Været i Puerto Viejo (Puerto Viejo de Talamanca) i mars

March, April and September are normally the driest months in Bocas, and the forum's emphasis falls on normally: this is rainforest, and regulars say plainly that there is no predictable dry season here and you should expect to be rained on at some point. What they also say is how little it matters - one visitor's forecast promised rain every day and delivered on about 30 percent of them, usually as a ten-minute drizzle. Our row reads wetter than dry season implies, at 20.5 precipitation days carrying 95mm, and that rain is what feeds the jungle people come for. The record: 27.7C days that feel like 33C, 23.1C nights, 10.6 hours of sun and a 28.9C sea.

Puerto Viejo's forum consistently rates August as better than the genuinely wet June-July stretch on the Caribbean coast, with the back half of the month described as noticeably improving as September - reportedly the driest, sunniest month here - approaches. That framing is relative, though: some rain most days is still the norm this time of year, and posters were honest that Caribbean-side weather stays genuinely unpredictable regardless of the calendar. Hot and humid is the constant, with the real variable being how much of each day gets interrupted by a shower.

Forum posters describe February as genuinely variable here - some visitors get a good run of sunny days mixed with a few cloudy, showery ones, while others land mostly sunny and dry throughout their stay, with no reliable way to predict which in advance. Posters are consistent that the Caribbean side of Costa Rica, where Puerto Viejo sits, gets real rain year-round unlike the more clearly seasonal Pacific coast, with local experience suggesting roughly 65% of rain falls at night and most daytime rain is a short shower rather than an all-day event. Posters generally rate the destination higher for wildlife and rainforest activities than for guaranteed beach-lounging weather, given the real chance of a rainier-than-hoped stretch even in the relatively better dry season.