There was a long greeting line of happy faces waiting for Jose Mendez -- much like reception he no doubt will get when he returns to his native Costa Rica, after he won the 2013 Callaway Junior World Golf Championships. On Friday, Mendez accomplished what no other player from his country had in the 45 previous years and 404 champions crowned in the Callaway Junior World Golf Championships. He w...

On Thursday Costa Rica’s leading newspaper, La Nacion announced the purchase of the Autódromo La Guácima speedway for US$12 million dollars, with the prospect of investing another US$28 million to turn the site into a centre for large-scale events. Located on 28.2 hectares in La Guácima, Alajuela - twenty minutes from the San Jose International Airport and just thirty minutes from downtown San ...

In the last two and a half weeks, Nosara Wildlife Rescue's Brenda Bombard has received or rescued more than 41 howler monkeys that have been electrocuted on many of Nosara's uninsulated power transformers. Many have had to be euthanized and many others have had a limb amputated. Most of the power lines in the Playa Guiones area have been exchanged for the insulated type but now the monkeys and ...

The world's most famous and legendary male erotic dancers will perform for the first time in Costa Rica in a little more than a month, and for many Ticas the next few weeks are going to feel like an excruciatingly long wait. Chippendales is a renowned dance troupe based in Las Vegas that has been touring since the 1980s. The troupe is famous for their male strippers, who not only have buff and chi...

This is Sansita. Source: Zoo Ave Facebook An unidentified farmer in Golfito, a community located in the southern Pacific coast of Costa Rica and near the southern border with Panama, recently saved the life of a female sloth that had been subject to a horrific attack by two men thought to be in their 30s. According to news reports by daily newspaper La Teja, the sloth was hit by rocks and fist...

Source: Flickr Things seem to be going really well in the Central American region for Starbucks. According to a report by Luis Diego Quiros of Revista Summa, the Seattle-based coffee Goliath plans to open three more of its iconic coffeehouses in Central America by the end of 2013: One in Guatemala, one in El Salvador, and one in Costa Rica. In fact, if things go better than expected, there may ...

Article by CentralAmericaData.com with insights from Nacion.com. The Costa Rican environmental authority has only 5 technicians to analyze the viability of infrastructure projects worth billions of dollars to the economy and country of Costa Rica, creating a bottleneck on advancement. Construction of the new container terminal at the Port of Moin can not begin because of lack of approval of ...

Costa Rica Hot Rods specializes in custom fabrication of all aspects of choppers and hot rod cars and trucks. We have more than 25 years of experience in custom show bike builds and as of the last 10 years we have been applying the same attention to detail in building hot rods. We offer everything from custom fabricated metal pieces, hand engraving, custom paint, and complete builds for both c...

The Oceano Jaco Beach condos hotel in beautiful Jaco Beach, Costa Rica offers you the latest in affordable, luxury living. Combining the best of both worlds, the Oceano condotel is set up as a boutique hotel containing fully-furnished 1 and 2 bedroom condos. Residents get all the benefits of hotel living, such as a beauty spa, modern fitness center, pool side café with room service, jewelry sho...

Source: Wikimedia Commons Article 52 of Title V -"Social Rights and Guarantees"- of the Constitution of Costa Rica states that: "Marriage is the essential foundation of the family; it rests upon the equal rights of spouses." As clear and elegant as the above statement is, a civic group in Costa Rica would like to see it change by means of a proposed amendment to our Constitution. The gro...

Last weekend I finally got to visit a place I’ve been wanting to see all year long! My friends and I took a visit to the Duran Sanatorium (El Sanatorio Duran) near Cartago, Costa Rica. The Duran Sanatorium is considered one of the most haunted places in all of Costa Rica, and it was only a half hour drive out of San Jose. It has even been featured on an episode of Ghost Hunters International. ...

Luis is a young Tico who lives in the municipality of Tibas, just north of San Jose. He works as an office clerk and has consumed more than 200 hits (doses) of lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD 25) since 2006. In 2011, journalism major Marqo Adrian of the International University of the Americas interviewed Luis for a four-part investigative piece titled Costa Rica Consumes LSD. He described a n...

Source: COECOCEIBA Creative Commons license. It was like a scene out of the Metal Gear: Peace Walker video game. A non-profit group that works to improve the lives of the Bribri indigenous community in Costa Rica complained to law enforcement about the presence of armed men who arrived in a helicopter that apparently flew in from Panama. These men, who identified themselves as missionaries and ...

Carton Surfboards, Calle Madrigal, Jacó, Costa Rica. During the course of a bikini shoot a few weeks ago here in Jacó, I discovered that the model I was shooting knew Carton, the owner of Carton Surfboards, who I had wanted to meet. I was always seeing his boards out in the water and was curious to both meet the maker and learn about the whole business of surfboard shaping. (Nerd-like tendenci...

