The Cerro de la Muerte, or Mountain of Death, doesn’t exactly sound like a place for fun and relaxation, unless we’re talking about eternal sleep. Maybe that’s why places like San Gerardo de Dota and Santa Maria de Dota (the Los Santos region of Costa Rica), the Tapantí National Park and the newly formed Los Quetzales National Park are some of the least visited destinations in Costa Rica. These...

Customers in a branch of Banco de Costa RicaIt is that time of the year when economists and financial analysts in Costa Rica compile their 2013 observations and make their forecasts for 2014. While the outlook is positive for large enterprises in some sectors, the same cannot be said for workers and consumers in Costa Rica, who will generally earn less at their jobs and pay more at cash registers...

Source: Fuerza Publica A band of four thieves suspected of robbing truck drivers in the Caribbean region of Costa Rica were ready to ply their nefarious trade on Christmas Eve and come away with a big score of coffee beans, tires and home appliances. Thanks to the work of Fuerza Publica officers, however, members of this Grinch mob were forced to sing Silent Night behind bars. According to ...

Palm tree in Costa Rica decorated for ChristmasWhether your holiday celebration includes menorahs, decorated trees, or kinaras it’s a time when many expats return to their mother-land to be with family. This migratory pattern translates into a huge need for house, pet, garden, and property caregivers! Expats have created a fulfilling life abroad, often including the adoption of one or two furry f...

Escape this winter to the land of perpetual summer on the Central Pacific Coast of Costa Rica. Blue skies, golden sun, tropical breezes, warm surf and soft sand await you. Sounds pretty good if you’re looking out the window at freezing rain, ice, snow and a heavy gray sky, doesn’t it? Costa Rica’s Central Pacific Coast stretches from the port town of Puntarenas to just before the surf town o...

Officials at the National Blood Bank of the Calderon Guardia Hospital in Costa Rica woke up last week to an alarming sight: Reserves were near zero. An urgent call for type O Positive blood donations was issued across the Central Valley, and technicians plan to work through most of the holidays to conduct blood collection drives. Blood bank officials were able to ameliorate the situation over t...

Source: Nature A recent study published in the respected scientific journal Nature has been covered by some news media outlets as a prediction of an earthquake that rattled Guanacaste and all of Costa Rica in 2012. The September 5th earthquake will always be remembered as a significant event with regard to earthquake preparedness and anticipation, but it is important to note the difference bet...

Photo of the Bandidos Motorcycle Club members with their Harley Davidson MotorcyclesThe Costa Rica Star previously published an article about a company that produces custom made choppers and hot rods in Costa Rica. It all started with the Bandidos Motorcycle Club from Texas opening a chapter in Costa Rica in 2004. These days, there are the Gitanos, Coyotes and other two-wheeled syndicates whose...

This article is for entertainment purposes only and is not factual, originally posted on ElPeji.com. Presidential frontrunner Johnny Araya is unquestionably Costa Rica’s fattest presidential candidate, according to a Unimer poll released this week. A resounding 98% of pollsters found Araya to be the most overfed of the country’s candidates, while also voting the San Jose mayor as the least i...

Photo of the Marlin del Rey catamaran in Playas del Coco Guanacaste Costa RicaThe high tourist season is just starting to warm up in Costa Rica, and Marlin del Rey Catamaran Sailing tours on the Gold Coast is already feeling the heat. As one of the leading day-cruise providers in Guanacaste, Marlin del Rey operates three majestic sailing ships: The eponymous Marlin del Rey in Tamarindo, the New M...

Alleged greenwashing by Infinito Gold Just days before Christmas, eight Canadian organizations are increasing their pressure on Infinito Gold and urging the mining firm to drop its peculiar billion dollar lawsuit against the Republic of Costa Rica. One public petition has already gathered more than 300,000 signatures, and this letter is now calling on the Canadian government to release certain...

Source: Marina PapagayoIn 2008, just ten days before Christmas, one of Costa Rica's premier marinas inaugurated its operations against the backdrop of one of the worst financial crises in history. It was a day full of guarded hope for the principals of Marina Papagayo, located on the peninsula of the same name in the province of Guanacaste. Five years later, the marina looks back at its many acco...

Some of the best whitewater rafting in Costa Rica is found in the country’s Caribbean mountains. Rainforest-fed rivers thunder down canyons and valleys, eventually ending in flat plains and marshes before reaching the sea. For its sheer beauty and monumental whitewater rapids, the Pacuare River of Costa Rica is one of the world’s top whitewater river rafting adventures. The Pacuare flows down a...

