Calovebora

June 7, 2025

The drive from Santa Fe to Calovebora takes about 2 hours, but it is a breathtaking ride up and down steep hills and through the beautiful Santa Fe National Park.  Victor, the son of our home exchange host's caretaker, was driving us so that he could drop us off about half way and we could take 2 dugout canoes down the Calovebora river and arrive at their beach home that way.  Sadly, it had been raining and Ignacio, our boat guide, thought it was potentially unsafe given the high river waters.

So, as we always do, we "rolled with it" and continued on to the casita in Calovebora.  The house is small, but gorgeous, immaculately landscaped and only a short 5 minute walk to the beach. 

The beach was amazing, soft sand, extremely warm carribean water and medium sized waves that provided hours and hours of bodysurfing fun for the kids, and me.  During our 3 1/2 days there we spent most of it on the sand or the water. 

While we mostly cooked in, we did venture out a couple of times to the few local restaurants.  Once at a place called (TBD) run by a cheerful woman named Mariela and once at El Tiburan Blanco right on the beach. 

Mariela aslo organized a boat trip up the Calovebora River so make up for the dogout canoe experience we missed.

I also got to enjoy a couple of pick up games with the local youth.  You can read my travel story about the experience here. 

Some more pics from around the town of Calovebora.

After 3 days, while we really enjoyed ourselves in Calovebora, we were ready to get back to Santa Fe and our larger accommodations.  What was so amazing about Calovebora was that it is completely undiscovered yet.  We were the only foreigners /tourists during the whole time we were there and every where we went, it was an unadulterated view of their culture - observing people going about their daily lives.  

If you have the opportuity to come and enjoy this place, I would highly recommend it.