Source: Wikimedia CommonsCaring for companion animals has always been an important aspect of life in Costa Rica, but over the last few years this activity has turned into a lucrative industry. This is part of the greater Latin American Pet Boom, which has been closely followed by the business world. For veterinarians in Costa Rica, the Pet Boom means increased profit opportunities. According t...

Source: Facebook The death of a pizzeria owner in a sleepy beach town in Costa Rica has many expats wondering what may have happened to the 36-year old man. Jose Elkin Gomez Sanchez had been missing since Thursday, August 15th, when Costa Rica was busy celebrating Mother's Day and the Feast of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary. His body was found floating off Playa Flamingo, province of Guanac...

Source: Wikimedia Commons Two fishermen were shot and killed yesterday evening in Playas del Coco, a quiet and pristine beach community in Costa Rica. The victims have been identified as Victor Davila, approximately 55 years of age, and his son David, who was about 30 years old. The men had recently returned from the sea and were in the process of selling their catch to a fish and seafood s...

San Jose, Costa Rica. September 5, 2013 – There is no doubt that tomorrow’s World Cup Qualifying match between the national teams of Costa Rica and the United States will probably be the most exciting in CONCACAF’s history. Tickets to the Chinese-donated National Stadium are completely sold-out, and authorities are keeping a close eye on scalpers. The Centro Cultural Norteamericano (North Ameri...

Training before the big game. Source: FEDFUTBOL Welcome to the new CONCACAF classic. A few decades ago, football matches between the national teams of Mexico and Costa Rica were the most exciting in the region. The strong development of Major League Soccer in the United States and its national team gave way to Mexico vs. U.S. as an interesting alternative. It only took a snowy day in Colorado ...

Costa Rica is a land of endless charms, and not all of them are related to her natural beauty, amazing biodiversity and penchant for environmental protection. Until recently, the National Board of Tourism (ICT) has focused on two major concepts for the branding and marketing of Costa Rica as an international destination. From now on, however, the focus will be on the Ticos. Esencial Costa Rica ...

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Source: Wikimedia Commons Costa Rica and Syria are separated by more than 7,500 miles (as the crow flies). There are more than just oceans and continents separating the two nations; there is a broad sociopolitical chasm between the two nations. Syria does not keep a diplomatic mission in Costa Rica and viceversa. Still, Costa Rica has come forward with her opi...

Source: Wikimedia Commons Exotic pet owners in Costa Rica continue to be a concern. Not long ago, reports of an escaped anaconda that was kept in a cage by an expat farm owner from the United States scared residents of some Guanacaste towns -although recent news reports indicate that this may have been a hoax; more on that below. The latest report of an ophidian on the loose come from the c...

San Jose, Costa Rica September 3rd 2013 - AmaTierra, Costa Rica’s premier mountain retreat and wellness center, is offering an extended green season special for locals and expats alike. This is one of the best times of the year to visit AmaTierra; the vegetation is lush and in full bloom thanks to the rains, there are plenty of butterflies and toucans to admire, and the white-face monkeys are more...

Since 2005, the MuNet e-Gobierno initiative has grown considerably in Costa Rica. What started as a pilot program sponsored by the Organization of American States (OAS), ICE and Canada’s Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development has grown into a robust digital information and services platform to be proud of. The administration of President Laura Chinchilla has been very supportive in this regard, an...

Source: WIkimedia Commons Although Canadian heartthrob Justin Bieber has not included Costa Rica on the itinerary of his Believe World Tour, that is not stopping young Ticas from doing whatever they can to ensure they do not miss their idol. According to Melvin Molina of La Nacion, if the Bieber does not come to Costa Rica, Ticas will go to the Bieber. The Believe World Tour is only the sec...

Source: Wikimedia Commons Football fans in Costa Rica are anxiously awaiting this Friday, September 6th, to witness what promises to be one of the most exciting games of 2013. On that day, the Costa Rica National Football Team (la sele) will host their counterparts from the United States in what has been repeatedly reported as: “the ultimate grudge match.” This international match is part o...

If you would like to view dozens of photos from this McKee Project campaign please visit their Facebook page. Playa Zancudo, Costa Rica – September 2, 2013 – In keeping with the philosophy of the Zancudo Lodge in giving back to local communities, this past week, the McKee Project - a NGO non-profit teaching organization providing spay and neuter surgery training to Latin American veterinari...

Cheaper than San Jose? Edmonton. Source: Wikimedia Commons. Comparing the cost of living across international regions is a popular activity among those who seek to retire abroad. Until a couple of years ago, Costa Rica appeared in just about every list of top places to retire -all of which considered low cost of living a priority. That no longer seems to be the case. Popular consumer financ...

