The "green season" months of September and October are often equated with limited opportunities for work, and at times transportation hardships due to flooding, which can be a major financial burden on residents here in Guanacaste Costa Rica. With this added stress, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed. The negative health effects, both physical and emotional, that result from stress around money have...

As previously published in The Costa Rica Star last month, Hard Rock Cafe will be opening a location in Guanacaste Costa Rica, either Playas del Coco or Tamarindo. Which follows on the coat tails of a planned multi-million dollar marina project in the area. According to Gustavo Araya, a partner of the Hard Rock Cafe franchise in Costa Rica, the possibility of opening one of the firm’s restauran...

Most Costa Ricans consider themselves good neighbors, while keeping a distance as a policy, are the results of a poll by Unimer for La Nacion. In a survey of 1,200 people across the country interviewed between June 4 and 13 of this year, 65% of the respondents said to not have a bad relationship with their neighbors. The warmth between neighbors is more prominent among those over 50 years of...

Two young men from Escazú were turned down by the family court in San José on their quest to have their gay marriage recognized legally. They have lived together for seven years. The court decided that the definition of marriage is the joining together of a man and a woman. The pair were disappointed because they were counting on the judges taking into consideration that the Young Persons’ Law ...

Costa Rica's telecoms regulator Sutel has approved a 26 percent increase of the price cap for fixed-to-fixed line voice calls. Fixed-line operators in Costa Rica will now be able to charge 7.6 colones per minute for fixed to fixed calls. Additionally, Sutel has decreased the price cap for fixed-to-mobile calls, from 30 colones per minute to 21.9 colones per minute. Sutel says the price ...

Source: Wikimedia Commons In the wake of powerful American brands Hard Rock Cafe and Starbucks increasing their presence in Costa Rica, the iconic Florida restaurant chain Hooters is ready to begin development of its latest franchise in the Greater San Jose Metropolitan Area (Spanish acronym: GAM). The new location, which is scheduled to open in 2014, will the be the sixth Hooters restaurant i...

Source: Remembering Justin It has been more than two years since Justin Johnston was shot and killed in Costa Rica. His killer, a security guard who thought the teenager from Kansas was breaking into a hotel, is facing 15 years in prison. The retrial was ordered by the Appeals Court of San Ramon, province of Alajuela, under the doctrine of iuris tantum -rebuttable presumption. As explained ...

The Costa Rica Star has previously reported on outbreaks of Dengue Fever and H1N1 throughout Costa Rica. Researchers at the University of Kansas and their counterparts at the University of Costa Rica have launched an educational campaign aimed at reducing the spread of dengue fever, a mosquito-borne infection affecting more than 50 million people annually. “We’re working with our partner...

Source: Wikimedia Commons Employees and shoppers at Cooperativa Dethan, a fish and seafood retail shop in Cieneguita, in the Caribbean province of Limon, lived a very scary moment on Friday, September 22nd. A routine retail transaction was suddenly interrupted when a hand grenade landed on the floor of the shop and rolled to a stop, sending shoppers and employees screaming and running to find ...

Source: US Navy About a month ago, the Ministry of Public Safety in Costa Rica issued a press release that indicated no more cocaine would be sent to Miami, at least for the time being. That statement, however, did not apparently extend to other major cities in the State of Florida, such as Jacksonville. Nearly a ton of cocaine seized by the United States Navy and Coast Guard from a fishing...

Drake Bay. Source: Flickr CC The treacherous underwater currents of Drake Bay claimed the life of a Canadian man who was reportedly part of a film crew working for the international cable network NatGeo in Costa Rica. The photographer has been identified as Peter Brumer. According to daily tabloid newspaper Diario Extra, the late photographer disappeared around 4:00 p.m. on Friday. The unde...

Source: DeviantArt CC Pablo Vargas is a member of the Scumm Bar community in Costa Rica, which is a corner of the Web for serious fans of video games. Mr. Vargas is also a fine writer and contributor to the influential 89 Decibeles musical and cultural online community. What follows is a summary of his review of Grand Theft Auto V (GTA V), a long-awaited and controversial video game that has m...

Shark fin market, Taiwan. Source: Wikimedia Commons Five fishing vessels (FVs) that were once used by alleged shark fin poachers in Costa Rica continue to receive fuel subsidies from the National Fisheries and Aquaculture Institute (Spanish acronym: INCOPESCA), a government agency under the purview of the Ministry of the Environment. Such was the report compiled by Alvaro Sanchez of online ...

