Carnival Festival de la Luz

Attend the Festival of Lights – Held every year on the second Saturday in December, the parade is held around Las Sabanas, the cusp of old and new San Jose on Avenida Segunda (Second Avenue). It is celebrated to mark the beginning of the festival season of Christmas and New Year. The carnival draws to a close with spectacular fireworks evoking much excitement from the crowd. To get a good view of the procession, locals start gathering as early as noon and settling down with picnic and mattresses, so you may want to be there much earlier than the actual procession starts. Started in 1996, the Festival de la Luz is in its 20th year in 2016. Other celebrations and carnivals that you may want to participate in are the one that happens in Limon at the Atlantic coast, celebrated in October; Puntarenas celebrates the carnival somewhere between the last week of February to beginning of March. Monteverde celebrates a music festival annually in the first quarter of the year with jazz and Latin music performances.