The story
Fiestas de Zapote in Zapote/San Jose
Tracing to an 1846 Turno de San Jose held shortly after independence, the Fiestas de Zapote moved through several San Jose locations before settling at its current plaza in Zapote in 1969. Running the last week of December into the first week of January, it combines chinamos food stalls, mechanical rides and corridas de toros a la tica, Costa Rica's distinctive non-lethal bullfighting style in which amateur participants enter the ring with an unharmed bull.
The Fiestas de Zapote descend from a civic tradition established almost alongside Costa Rica's own independence: a law following the 1824 declaration of independence directed the country's four principal cities to hold patron-saint celebrations, and the resulting Turno de San Jose was first held in December 1846 in Central Park, making the underlying tradition considerably older than its current Zapote location.