Source: Zoo Ave Facebook UPDATE: This article is pending confirmation from Zoo Ave biologists on the snake, which may be a lora venenosa, a venomous (and pretty) pit viper endemic to Costa Rica and Panama. The Bothriechis lateralis is not as dangerous as the Bothrops asper; still, Don Johnny's story is commendable. An amazing display of utmost respect for wildlife recently took place in Cos...

More English-language writers are choosing Costa Rica as the background for their fictional literary works. A recent novel by Alexander Banyan, a Florida-based author who has also sailed around the Caribbean, is about a man who saves a Costa Rican woman from a ship's captain, a privateer working in human trafficking. He falls in love and returns to Costa Rica with her. They steal money from the pr...

Saprissa fans. Source: Facebook The most heated football rivalry in Costa Rica produced eight goals and caused a fan to suffer a heart attack at the stadium. Known as El Clasico, the most recent iteration of the match between Deportivo Saprissa and Liga Deportiva Alajuelense was the most exciting in history. The match ended with a spectacular tie of 4 – 4 and reports of a man struck by a heart...

British Embassy to host a talk on Chevening Scholarships on Monday 30 September at the University of Costa Rica. The British Embassy announces that applications for 2014/15 Chevening Scholarships, the prestigious global scholarship programme of the UK government, are being accepted until November 8, 2013. The Chevening scholarship programme operates in 118 countries worldwide, and this year ...

Finally, a topic that I know something about. I know many of you wonder what to drink on your vacation trip to Costa Rica, and this article is written for you, not locals who call Costa Rica home. Here is my guide to booze in Costa Rica with your main choices in terms of Costa Rican national brands, as well as a few of my favorite Latin American imported brands. Beer Imperial – hands down th...

Four youths united by a passion for surf are making waves online with creative videos and images that promote the Costa Rican surf culture as well as creating awareness of environmental initiatives like the Costas Verdes reforestation program in Playa Hermosa and in Playa Guiones. The co-founders of Gallo Pinto TV are “Tití” Enrique Uribe Herrera, Daniel Berrocal Ferris, Kevin Woodbridge an...

The Costa Rica Star previously reported on a unique worm powered bio-digester within a home in Costa Rica. Letting nature guide them and adapting to coexisting with it, is the motto of a group of young men who have implemented a system of permaculture and biodynamics in North Esperanza of Nicoya. Brothers Esteban and Felipe Viquez along with Joel Vega, in their early 20s, came from Puntaren...

Today, Friday, a dozen U.S. Universities will make academic presentations at the Crowne Plaza (Coribici) Hotel, in La Sabana, as a part of the International Student Network. Undergraduate presentations will be made from 6pm to 8pm and postgraduate from 7pm to 9pm. Visitors to the fair will find information regarding student fees, admission processes, travel documents needed and possible scholar...

The Costa Rica Star recently reported on the burgeoning unemployment industry in Costa Rica. The latest survey by the Instituto de Estadísticas y Censos (INEC) – statistics and census – shows that the unemployment rate in Costa Rica is in excess of 10%. The specific data for the second quarter of 2013 states that 10.4% of workers in Costa Rica are unemployed. According to the data, 56 out...

The government’s plan to alleviate the chaotic traffic congestion of San José, partly from the temporary closure of the Circunvalación and partly for the lack of forward thinking and growth of Costa Rica’s vehicular fleet, it is proposing promoting car pooling and the start of the intersectoral bus service. On Thursday, all – well almost all – government employees began the day one hour earlier...

The Costa Rican Tourism Institute (ICT), together with tourism businesses in Costa Rica, have been participating at the International Tourism Fair of Latin America (FIT) to be held in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Then, later this week, ICT officials will attend the International Travel Fair Mark Latin America 2013 to be held in Quito, Ecuador. “The economic boom they are experiencing in cert...

An angry driver shot another in the head Thursday afternoon after a slight collision in Calle Blancos, near the old Durman Esquivel plant. The murdered man was the personal bodyguard of the Ministro de la Presidencia communications minister, Carlos Roverssi. Alonso Romero, 45, was on his way to the Benavides home to “run an errand” and then return to Casa Presidencial to pick up his boss. ...

The Costa Rica Star previously reported in 2011 on the Haciendas of the Rich and Famous, which included Mel Gibson's house for sale. If you have $29.75 million laying around and want to own 500 acres of pristine, private forest in Costa Rica then Mel Gibson wants to hear from you. The controversial actor has listed his ‘Playa Barrigona’ estate that is located on the Nicoya Pennisula. The e...

