty minutes be in the mountains. Monte De La [...]

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How to get to Monte De La Cruz, Costa Rica

Introduction

If you grow weary of the hassles, pollution, and grit of San Jose or Heredia, Costa Rica and want to go for a nice walk in the countryside, you can take a bus and within thirty minutes be in the mountains.

Monte De La Cruz is simply a nice way to quickly shed the frustration of the city life below and just relax in the clouds. Fields, horse riding trails, waterfalls, and mountains are all at Monte de la Cruz.
This is the sign that you get off of the bus near. It shows the way to Cerro Redondo and is not difficult to locate.

Directions to Monte De La Cruz

Option A: Take a local bus from San Jose or Heredia to San Rafael. The local buses will have the name of the place that they are going to clearly written on their fronts. Just find a bus going to San Rafael and get in. This bus trip should cost around 300 Colones.

From San Rafael take another bus to Monte De La Cruz. You can catch this bus next to the big yellow church. This church is a landmark, you can not miss it. San Rafael is not a big town, you will be able to navigate through it easily. The cost of this ride should be around 200 Colones.

Option B: Take a bus from Heredia directly to Monte De Le Cruz. This bus stops next to the National University. There is only one main street that goes by this university, so just ask for directions to it and you can find a bus stop. These buses come every hour and are bright purple and have Monte De La Cruz written on its front. The cost of this trim is only around 350 Colones You can also take a bus from the university to San Rafael and then go on to Monte De La Cruz from there.

After you get a bus that is going to Monte De La Cruz you ride it until you get up into the mountains. You can get off of the bus when you come to the sign that is photographed above which is at a fork in the road. The sign below is at the fork. It is not difficult to locate, and the bus usually stops here to pick up passengers anyway.

Once you get off of the bus you can either follow the sign and hike up to Cerro Redondo or to a waterfall and nice hiking trails on the opposite side of the road. To go to the water fall, walk back along the road for 100m and cross through an opening in the fence and walk by some cows and horses until you get to the river. There is a bridge that crosses the river and below it is the waterfall. There are also plenty of hiking trails that go through here.

Conclusion

Monte De La Cruz is a really beautiful way to escape from the less than charming cities San Jose and Heredia. When in Costa Rica, this makes a good little day trip. You can get there, have a picnic and be back in the city in two hours. Monte De La Cruz is beautiful.

If you have any more information on this part of Costa Rica please comment below or edit this page.
This is the sign that is at the fork in the road where you get off the bus. Just pull the string to let the driver know that you want to get out.

Costa Rican cows in the agricultural pasture that you walk through to get to the waterfall and the forest.

The river near the waterfall. This is a great place to hike in Costa Rica and it is very close to San Jose Get out of the city and come here.

Filed under: Costa Rica

About the Author:

I am the founder and editor of Vagabond Journey. I’ve been traveling the world since 1999, through 91 countries. I am the author of the book, Ghost Cities of China and have written for The Guardian, Forbes, Bloomberg, The Diplomat, the South China Morning Post, and other publications. has written 3699 posts on Vagabond Journey. Contact the author.

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