Located within Guachipelin Escazu, Pura Vida Dog is a Canadian owned and operated business on a mission to support companion animal culture and owners in Costa Rica. We know how hard it can be to find a reliable, safe, and clean place to keep your canine companion when you leave Costa Rica on business or pleasure. Located in the heart of Guachipelin Escazu very close to Multiplaza, Pura Vida...

The United States topped Group C thanks to a 1-0 win over Costa RIca on Tuesday night, but it wasn't easy. Using a five-man defense, the Ticos frustrated the Americans all night and turned the match into more of a continued scrum than soccer, but an 82nd minute strike by Brek Shea got the U.S. all three points. Very little in the first half could be described as "soccer." Costa Rica forced the ...

If it was 25 years ago, you wouldn’t want to go to San Lucas Island. The small, forested island in the middle of Costa Rica’s Nicoya Gulf was the roughest jail in the country. Being sent to San Lucas Island was a terrible prospect; prisoners’ lives were short and often spent in torture. Thankfully, today, the prisoners are gone and San Lucas Island has been transformed into a national wildlife ...

If Costa Rica’s professional surf scene had an A-team, it would look something like this: Carlos Muñoz, Jair Pérez, Noe Mar McGonagle, Gilbert Brown, Anthony Fillingim, Luis Vindas, Leilani McGonagle, Lisbeth Vindas, and Nataly Bernold. The nine top surfers seem to shuffle places between being national champions and taking the top five slots at any given competition, with the odd interloper upsett...

In the past The Costa Rica Star has published about Rancho Margot and how Eco-literacy programs are evolving within their self sufficient jungle ranch. El Castillo, COSTA RICA – July 2013 – Rancho Margot, innovator and educator in sustainable community development, permaculture and self-sufficiency, is pleased to announce the Social Responsibility Fund. Juan Sostheim, owner and founder of Ranch...

"Opposite the church, 500 meters north of the cedar tree, the blue house with a wooden porch." In many parts of Latin America, these are not just the directions you might be given by a friendly local, but an actual postal address. Costa Rica, Panama, and Nicaragua are among the countries that use landmarks, such as schools, parks, or even fast food restaurants, to locate houses and businesses i...

The U.S. men’s national team wraps up the 2013 CONCACAF Gold Cup group stage against Costa Rica in Hartford on Tuesday, having already clinched their spot in the quarterfinals. Strangely, that means their toughest game yet will also be the least consequential. After steamrolling Belize 6-1 and beating Cuba 4-1, the Americans are assured of passage out of Group C. In Sunday’s quarterfinals in Ba...

Learning about a country’s culture is one of the fun and interesting aspects of traveling. In Costa Rica, an intriguing cultural location is the village of Guaitil in the northern Pacific province of Guanacaste. Located between the small cities of Santa Cruz and Nicoya, Guaitil is famous for its pottery in the pre-Columbian style of the Chorotegas – one of the main indigenous groups of Costa Ri...

When I lived in South Beach back in the States, I would wake up from time to time (or, more often, still be up from the night before) and stumble my way out to the beach to photograph the sunrise. It was always personally rewarding, once the coffee infiltrated my system and I was adequately alert. The fundamental problem I had with shooting the sunrise was that it always happened first thing in ...

NEW YORK – July 15, 2013 – Renowned New York City architectural firm Ismael Leyva Architects has designed the tallest building in San José, Costa Rica, known as the Torres Paseo Colon. The premier luxury residential tower was developed by Grupo Inmobiliario del Parque with Arquitectura y Diseño as the executive architect. Completed in 2013 and completely sold out, this mixed-use tower combines res...

The practice of sharing digital photographs of a sexual nature over electronic communication networks is rising among young people in Costa Rica. This activity is known as "sexting," and it is something that lawmakers and public officials in Costa Rica want to reduce and control through a series of legislative initiatives. A recent report by online news site CRHoy explains that young Ticos are mi...

Source: Wikimedia Commons India recently closed a 163 year-old chapter of her communications history as a telegraphic operator tapped out that country's last telegram sent across a state-run network. As expected, the final Morse code dot/dash sequence on that last telegram spelled out STOP. A postal worker wearing a khaki uniform delivered the missive to its intended recipient and, just like tha...

Former President of Costa Rica Miguel Angel Rodriguez Now that Silvio Berlusconi, the former Prime Minister of Italy who was essentially forced out of office by a bunch of powerful bond traders, has been sentenced by an appellate court in Milan to serve seven years in prison, there has been a lot of speculation as to whether he will actually set foot in a correctional institution. If the Be...

