After eight days of striking and after several long meetings between representatives of the CCSS labor union and the Government, an agreement was reached to put an end to the strike that caused the cancellation of 82,872 scheduled appointments and more than 1,400 surgeries and 18,000 procedures . The Executive Director of CCSS, Roman Macaya, celebrated the agreement that put an end to the strik...

The Costa Rican Tourism Board (ICT) confirmed that during the first six months of this year, international arrivals by air grew to 1,335,687, which represents an increase of 4.5% over the same period in 2018, with 57,565 additional arrivals. If all ports of entry to the country are considered (air, sea, land and river), international arrivals grew to 1,725,963 in the first six months of the yea...

The famous M1, Jose Efrain Lopez Mendoza, Boss Man of the most powerful drug cartel in Costa Rica, Movimiento Revolucionario de Crimen Organizado (MORECO), was captured on Tuesday, August 13, in Escazu. Lopez is on the Most Wanted Lists of both the FBI and DEA, wanted for sending massive shipments of drugs from Costa Rica to the United States. He was wanted by Interpol for his association with the...

To run or not to run that is the question: Border Running is the practice of traveling to either the Panama or Nicaragua border for the sole purpose of obtaining a new 90 visa stamp on one's passport as an economical alternative to returning to one's home country for the same reason. In and out and back to Costa Rica within 60 – 90 minutes. (Those who specifically go to shop for cheap goods, mu...

In an operation in conjunction with the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), Costa Rican Coast Guard Service and Drug Control Police seized 1,002 kilograms of cocaine with a value of over $35,000,000 USD. The vessel, under the name "Princeso Claudio", was intercepted 53 nautical miles off the coast of Puntarenas, 4 men were arrested with last names López Avalos ,45 years of age who was the ca...

As of noon Friday, the Social Security Service (CCSS) had been forced to suspend 57,536 patient appointments after almost a week of strike which affected over 39% of public health appointments. Close to 20% of the employees are taking part of the strike, which mainly include nurses, support personnel, and personnel in the area of health technologies; also 578 general medical doctors and 408 spe...

Costa Rican athlete Andrea Vargas made her dream come true and made the country proud by winning the gold medal in the 100-meter hurdle competition at the Pan-American Games that are taking place in Lima, Perú. The 21-year-old, who has a 4 year-old daughter, and is a native of the city of Puriscal, trains daily under the direction of her mother. Vargas stopped the clock at 12.82, runner up w...

PriceSmart has announced its plans to expand its operation in Costa Rica by adding a new warehouse club in Liberia, Guanacaste. The shopping club has acquired a 227,000 square feet of land in Liberia, where it plans to build a small-club format that would open doors in the summer of 2020. This would be PriceSmart's 46th warehouse club in the world and the eight in Costa Rica. The Company ...

In recent months there have been several revelations of religious figures sexually abusing minors and members of their congregations, for instance the recent head of the Luz del Mundo Church, Naason Joaquin Garcia, currently being held without bond in Los Angeles. But now, rather than someone preying upon uneducated country folk and children, the “Pastor of the Rich” has been arrested on five coun...

The Costa Rican Tourism Board (ICT) has implemented a series of twenty actions to strengthen tourist safety in the country. The measures adopted included inter-institutional partnerships with the Public Safety Ministry, the Costa Rican Red Cross and the University of Costa Rica (UCR), since ICT understands that risk management is a task that it is facing alongside other social, academic and pol...

Costa Rican Drug Control Police (PCD) managed to detect a shipment of drugs consisting of 240 kilograms of cocaine which were inside a container transporting honey in barrels. The container was located in the port of Moín, Limón; police officers inspected a ship aboard which they found the container where they found seven suspicious backpacks inside of which they found 240 packets with an appr...

This past spring, there was a lot of anxiety swirling about the ex-pat community in Costa Rica over vaccines in relation to residency in Costa Rica. It all started with an article in a major Spanish national news outlet and echoed into other minor publications and blogs. The Costa Rica Ministry of Health (Ministerio de Salud) and Ministry of Immigration (General de Migración y Extranjería – DGMIE)...

Whale watching is one of the most attractive activities for national and foreign tourists in Costa Rica, the temperature of the water as well as the abundance of food sources offer humpback whales the perfect conditions. Tourists come every year to Quepos and Uvita to witness this incredible spectacle, where not just humpback whales but also pilot whales, bryde whales, fake killer whales, in ad...

