Hotel Oasis (Malpais, Costa Rica) ★★★

The village of Malpais is mainly residential with a few indoor or beachfront restaurants. From Hotel Oasis it is just a five-minute walk north to the Cruce of Playa Carmen and Santa Teresa. There you enter a busy center with surf shops, grocery stores, sport bars, nightlife and more restaurants and eateries serving breakfast lunch and dinner with a range of international flavors to please anyone’s palate. Wi-Fi is available in most places so you’re never far from internet access.

There are boutiques, a fitness and dance studio, beauty spas, as well as 2 convenient ATMs, rental companies, dental and medical services, pharmacy, personal health trainers and a range of massage therapists and health practitioners of western, eastern and holistic modalities.

GETTING THERE
Once you arrive in Costa Rica, you can travel directly to Hotel Oasis by shuttle, plane, car, or bus.

SHUTTLE
If you do not want to drive, a good door-to-door option is to take a shuttle. Rates for a shuttle to and from a destination in northern Costa Rica is approximately $50/person.

PLANE
Both Nature Air and Sansa domestic airlines provide daily charter flights direct to the Tambor Airport from San Jose’s Juan Santamaria International Airport, as well as from the smaller airports in Samara, Punta Islita, Nosara, and Tamarindo. From Tambor airport, you can either arrange to pick-up your rental car, or hire a taxi to take you to Hotel Oasis in Mal Pais. A taxi will cost approximately $55.

BUS
A direct public bus leaves twice a day at 6am and 2PM in San José from the San Carlos bus station and will take you all the way to Malpais. It will stop at the Cruce in Playa Carmen. We are located 300 meters South from the Cruce in Malpais. Approximate bus fare is $14 per person.

CAR
Before you leave, always verify ferry schedules, map your routes and bring Colones for payment at the tollbooths. From San Jose to the ferry to Paquera: Drive the Pan American (interamerican) Highway or the highway 27 Autopista del Sol (toll highway) to Puntarenas (120 km) and take the ferry to Paquera. After you disembark the ferry in Paquera, drive to the main town intersection. From the Paquera intersection, turn left to drive 40 km along Highway 160 to the Playa Carmen intersection, otherwise known as the “Cruce”. From the Cruce, turn left to go to Mal Pais. (Turn right to go to Santa Teresa.)