A plane on its way to Miami International Airport from Costa Rica Thursday had to make an emergency landing after the pilot reported smoke on board. American Airlines flight 1204, which departed Costa Rica around 11 a.m., was diverted from it’s route to MIA, landing safely at the Gustavo Rojas Pinilla International Airport in San Andreas, Columbia, according to the Federal Aviation Administrati...

Alajuela, Costa Rica (Sept. 20, 2013) Herediano kept its hopes of reaching the CONCACAF Champions League quarterfinals alive by registering a 4-2 victory over Valencia in a Group 3 encounter on Wednesday at the Estadio Alejandro Morera Soto Scotiabank. The Costa Rican club improved to 2-0-1, tying idle Cruz Azul (2-0-0, 6 points), although the Mexican side has a game in hand. Valencia (0-0-3...

This is a guest article from MetalSucks.net. That Sight of Emptiness are from Costa Rica is certainly an interesting footnote — they’ve managed to garner quite a bit of worldwide attention despite geographic isolation from the international metal scene — but their music stands quite well on its own regardless. We’ve had our eye on these guys since 2010, and it’s great to see them not just s...

Source: Zoo Ave Facebook Officials from the Zoo Ave Wildlife Rescue Center of Costa Rica recently communicated the sad passing of Simona, a female adult sloth that suffered five severe electrical discharges that charred most of her bristly coat and forced veterinarians to amputate most of her limbs. Simona was about to be fitted with a special prosthesis; alas, she could not withstand her exte...

Source: Wikimedia Commons An amazing video posted by online news daily CRHoy.com shows a car thief walk up to a Nissan D21 pick-up (or hard-body) truck, discreetly manipulate the lock on the driver's side door to gain entry, jump behind the wheel, hotwire the vehicle, and speed off in just 20 seconds. The incident occurred in the neighborhood of San Juan de Tibas, in the northern suburbs of...

This article is a press release from the US Embassy in Costa Rica, if you would like The Costa Rica Star to publish your announcements, please contact us. The Embassy of the United States in Costa Rica welcomes last night’s strong statement of support from the Government of Costa Rica regarding the Framework Agreement for the Elimination of Syria’s Chemical Weapons. Costa Rica, recognized ...

Costa Rica’s legislators have approved, in first vote, a law that would ensure the rights of domestic service employees in the country. The bill was a result of an agreement between the International Labour Organization (ILO) and the Government of Costa Rica. Among the regulations of the new law are: -Protection against all forms of abuse, harassment and violence -A weekly rest period of...

More than 80 percent of Central Americans feel that prices of basic goods are constantly rising and 73 percent say that they have a limited budget for making purchases, according to a market study by Consumer Watch 2013 released Tuesday. The survey carried out by the Kantar WorldPanel company last February and March among 3,000 homes in the six countries on the isthmus found that the issues of ...

Crocodilians in Costa Rica are being threatened by bananas farmed in the Central American country. Caiman, one of the most common species of crocodilian in Central America, have been found to have high levels of pesticide in their blood, which causes health problems in the predator. The reason for these high levels is the increased demand for bananas across the globe. Over $12bn is spent ...

200 environment volunteers of the Costasverdes organization have reforested 20 hectares of the terrestrial maritime zone in Playa Hermosa near Jaco on the Pacific coast of Costa Rica. This project is an initiative that started five years ago and involves educational centers, communities, local authorities and businesses, all of which participate in reforesting this beach as part of the Playa He...

Students at the National Police Academy in Costa Rica got an unexpected practical lesson on September 18th thanks to the hard work of the Directorate of Police Intelligence (Spanish acronym: DIPOL) and members of the Operational Support Group (GAO). A band of thieves who specialized in armed robbery of pulperias (small-town convenience stores) and residential properties were surprised and arrested...

Over the past couple of decades, Costa Rica has seen an explosion in the number of its citizens who have taken up the sport of surfing. Blessed with coastlines on two bodies of water that feature some of the best waves in the world, the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean, it's no surprise that so many have taken to dancing on the sea. It's not just the boys either. Much like the rest of the world...

September is a special month for children in Costa Rica, and the celebrations continue on Thursday 26th and Friday 27th as the National Symphonic Orchestra, directed by special guest conductor Emannuel Olivieri, will perform classical arrangements of music from video games. The concerts will start at 10:00 a.m. in the Melico Salazar Theater in downtown San Jose. Classical music purists and snob...

A man and his robot: Professor Geovanny Martinez Castillo. Source: UCR In the near future, robots exploring other planets could find their way around thanks to the work of scientists from Costa Rica. According to a press release by the University of Costa Rica (UCR), researchers at the Image Processing and Computer Vision Research Laboratory (IPCV-LAB) recently got their hands on a new toy tha...