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An Insight into Manuel Antonio.

"Lottery seller, downtown Quepos"

In 1972 the people of Quepos, partly led by members of the Communist Party, tore down gates put up by developers to protect their investment in a project to build houses and a future hotel near the beach. The developers threatened to sue the town and then use bulldozers to destroy the area - one of the most beautiful natural wonders of Costa Rica. The national newspaper La Nación, got behind a drive to prevent the closing of the beach area. Then the developers built a stronger gate and the people bombed the gate.

The Queposians didn't want to farm this land. They didn't even want to raise cattle on it, they didn't want the land for themselves, instead they demanded a park for the people. The developers upped the ante by actually beginning to cut trees in order to build houses on the beach and went around armed and threatened to fight the entire town, if necessary, in order to build the development.

With a stroke of good fortune around this time Mario Boza, along with Alvaro Ugalde (students at the University of Costa Rica), were appointed to the new National Park Service. Señor Boza took a small plane and flew over the area around the Manual Antonio beach and decided it had the only good white sand beach in the area. Being a man of prompt action, he soon had a "friendly" legislator write a law declaring Manuel Antonio a National Park. The local Deputy, Pedro Gaspar Zúñiga sponsored the park bill and presented it to the Legislative Assembly. A meeting held by the Municipality of Quepos and practically the entire town voted for the creation of the park. Soon, Deputy Zúñiga led a group of legislators on a fact-finding visit to Manuel Antonio and the developer, Arthur Bergeron, refused to talk to them!

This was a fatal error in TicoLand, where negotiation is an art form. Because of this attitude, the lawmakers decided they would present a motion that day to stop the development and to ask the government to buy the land for a park. In November of 1972, the Assembly passed Law Number 5100 establishing the Manual Antonio National Recreation Park --- later shortened to Manual Antonio National Park. All that was needed was the $700,000 to pay for the land Costa Rica had traded away four decades before. Finally in 1975, a bond was issued by the Costa Rican government, and at long last and with the help of a lot of strange bedfellows --- the Conquistador Manual Antonio had his park. For more on the foundations of the national parks of Costa Rica try and get a copy of the amazing book "The Quetzal and the Macaw".

OK, so that's the history . . . today the park is one of the best protected and the little beaches inside the park are a delight. The road leading to the park now has 150 hotels on it (fortunately most are small) but the area is very overgrown though worth a visit. After all after Arenal and Monte Verde it is the most visited place in all of Costa Rica.

If you'd like to visit Manuel Antonio email us at: InsightCostaRica for information or ideas?