The small town of Upala is located in the north of Costa Rica’s Province of Alajuela, no more than 10 kilometers away from the border with Nicaragua. The district of Upala covers close to 250,000 square kilometers and has a population of around 14,000 people. The main activity in Upala is agriculture and most people live of cultivating rice and raising cattle. Upala is the place where all the products and cattle are traded and many people visit the town to do business. Most people just pass trough Upala on their way from and to the border of Nicaragua or stay a night over in one of the many cheap hotels. Upala has no special tourist attraction, but the hard to reach Cano Negro National Wildlife Refuge is only 40 kilometers to the east and can be reached from Upala. Visitors of this park have the option to take bus from San Jose in the Central Valley to Upula or the town east of the park Los Chiles. It’s a long almost 200 kilometer long drive. There is good reason to visit Upala on the 12th of October though, because that is the date the Fiesta del Maiz (Feast of Corn) is celebrated. It is a tribute to the corn, which plays an important role in the Indigenous culture of the Guatuso’s, the original occupants of the Upala region. The precious corn is praised with a parade of people dressed in clothes made out of corn plants and grains. A traditional alcoholic drink is made from fermented corn and is called ‘chicha’. It can be savored during these festivities. Strangely enough Upala used to be a district of the canton of Grecia, far away and with no mutual interests. In 1970 this was corrected and Upala was declared a autonomous district. After solving the practical problem of not having furniture nor typewriters the Upala local government has worked on the development of the region ever since. Roads were improved, decimating travel times to other towns in the vicinity and in 1976 water and electricity became available to the citizens of Upala. The border zone received a lot attention during the civil war in Nicaragua in the 1980’s, when many people left that country in search for safety and better economic prospects. International aid organizations injected millions of colones in the area. Coming as far as Upala you might consider crossing the border with Nicaragua, because the biggest sweet water lake ‘Lago de Nicaragua’ with breathtaking views is situated practically along the border.