On July 2, the Ministry of Health declared a health alert due to the increase that the country is experiencing in cases of dengue, which have now reached 15,000, four times more than the same period last year. The Minister of Health, Daisy Corrales, stated that with this warning, they will reinforce health services across the country and strengthen the work of eliminating breeding grounds of th...

The Municipality of Nicoya has contracted several companies to install drainage in areas of Nosara and Samara. In Nosara, the company MABE expanded the road and placed 2,500 cubic meters of material, with a total budget of 5.6 million colones ($11,200), according to the Road Management Technical Unit (UTGV). Meanwhile, in Samara Transportes Falquesa worked on the route from Matapalo to Santo...

Despite various difficulties, the residents of La Esperanza Norte of Nicoya and the surrounding areas will finally have a new high school. The construction is underway with a budget more than 266 million colones ($532,000). This educational project initiated in the year 2000 through an agreement between the local development association and the Ministry of Public Education (MEP). It started ...

How can you help to reduce the number of animals hurt or killed on the streets of Costa Rica by automobiles? Join the 'I Brake For Animals' campaign organized by McKee Project Jaco and place a bumper sticker on your car to let people know that you brake for all of the animals of Costa Rica, including sloths, monkeys, cats, and dogs. Accidents happen, and animals get killed on the roads, and not...

Source: MSP Facebook During a recent press conference by the Ministry of Public Safety in Costa Rica, Minister Francisco Zamora announced that Caribbean operations by the National Coast Guard Service and law enforcement have seized 4.6 tons of cocaine so far in 2013.  This is in addition to 1.47 tons of marijuana confiscated off the coast of the province of Limon in Costa Rica. Minister Zam...

Source: Miss Costa Rica Facebook When Fabiana Granados was crowned Miss Costa Rica 2013 over the weekend, hundreds of thousands of Ticos who tuned in to Teletica for the pageant’s broadcast on Teletica clearly heard her exclaim in surprise, and in English: Oh My God! Fabiana Granados’ choice of an English expression to express her elation and surprise at being crowned Queen of all Ticos cau...

Source: Wikimedia Commons Sharknado, a 2013 made-for-television movie that recently saw its debut on the SyFy channel, has managed to become an instant cult film; a feat that was only matched by 2006's Snakes on a Plane, starring Samuel L. Jackson. The two films share something in common: Blunt titles that sum up their ridiculous plots. Sharknado goes a step further with is movie poster, which s...

Popular throughout Central American countries, though not readily available in the USA, “Guaro” is a distilled liquor originating in Costa Rica. Manufactured from sugar cane juice, Guaro has a high alcohol content, clear coloring and a strong but slightly sweet flavor. Most commonly mixed with fruit juice or soda (Fresca being a favorite), few people choose to consume this liquor in straight sh...

SINGAPORE - Minister for Trade and Industry Lim Hng Kiang will be making his first official visit to Colombia and Costa Rica from Jul 16 to 19 to boost economic engagement and ties between the nations. In Colombia, Mr Lim will sign the Colombia-Singapore Investment Guarantee Agreement (IGA) with the Minister of Trade, Industry and Tourism of Colombia, H.E. Sergio Díaz-Granados Guida. The IGA...

Now, while you can watch the colors of the sunset in Playa Guiones, you can enjoy the rhythms of marimba, boleros, tropical cumbias and folk music, thanks to the arrival of a trio of Nicaraguan musicians to Nosara, Pelada and Guiones. The group Los Hermanos Solis, originally from Leon, Nicargua, emerged in the 90s and have traveled together to Honduras, El Salvador and now Costa Rica “looking f...

The United States and Costa Rica both qualified for the quarter-finals of the CONCACAF Gold Cup on Saturday with victories in their Group C matches. In-form striker Chris Wondolowski scored twice to steer the Americans to a comfortable 4-1 win over Cuba while an own goal gifted Costa Rica a 1-0 victory over Belize. Wondolowski continued his red-hot form for the American national team with tw...

23-year old Fabianna Granados of Guanacaste beat 9 other ladies to be proclaimed Miss Costa Rica 2013 in a glittering finals held in Marco Picado auditorium in San Jose. She won the right to represent her country to the Miss Universe 2013 pageant in Moscow, Russia on November 9th. Her runners-up are Meribeth Duran (1st) and Alba Zuniga (2nd). Fabianna Granados who stands 1.73 meters is a stu...

In this article taken from the Facebook page of Captain Paul Watson, he tells a story about his issues with the Costa Rican Government and blasts them for not doing more for the murder of environmentalist Jairo Mora Sandoval. At the request of the Japanese government, the Costa Rican government seemingly spared no expense in tracking me down and having me detained in Germany in May of 2012. ...