Carribean Region

The Caribbean side of Costa Rica is significantly influenced by Afro-Caribbean culture with calypso, reggae, and soca music in abundance and plenty of Jamaican jerk style cuisine. You will feel significant Rasta vibes and experience a life very different than in the rest of the country. The beautiful aquamarine water along with unique wetland habitats, coral reefs, and some excellent surf breaks make vacationing here more than enjoyable.  

In the early 1900’s a large number of Afro-Caribbean’s immigrated to the Caribbean coast of Costa Rica to work for the United Fruit Company on the ever-growing banana plantations. As working conditions were less than ideal and there was incongruity in people’s wages, workers banned together in the Bloc of Workers and Peasants, a labor party initially organized in 1929 by a young student, Manuel Mora Valverde. In 1934 they staged the largest protest in Costa Rican history, a strike so significant that it forced the company to stop production. The United Fruit Company decided thus to move away from the Caribbean side of the country to the Pacific Coast in 1938 and, as a sort of penalty for the unrest, they prohibited the movement of black people west of the Central Valley.