The end of the year in southern Costa Rica turns a little devilish. This is when the indigenous Boruca community celebrates their ancestral “Fiesta de los Diablitos", or the Festival of Little Devils, a four-day annual event happening from Dec. 30 to Jan. 2. The end-of-the-year festival takes place in the village of Boruca on the tribe’s indigenous reservation in the Talamanca Mountains, 25 km ...

Source: Wikimedia Commons As part of the ongoing love affair between Ticos and junk food, the significant expansion of quick-service restaurants (QSR) vastly overcame similar efforts by casual-dining and full-service restaurants franchises in Costa Rica during 2013. It's no longer major brands such as McDonald's and KFC seeking profits in Costa Rica, even smaller players such as Nathan's Famou...

Source: Flickr Commons In Costa Rica, Christmas and the end of the year holidays bring a lot of cheer to residents and visitors. One of the most expected events of the holiday season is called Toros a la Tica, which some people wrongly characterize as bullfights, but in reality they fall somewhere in between the Running of the Bulls in Pamplona and the North American rodeos. Ostensibly, these ...

El Pejibaye Home Page A new online news media site in Costa Rica recently reported on a lawsuit that compensated a truck driver who suffered a road traffic accident after staring at the ample cleavage of an attractive Tica while driving in Heredia. Another news item explained the commercial warehouse shopping district in Golfito is planning a “Blacker Friday” in response to a successful Black ...

Samara Organics is a family business owned by Angelina and Steve Phillips, located in downtown Samara. It has been part of the “Natural Center” complex for two years now and recently moved to a different building on the other side of the complex across from its old location. The new location offers clients a larger and brighter space, which allows them to welcome more people, distribute better ...

Santa Clause reading a letter from a child somewhere in the worldDespite Santa Claus not being a major figure in the folkloric Christmas traditions of Costa Rica, a few children are still taking time to address letters to his magical residence and massive toy workshop in the North Pole. According to a recent news article by Fernanda Matarrita of online news daily CRHoy.com, the main post office i...

A widely held assumption about the use of pesticides in the agricultural industry in Costa Rica puts our country at the top of lists that rank nations by how much they use agrochemical pesticides. At 51.2 kg of pesticide used per hectare of farmland, hospitals in Costa Rica should be filled with patients languishing from poisoning and cancer. Somehow, this is not the case. How come? The two mos...

Emily Shea gets ready for Christmas in Costa Rica An expat mother of two from Maryland became a blogging sensation in 2013 thanks to her honest ad incisive observations of life in Costa Rica. Emily Shea is the author behind the popular Travel Mother blog, which features sharp writing about her travels to Nicaragua, Norway and Costa Rica. Her post “The Dark Side of Paradise: Nine Reasons Why You...

Source: Overseas Radio Network This Week in Costa Rica, a podcast/radio program produced 52 times a year by a Canadian expatriate, is looking forward to bringing more reliable, useful and entertaining information to listeners in 2014. This radio program, which is also available as a podcast, is currently an exclusive feature of the Overseas Radio Network, the online radio station created by ex...

Delicious breakfast with an amazing ocean view of the Gulf of Papagayo, at Hotel ChantelHotel Chantel, an ocean view boutique hotel in Guanacaste that offers the best 360-degree panoramic view of Playas del Coco, is pleased to announce the inauguration of its scenic rooftop restaurant. This new restaurant will be for the exclusive enjoyment of Hotel Chantel's guests; however, the hotel management...

Source: Twitter The loyal fans of Liga Deportiva Alajuelense (LDA) got an early Christmas present this Sunday, December 22nd as they dethroned the reigning champ Club Sport Herediano (CSH), a First Division football team in Costa Rica that is owned by an expat businessman from the United States. The match, which was scoreless during the first 90 minutes and in overtime, was decided in the end ...

Walk down the beaches of Santa Teresa, Costa Rica and you’re likely to see multicolored crushed seashells, sea glass, and interesting rocks and pebbles along the white sand. What you won’t see as readily is trash. The Pacific beaches of Santa Teresa – Mal Pais, Playa Carmen, Playa Santa Teresa and Playa Hermosa – on Costa Rica’s southern Nicoya Peninsula hold Ecological Blue Flag status. Costa...

Just in time to beat the winter blues, Costa Rica’s summer season is beginning, offering affordable winter vacation destinations for northern travelers. Costa Rica is a fun and easy tropical adventure for winter sun-seekers. Miles of beaches on both the Pacific and Caribbean coasts make for great beach vacations. Rainforests, cloud forests and active volcanoes give you thrilling jungle adventur...

