Maps & Apps
Updated: Jul 19, 2019
Our growing list of maps, apps and other tools to help you navigate the area around Ojo del Mar.
This page has a list of:
Roadmaps and Driving Directions
Weather and Wind
Surf and Tide
Trails and Terrain
Tracking and Ecological Mapping (Birds, Jungle and Marine life)
Star Maps
First things first:
The resources here are ones that reliably show parts of the southern Osa near our nature lodge. Wherever possible, we linked directly to the spot closest to Ojo del Mar.
Many spots on the Peninsula don’t have addresses, or the addresses that don’t work across all mapping apps. (More on this at the bottom of the page.)
Check out our Ojo del Mar Vicinity Map - We used Google Maps to create a map you can use to easily find various locations around Ojo del Mar.
There are lots of other apps you can use, but not all work in Costa Rica, or show the vicinity. Do you research, and be sure to test them before you leave by entering our GPS or other information.
Download your maps and other data at home so they can be used offline!
Roads and Driving
These are "pre-loaded" with directions to Ojo del Mar from the Airport in Puerto Jimenez; by favoriting both locations, it will make orienting yourself to other locations even easier:
Waze directions to Ojo del Mar
Google Maps to Ojo del Mar
Of note: some maps, including Google, show two "Ojo del Mar" locations - one, the Nature Lodge, and the other, as Ecolodge. Despite this confusion, we are easy to find: we are on the water side of Ruta 245, near the marker for Buena Esperanza.
Weather
There are hundreds of ways to get the weather, and you may already have a favorite. You will want to be sure yours has a mobile app that will update regularly in the field. Paired with a source of Tidal data (like Magic Seaweed) you'll have the environmental forecasting tools you need for hiking, surfing and birdwatching across the region.
We suggest Weather.com, largely because of its large datasets and multiple language support - including English, Espanol and Deutsch (you can easily get others by clicking the globe on the top right of the site.) The App is available for most Apple and Android.
The easiest way to find us is to search for Playa Carbonera, Puntarenas Province, Costa Rica. One trick: if you open the Map tab, you can add a range of layers to your view: windspeed, UV, clouds, and the like. You can also set trackers for marine, storm and other patterns.
A local favorite is Windy.com. It's very streamlined (so good for use where there is spotty WiFi.) It offers a variety of options - including temperature, cloud cover, ozone, wind gusts and more. It offers both an iOS and Android App; you can also bookmark this page and click on the image below to get to the site.
One note: Be aware that "crowdsourced" weather apps are not widely used here, so you might not be able to use Weather Underground or other popular, hyperlocal sources.
Surf and Tides
Magic Seaweed has a detailed Spot guide which features three local favorites to our south: Pan Dulce, Backwash, and Hog Hole (at the very tip of the Peninsula.) It has tide tables, forecasts and other useful details if you will be on the water.
Another resource is Surfline’s Matapalo Surf report, which is for the area just to our north.
Tracking and Ecological Mapping
iNaturalist is a citizen science project that is also a social-media platform for naturalists, citizen scientists, and biologists. This crowd-sourced project encourages all people to share images, locations and data of the organisms they find by uploading observations through the iNaturalist app. This data is shared, so others can get real-time and historical information about species sightings in an area - especially valuable for birders and other wildlife spotters.
There is lots of activity all around the Osa Peninsula. We’ve just started, but you can follow Ojo del Mar, as well as particular places, people or organisms. While we start adding the organisms we find, we have created some links to get you going quickly:
This “Bounding Box” drops you in to see the observations entered for our immediate area...
... and this one is zoomed out a bit, to give a view of our southern part of the Peninsula and parts of the Golfo Dulce.
The Osa Peninsula Place ID is 124970
Golfo Dulce is Place ID is 135886
You can also choose to follow Osa-based Projects like the Osa Biodiversity Survey.
Animal Satellite Tracking and Migrations:
The Journey North tracks migrations of Baltimore Orioles as they move between the US and Canada and Costa Rica.
Ocearch tracks the "pings" of marine animals in the environment, and plots the data on a map.
Trails & Terrain
All Trails is both a mobile app and browser-based trail guide using community-curated trail maps (as well as trail reviews, photos and activity recordings contributed by a community of hikers and others out in the field. You can also create custom maps from your computer - and save trails for planning and wayfinding. A few to get you started:
La Leona Madrigal Trail is a 10.1 kilometer out and back trail located in Corcovado Park; it features a river and is good for all skill levels. The trail is primarily used for hiking, trail running, and nature trips.
We have started a Map for the area around Ojo del Mar.
Starmaps and Stargazing Apps
The Night Sky Planner is a terrific source from NASA in the US. Enter “Matapalo, Puntarenas Province, Costa Rica” in the search box, and you’ll get a snapshot of what’s above us in the sky today - as well as calendars, events and more.
If you want a printable Evening Sky Map to bring with you, this no-frills version is a good choice. Be sure to download the Equatorial Edition, drawn for latitude 0° (scroll down past Northern Latitude edition.)
The Light Pollution Map at Dark Site helps you track concentrations of light that might disrupt your observation. As you’ll see, there is light generated by Puerto Jimenez and to the north, but hardly any in our part of the Osa. Happy Star-spotting!
Star Mapping Apps:
These three are well-loved - pick the one that works best for you!
FINDING US
General Address:
Playa Cabonera, Puerto Jimenez, 70602 Puntarenas
GPS:
N 08° 24.577'
W 083° 16.924'
8°24'57.7"N 83°16'92.4"W
A Word on Places Many spots on the Peninsula don’t have addresses, or the addresses that don’t work across all mapping apps. For example, our location in Google Maps is 245, Puntarenas Province, Costa Rica, but for Waze you need [xx]
Puerto Jimenez Airport is a good marker that shows up in most maps; we are about 17km south of the airport, on the 245.
If you are having trouble with results, here are some nearby place names to try:
Playa Carbonera
Cabo Matapalo
Golfo Dulce
Playa Pan Dulce or just Pan Dulce (just south of us)
Tips
Some of these are browser-based, and some are apps for phones and other mobile devices. Whatever you choose, be sure to check:
Whether a WiFi or cellular network is required for use,
If you can download maps and details (especially if you can add your own),
That you can use the features in a range of environments (like stars, planets) day or night
Load these before you leave home to see whether they work and to become familiar with them - you don’t want to be setting these up and learning how to use them on the Osa!