¡Bomba!
With marimba and tradition (Con marimba y tradición),
Guanacaste lifts her voice (Guanacaste alza la voz);
today she celebrates with pride (hoy celebra con orgullo),
her history and choice (su historia y su decisión).
There are celebrations you attend, and then there are celebrations you remember because they could only happen in one place. Lightning in a bottle.
Here in Guanacaste, July 25 is that kind of celebration.
It’s not only one of Costa Rica’s most meaningful national holidays. It’s Guanacaste’s great day of pride: a day that belongs to marimba music and traditional skirts, to tortillas warming on the comal, to families and neighbors gathering, to history told through food, dance, laughter, and the deep joy of belonging to this beloved province.
Across Costa Rica, July 25 marks the Anexión de Nicoya, the historic Annexation of the Partido de Nicoya, also known as the Annexation of Guanacaste. And here at Santarena Hotel, in the heart of Guanacaste province, it’s something you feel in the air. It’s a region celebrating its own story, its own voice, and its place in the heart of Costa Rica.
This year, that celebration comes to Las Catalinas with the third edition of Guanacaste Nights, a three-day gathering from July 24 through 26 dedicated to the food, culture, music, and community spirit of Guanacaste.
For guests of Santarena Hotel, it’s a rare and beautiful invitation: stay steps from Playa Danta, walk through town to the celebration, and experience one of Guanacaste’s most unforgettable weekends from the heart of Las Catalinas.
From July 24 through 26, Guanacaste Nights will unfold across three days and three distinct experiences. Come for the full weekend, or register for the day that most calls to you.
The weekend begins with an intimate five-course dinner at Sentido Norte, inspired by Guanacaste’s ancestral cooking traditions.
This opening evening is the most refined expression of Guanacaste Nights: a sunset fine dining experience with a deep sense of place. Familiar flavors, local ingredients, and culinary memory will be reimagined through an elevated lens, creating a dinner that honors the province while offering something fresh and thoughtful.
For Santarena guests, it’s a beautiful way to begin the weekend: a slow afternoon by Playa Danta, a sunset dinner at Sentido Norte, and the feeling that the celebration has opened with intention.
Time: 4:30 PM to 9:30 PM
Location: Sentido Norte, Casa Chameleon
Price: $160 per person
Saturday is the heart of Guanacaste Nights, and it falls on the day of the Anexión de Nicoya itself.
Las Catalinas will fill with food and drink stations, participating chefs, live music, marimba, traditional dancers, and the open-air energy of a town-wide celebration. It’s festive, generous, and full of Guanacaste flavor, with professional chefs and elevated dishes bringing the province’s culinary traditions into the center of the evening.
Families, residents, hotel guests, neighbors from nearby towns, visitors from across Costa Rica, and travelers from farther away are all invited to gather around the same celebration.
This is the night to listen for marimba, watch traditional skirts spin, share plates, clap along, run into friends, and feel why July 25 means so much in Guanacaste.
Time: 4:30 PM to 9:00 PM
Location: Las Catalinas Town
Price: $75 adults / $30 kids
On Sunday, Guanacaste Nights closes with a warm farewell market in Las Catalinas.
After Saturday’s music and movement, this final day offers a gentler rhythm. Local producers and regional flavors take the spotlight, giving you a chance to browse, taste, meet the makers, and take a little piece of Guanacaste home.
Think of it as a feria (an open-air market), shaped by the special spirit of Guanacaste Nights: local, flavorful, relaxed, and deeply connected to the people who grow, make, cook, and share the province’s traditions.
Time: 10:00 AM to 4:00 PM
Location: Las Catalinas Town
Entrance: Free
If you’d like to experience all three days, the full Guanacaste Nights package is available for $235 per person, taxes included.
Guanacaste Nights is open to everyone. You don’t have to stay overnight, and you don’t have to attend all three days. Register for the sunset dinner, the Saturday celebration, the Sunday market, or the full weekend.
But if you’re able to stay, the weekend promises something even more memorable.
At Santarena Hotel, Guanacaste Nights unfolds just beyond our door. You can wake up steps from Playa Danta, spend the day at the beach or wandering Las Catalinas, and walk into town as the music begins. After dinner, dancing, street food, or the market, the evening doesn’t end with a long drive, but with an easy stroll back through a town designed for connection.
