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COSTA RICA | Puntarenas, Costa Rica Travel Guide
Saturday, May 11, 2024
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Quepos & Manuel Antonio National Park
Quepos & Manuel Antonio National Park
Unlike the hot and dry beaches of Guanacaste, the country south of Jacó transits to an increasingly humid and hot climate, creating a more tropical landscape. Humid forests spill right down to palm tree-lined sandy white beaches.
Manuel Antonio National Park and its many hotels sits on the other side of a mountain ridge from the small town of Quepos, about two hours south of Jacó. Before the tourism boom, Quepos survived on fishing and agriculture. It began its life as a company town, built in the 1930s to support the United Fruit banana plantations that lined the coastal plain. By the 1950s, production of African palm oil became the main source of income, after Panama disease destroyed the banana crop. On the long drive in, you’ll pass rows and rows of tightly packed palm oil trees, as well as some surviving banana plantations. A few small company towns live on, distinguished by the geometrical arrangement of the turquoise houses, some built on stilts, usually around a soggy soccer field. Other agro-industries have sprung up to break the mono-crop dependency: Teak trees are harvested for furniture, gmelina trees for paper pulp, and green fields of rice dot the landscape. The recently improved coastal road follows the route of the old banana train and river crossings are still made over rickety, single lane, former train trestles. Riding south from Playa Estrillos Oeste the road curves inland from the coast through a medium-sized town (where you’ll probably wait in line for the bridge) of Parrita, 25 km/15.5 miles from your destination. You reach the sea again at Quepos.
For general information – from weather and news headlines to adventure resources – log on to www.pueretoquepos.com.
Last updated October 29, 2010
Posted in Costa Rica | Puntarenas
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