Source: Wikimedia Commons Two recent articles in online news daily Costa Rica Hoy (CRHoy) call attention to the rising trend of Ecstasy use in Costa Rica. Ecstasy is a common English slang name for amphetamine-based street drugs typically manufactured in pill form. In Costa Rica, these drugs are referred to as “extasis,” “cristal,” or even molly, which is a trendy slang term for them in North ...

Monsanto GMO Corn Stalk Roots. Source: Wikimedia Commons Costa Rica's ongoing fight to keep genetically modified organisms (GMOs) bio-engineered by agro-industrial leviathan Monsanto away from her land has been justified once again. Researchers from the University of Illinois are Pnvestigating an outbreak of western corn rootworm in two Prairie State counties where Monsanto's bacillus thurigie...

Source: Flickr CC Information technology behemoth Google has made quite a few strategic acquisitions in the 21st century, but the most important for users in Costa Rica has been its purchase of mobile app Waze. Now that Google Maps and Waze are under the same umbrella, getting around in Costa Rica has become easier for smartphone users. Although smartphone users around the world will benefi...

Source: Wikimedia Commons A 76-year old man in Costa Rica was rushed to the hospital after he confronted a dangerous fer-de-lance (Bothrops atrox) snake that had killed its livestock. The incident occurred in Grifo Bajo, a small farming community in the canton of Puriscal, province of San Jose. During his entire life, Porfirio Gomez Quesada has earned his keep as a labriego (family farmer)....

Pope Francis. Source: Wikimedia Commons Priests and officials of the Roman Catholic Church in Costa Rica are ready to follow the example set by Pope Francis with regard to transportation, and this means downgrading their automobiles. It's not that ordained Catholic priests in Costa Rica are driving around in vehicles manufactured by Mercedes Benz, BMW or Ferrari; but, the current papacy calls ...

Source: Casa Presidencial de Costa Rica It wasn't long ago that the people of Costa Rica gave President Laura Chinchilla the lowest public opinion of a Latin American country leader. In fact, the Costa Rica Star compared her track record to that of President Dilma Rouseff of Brazil, another political leader whose term in office has been decidedly rocky. One of the lowest points in the admin...

Twilight in Golfito. Source: Wikimedia Commons Squatters of private property in Costa Rica, particularly those that trespass land owned by foreigners, are more than a just a nuisance. They are reminders of this country's painful transition from an agricultural nation to an industrial and consumer society. Many foreign landowners have come to learn the hard way about Costa Rica's murky agrarian...

Costa Rica celebrates Afro-Costa Rican heritage in August of each year, and this year's activities are strongly focused on film. The Costa Rica Star has already written about the Flowers of the African Diaspora Film Festival currently playing at Cine Magaly in San Jose; now the Southern Caribbean Chamber of Commerce and Tourism (CATCCAS in Spanish) invites you to enjoy part of the film festival in...

Source: Wikimedia Commons Less guns, more bullets: According to figures recently reported by Ronny Rojas of news daily La Nacion, there is a clear interest among people in Costa Rica in purchasing firearms of higher round (ammunition) capacity. In 2012, gun dealers in Costa Rica imported 4,540 semiautomatic pistols, double the annual rate since 2010. Revolvers, on the other hand, are losing fa...

Source: Alivebox A team of software engineers and developers from Costa Rica took second place at SenchaCon 2013, a specialized information technology (IT) conference that recently took place in Orlando. SenchaCon is organized by Sencha, a visionary company that develops frameworks, services and tools that are shaping the future of the World Wide Web. SenchaCon 2013 was essentially a combin...

Source: Flickr CC If you are in need of work in Costa Rica, you might feel encouraged by the various employment fairs that offer thousands of available positions to job seekers in diverse industries. Attending one of these fairs, which take place several times a year, will leave you feeling pretty upbeat about your work prospects, at least until you realize that after a few weeks not one poten...

Source: Flickr CC Although statistics from the Ministry of Public Safety (initials MSP in Spanish) indicate that overall crime is down in Costa Rica, many rural and farming communities are seeing criminal elements getting comfortable in their quiet towns. This is particularly true in the province of Alajuela, where the northern cantons of San Carlos and Los Chiles join the municipality of Ciud...

Source: Flickr CC In the early 21st century, the bed & breakfast (B&B) lodging trend became a cottage industry in Costa Rica and gave hope to families whose properties had the potential to attract tourists looking for cozy, alternative accommodations. More than a decade later, many B&B operators are closing their doors in Costa Rica, and the rest are weighing their options in the m...