Stay for the weekend with friends, family, or someone you love. Let Friday begin with sunset. Let Saturday bring the full energy of July 25. Let Sunday close with local producers, warm flavors, and one more slow morning in Guanacaste.
Guanacaste is part of Costa Rica’s national identity, but it has always had a rhythm of its own.
You hear it in the marimba, a wooden, xylophone-like percussion instrument whose bright notes often accompany festivals, dances, and civic celebrations. You see it in the Punto Guanacasteco, one of Costa Rica’s most cherished traditional dances, where skirts move in wide circles and the dancers’ gestures bring courtship, humor, elegance, and pride to life.
You taste it in maíz pujagua, the purple corn used in traditional recipes; in chicha, a fermented corn drink; in gallos, tortillas topped with generous savory fillings; and in the many maize-based foods that have passed through Guanacaste kitchens for generations.
You feel it in the bomba, a quick spoken verse – a verbal firecracker (hence, “bomba”), if you will – called out during the music, part rhyme, part chant, part joke, part tradition. And you recognize it in the sabanero, the Guanacaste cowboy figure rooted in cattle country, horsemanship, open land, hard work, and the rural heritage that still shapes so much of the province’s identity.
Guanacaste is beach and forest, yes. But it’s also kitchen, plaza, field, horse, dance, voice, memory, and family. And that’s what the Annexation and Guanacaste Nights both celebrate.
For many international visitors, July 25 may be a new date on the calendar. For Costa Ricans, and especially for Guanacastecos, it’s one of the great cultural celebrations of the year.
In 1824, after Central America gained its independence from Spain, the people of Nicoya and Santa Cruz democratically chose to join Costa Rica. That decision is remembered through the phrase:
A literal translation – “of the homeland by our will” – doesn’t quite hold the feeling. In English, it’s closer to “belonging to the homeland, by our own choice.”
Choice, belonging, and democracy are at the heart of this special celebration. The Anexión de Nicoya is not only a historic anniversary, but a story of identity chosen freely. It’s a reminder that Guanacaste did not disappear into Costa Rica, nor was it forcibly annexed; instead, our province helped shape a nation. The province became deeply Costa Rican while remaining beautifully, unmistakably itself.
More than two centuries later, that pride is still alive in the music, the dance, the food, the language, the traditions, and the warmth of the people who call Guanacaste home.
In Guanacaste, food tells stories.
A tortilla is never just a tortilla. It may be shaped by hand, cooked on a wood-fired, cast-iron comal, then served warm and shared across a table where recipes, memories, and family traditions all have a place. Because maize is one of the great foundations of Guanacaste cooking, appearing in tortillas palmeadas, chicheme, chicha, rosquillas, tanelas, tamal asado, arroz de maíz, and so many other heritage foods you may one day (soon!?) try.
These foods can be humble, but they’re never ordinary. They carry the taste of home, of celebration, of rural kitchens, of recipes learned by watching and helping, of ingredients grown and prepared with care.
Guanacaste Nights honors that culinary memory through ancestral flavors, local ingredients, participating chefs, food and drink stations, street food, and local producers. Some moments will be elevated and intimate; others will be festive, generous, and full of movement. Together, they create a weekend that celebrates Guanacaste through the table.
If the food brings everyone to the table, then music brings everyone to the plaza.
Marimba is essential to the sound of Guanacaste. Its bright, wooden notes feel made for celebration: lively enough for dancing, warm enough for memory, familiar enough to make Costa Ricans smile from the first note.
Then there are the bombas, those short, spirited verses that interrupt the music in the best possible way. Someone calls “¡Bomba!” and the rhythm pauses for a rhyme, making way for a joke, a flirtation, a patriotic line, or a little burst of Guanacaste wit.
And when the Punto Guanacasteco dancing begins, tradition becomes movement. The steps are joyful, graceful, and full of color, with traditional skirts sweeping through the air and dancers carrying the pride of the province in every step.
For Santarena Hotel guests, these cultural moments are part of what makes the weekend so special. You’re not far away from the celebration, but right here, steps from hearing the music, watching the dancers, tasting the food, and feeling the spirit of Guanacaste all around you.
This July 24 through 26, Santarena Hotel invites you to join us in celebrating Guanacaste: our history, our music, our food, our dance, our neighbors, our traditions, and the pride that makes our province so deeply loved.