Costa Rica’s Land of Dreams

If you build it, they will come. That line is more than just the mantra from a 1980s Kevin Costner baseball flick; it could just as easily apply to the sprawling resort and marina located on Costa Rica’s Central Pacific coast that’s known throughout the sport-fishing community simply as Los Sueños: the dreams.

Prior to the development of the resort, sport fishing in Costa Rica was much more of a rustic proposition. The fishing was always there — terrific numbers of sailfish for most of the year, along with plenty of the three Pacific marlin species — but the travel experience was a bit more involved. Most of the action revolved around Flamingo in the north, with a few charter boats on moorings in Carrillo, Quepos and elsewhere. Just about every seaside village had a sport-fisher of some description at anchor, ready to take a few clients out for the day. Travel usually meant flying in to the capital of San Jose, then taking a small puddle-jumper to a grass strip on the coast. Occasionally, the pilot had to circle low a few times to scare off grazing cattle.