A cavern at Barra Honda National Park in GuanacasteWe stood at the top of a dark opening, looking at the curve of a metal ladder that disappeared down into the hole. Two guides tightened our harnesses and secured us to a rope for the descent, 17 meters (55 feet) down into the entrance of Terciopelo, one of the 42 underground caverns that have been discovered so far in Barra Honda National Park. ...

Last year Coconut Harry’s surf shop opened a juice bar; this year they are taking their menu a step further and opening a taco bar. The business is located across from Hotel Café de Paris on the main street of Guiones, where you can sit and watch people passing along the street. The taco bar is Rachelle Sexton and Steve Reyer’s new project. Sexton’s tacos have become famous in Guiones thank...

Receipt for $7 to cross into Nicaragua from Costa RicaThe Costa Rica Star has recently published information about receiving your permanent residency in Costa Rica to avoid border runs, wasting time, and money. I read every article I could get my hands on regarding the new tax required to leave Costa Rica at the Nicaragua pedestrian border. According to news sources, I could pay the fee at any...

Source: palmrealestatecr.com After a tepid 2012, the housing market in Costa Rica got off to an auspicious start in 2013. Construction starts picked up considerably in the first quarter, and healthy demand for commercial properties gave a major boost to the economy during most of the year. Activity in the residential market was lukewarm at the beginning of the year, but by September it had bec...

If you are an angler who loves the spectacular, Costa Rica is the place to be. Between now and the end of April, Costa Rica’s Central Pacific coast is home to one of the world’s most anticipated billfish bites. During this period Los Sueños Marina (Jacó/Herradura) and the newer Pez Vela Marina (Quepos/Manuel Antonio) will as always host some of the calendar year’s most prestigious international...

The lack of financing and manpower leaves the child welfare agency, the Patronato Nacional de la Infancia (PANI), with thousands of open cases, with new ones opened daily. PANI says that on average about 150 children every day are victims of domestic violence. The figures show that the agency received 53,000 complaints so far this year, up from 49,000 for the entire year of 2012. To attend the ...

This article is for entertainment purposes only and is not factual, originally posted on ElPeji.com. Costa Rica’s thriving public peeing community got its wish this week when Culture Minister Manuel Obregon officially declared the activity a national pastime and holiday. “Peeing in public is what makes this city great,” Obregon said of San Jose during the announcement of the new holiday. “Im...

Shark fins are hacked — legally in this case — off a frozen shark carcass in the Costa Rican port of Puntarenas. The practice of cutting off sharks' fins at sea and throwing the rest of the body back is illegal in Costa Rica, but still persists.The Costa Rica Star has previously published extensively on shark finning in Costa Rica. If you want to learn how to smuggle shark fins into Costa Rica...

Photo courtesy of the Ministry of Public Security in Costa RicaA criminal organization formed and led by Costa Ricans, that infiltrated the Banco de Costa Rica (BCR), to finance cocaine from Colombia to Belgium, was the target of the Drug Control Police (PCD in Spanish). In a series of early morning raids Tuesday in Limón and Cahuita in the Caribbean and Moravia and Curribadat, in San José, 12...

This past Saturday December 14 was the 2nd Nosara Artisans Holiday Art Fair at The Gilded Iguana. Thirty artists living in Nosara displayed their ceramics, fabric art, furniture, glass art, jewelry, mosaics, paintings, photos, prints, upcycled art, and wood carving. Several community organizations participated as well. There was face painting for Escuelita Verano and holiday gifts from the new...

Nosara returned to the news with its selection, made by the American television network CNN and the magazine National Geographic, as a world-class tourist destination to visit in 2014. On December 14, CNN published the article “11 places to go in 2014,” where they included Nosara as one of the recommended places to visit during international travelers’ next vacation. According to the publica...

After 20 years of neglect, the Municipality of Nicoya will give maintenance to the streets of the community of Matapalo in Samara. The reason why the streets have not been fixed in so long is because they are not recognized on the map of the canton’s road network. This was expressed by Marcos Jimenez, mayor of the Municipality of Nicoya, and council member Rodolfo Orozco at the meeting held ...

Adventurous athletes will soon have a new option to test their abilities. A climbing wall is currently under construction in Nosara and should be ready by late December. Climb Nosara was designed locally by Steve Way and architect Olivier von der Weid. “Rock climbing is an awesome sport,” Way commented. “It will work great along the surfing and yoga mentality, with its core workout, balance,...

The Costa Rica Star recently reported on 4G internet coming to Guanacaste in 2014. It's no secret that many places in Guanacaste lack access to technology when compared to other parts of the country. However, the gap may be closing, opening new opportunities along with new concerns. A study done by the Ministry of Science, Technology and Telecommunications (MICIT- Ministerio de Ciencia, Tecn...