Environmentalist Paul Watson, founder of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, has recently been very active in calling attention to the illegal practices of shark finning in Costa Rica, as well as the allegations of ties between fishery officials and what Mr. Watson defines as “narco-poachers.” On his Facebook Timeline, which is followed by nearly 235,000 social media netizens, Mr. Watson...

Source: Wikimedia Commons Before Pope John Paul II was elevated to sainthood, someone had to be the bad guy in Costa Rica and oppose his canonization. That contentious responsibility was accepted by Dr. Mariano Ramirez, a 79-year old oncologist and gynecologist who became the devil's advocate against John Paul the Great and his entry into the Holy Canon. According to daily tabloid La Teja, ...

Jaime Barboza with President Laura Chinchilla in 2011. Source: Facebook Ukrainian pugilist Stanyslav Kashtanov is still the World Boxing Association (WBA) Super Middleweight Champion after Jaime “Indio” Barboza from Costa Rica failed to take his belt. It was a great night for boxing for 30,000 fans in the Donbas Arena in the Ukraine, a country that is producing quite a few luminaries of the...

Source: Flickr CC The first-ever legally recognized civil union between same-gender partners in Costa Rica might take place in one or two weeks. Such was the statement pronounced by Marco Castillo, an attorney and president of the Diversity Movement in Costa Rica. Mr. Castillo is currently handling petitions from three couples who want legal recognition of their rights to civil unions as lesbi...

A ticket from the previous World Cup. Source: Flickr CC Officials from the Federation Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) and MATCH Hospitality AG will visit Costa Rica in September to meet with their counterparts at the National Consumer Commission (Spanish acronym: CNC), an agency of the Ministry of Economy, Industry and Commerce (MEIC). MATCH Hospitality AG, owner of the exclus...

Source: U.S. Embassy Author's Note:  This article is condensed from two official press releases issued by the United States Embassy in San Jose. Communications between the National Coast Guard Service of Costa Rica and United States vessels or aircraft involved in search and rescue (SAR) or law enforcement (LE) operations is now possible thanks to the recent donation of five Harris military...

Ronald McDonald sits in the Netherlands. Source: Wikimedia Commons Is Arcos Dorados Costa Rica (ADCR) S.A., opening a new McDonald’s restaurant in the municipality of Atenas, province of Alajuela? A recent post in a blog authored by an expat living in Costa Rica claims that: A pretty innocent status update on Facebook has blown into a brouhaha regarding McDonald’s coming to Atenas. The blog ...

Source: Wikimedia Commons If you live near the banks of the Tempisque River in Guanacaste, you may want to keep an eye on your livestock, as well as your dogs and cats. An anaconda slithered away from its unnatural farm habitat, where it was kept as an exotic pet by an owner described by neighbors as “a powerful gringo” in Costa Rica. The 12-meter long anaconda is not native to Costa Rica, ...

Fans of quality rock music and cinema in Costa Rica continue to be a lucky bunch. This country is already a magnet and source of inspiration for some of the coolest rock bands, and in the next few weeks Costa Rica will host a couple of film festivals where Hollywood celebrities such as Danny Glover will be guests of honor. This weekend, good rock music and excellent cinema come together at the ...

Source: Wikimedia Commons Every day, reports about incidents of animal abuse in Costa Rica make news headlines and fan the flames of social media discourse and indignation. A stray dog savagely sliced by a machete, sea turtles gutted for their meat, a female sloth hit with rocks, a porcupine cut with knives, sharks being brutally killed for their fins, illegal hunters who shoot down and dis...

An anti-GMO activist in San Francisco. Source: Wikimedia Commons The number of cantons in Costa Rica that have adopted legislation to prohibit the cultivation of potentially dangerous genetically modified organisms (GMOs) is now at 62. These transgenic-free territories are following a legal strategy often called the “anti-Monsanto doctrine” after the world's most powerful distributor of GMO se...

Source: Wikimedia Commons A recent feature on the WorldViews Blog of the Washington Post (recently acquired by Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon.com) presents 40 maps of the world that cleverly combine geographic projections with interesting data. The result is fascinating insight into a variety of topics and issues. The Costa Rica Star has looked at five of the 40 maps and found some very inte...

Source: Flickr CC Prosecutors in Puntarenas, a major port city in the Pacific coast of Costa Rica, have lodged a criminal complaint against the Executive President of the National Institute of Fishing and Aquaculture (Spanish acronym: INCOPESCA). The charges are related to shark fin poaching. According to an online news report by Alvaro Sanchez of CRHoy.com, INCOPESCA's Executive President ...