Costa Rica's Central Pacific Coast: Quepos

Costa Rica's Central Pacific fishing town of Quepos is full of restaurants, bars, hotels, art galleries and gift shops. You will also find a supermarket, bank and pharmacy. 1 hour south of Jaco Beach, next to Manuel Antonio National Park. Quepos used to be an important port for the transportation of bananas, but in the 1980's bananas were replaced by the African palms for its palm oil.

As Quepos got less important as a banana port, it renewed itself as an ecotourism and Costa Rica sportfishing destination. Quepos is the town to stay when you are on a budget. For the more expensive hotels you have to drive a little further up the hill between Quepos and Manuel Antonio National Park. There are no nice beaches in Quepos, but you will find them on the other side of the hill in front of or in Manuel Antonio National Park.

Quepos is well known by sport fishing enthusiasts. The blue water off this coast provides exceptional challenge and excitement for seasoned, as well as occasional, anglers. International bill fishing tournaments in these waters routinely tie and break world records.

Quepenos are great celebrators of life and seem to make dancing in the streets a local pastime. The high season runs through the drier months of December to April and explodes during the Festival del Mar, a month long party held each February that features Costa Rica concerts, sporting events, parades and a street carnival with dancers from across the country. Quepos fills to the brim with families, surfers, backpackers, ecotourists, blissed-out scientists and gay jet-setters, all as colorful and intriguing as the flora and fauna surrounding the village. The ever-friendly locals take it all in stride, going out of their way to make sure everyone has a good time.