Puerto Limón rewards a half day rather than a full one. The seafront Parque Vargas, the bustling Mercado Central, and the post-earthquake Catedral del Sagrado Corazón de Jesús sit within easy walking distance of one another in the small grid of the town centre. Just offshore lies Isla Uvita, the unprepossessing scrap of land where Columbus first set foot on the Central American mainland in 1502.
The bigger draw is the city's Afro-Caribbean inheritance, visible in the Black Star Line building — once the local headquarters of Marcus Garvey's UNIA — and audible in the calypso and reggae that drift out of bars in the evenings. North and south of the centre, short taxi rides reach Playa Bonita, Playa Portete, and the small Limoncito Wildlife Refuge.