Director of the Professional Migration Police, Stephen Madden, announced on July 31st the capture and detention of “Mama Africa”, an accused notorious human trafficker, allegedly responsible for smuggling 249 people this year alone through Costa Rica, en route to the USA. She was in possession of 14 passports belonging to citizens of Cameroon, Ghana and other African nations. She was also holding ...

Image: Archive/Illustration purposes only. Thanks to international cooperation of US, Colombian, Panamanian, Peruvian and Costa Rican authorities, Costa Rican police bodies were able to seize 640 kilograms of cocaine at the end of July. “We are very pleased, this is an important success, the result of the coordination of national authorities with international police”, commented Eduardo Trej...

Guanacaste and San José were included in the list of the best Latin American cities to hold events in the meeting and congress tourism market, according to the global network of suppliers in this sector, called Cvent. The ranking measures locations with the best standing and characteristics for the MICE sector (Meetings, Incentives, Congresses and Events). In the Cvent rankings, published this ...

The year 2017 saw the second highest global tree cover loss recorded in the history of this planet, according to the World Economic Forum. Researchers at the University of Maryland (USA) found an area of tree loss equal to the size of Bangladesh. That equates to losing 40 soccer fields covered in trees every minute for a year. But guess what, Costa Rica took the fight in the other direction, decla...

Canadian singer and songwriter Bryan Adams will offer a concert in Costa Rica next October 8th at the Coca Cola Amphitheater at Parque Viva. Promoting company Move Concerts is in charge of bringing this concert. The company confirmed tickets will go on sale August 12th at 10 a.m. through the website www.boleteria.cr This is part of the tour Shine A Light, which includes presentations in Cana...

For the second consecutive year, the Costa Rican Investment Promotion Agency (CINDE), will launch its virtual job fair www.joblink.cr. More than 30 multinational leading companies combining services and manufacturing sectors, will offer 2,500 job positions for this second semester. The main requirement is to be bilingual. JobLink’s second edition will be available 24/7 from Monday July 29th un...

Venezuelan-American tourist Carla Stefaniak disappeared from the Escazu Airbnb where she was staying on her last night in Costa Rica – November 28, 2018. It was also her last night alive. On December 3rd, a gardener on the property found her partially-buried body 100 meters from her guest room. She had been bludgeoned and stabbed repeatedly in her neck and chest area; her neck had been broken. ...

On June 22, the SSCA HF Radio Service confirmed having received an SOS from a ship’s Personal Locator Beacon (PLB1). Then there was silence. The Radio Service confirmed that the message came from the TRANAVIS, a trimaran sailing between St. Martin, French Antilles, to Barranquilla, Colombia. Aboard the TRANAVIS was Rocco Acocella Roverndom, a well known Eco-Friendly Tour Guide, on his way to Ecuad...

Maruyama Coffee Co. purchased Costa Rican Coffee of Group Los Grandes de Copey at a price of $65.30 per pound, paying a total $28,073 for the 429.91 pounds of coffee that comes from the region of Santa María de Dota. The negotiation took place during the twelfth edition of the electronic auction Cup of Excellence 2019, recognized as one of the main coffees selling programs worldwide. Not only d...

Cruise ship visitors arriving in Limón will soon enjoy a new experience when they debark at the Hernán Garrón Salazar port terminal, which welcomes the 193,000 cruise ship passengers who come to the Costa Rican Caribbean each year. “We want to take their breath away right from the first glance, so that they will go on to fall in love with the flavor, natural surroundings, music, culture and bea...

The Ministry of Health in Costa Rica issued an alert this week regarding the selling of tainted alcohol, after 19 people, most of them homeless, passed away after an apparent intoxication, the deaths took place between the months of June and July. The alcohol they drank apparently contained methanol. 14 of the victims were men and 5 women, between the ages of 32 and 72. The Ministry of Health c...

The 2019 Kolbi National Surf Circuit came to an end on Sunday at Playa Hermosa, Jacó, and it was veteran Noe Mar McGonagle who took the first place for the male event while Rubiana Brownwell was crowned in the female competition. Even though Jair Pérez had already taken the first place in the general table. McGonagle took the win in the final date of the circuit. Noe Mar was able to finally ge...

Not only was Costa Rica selected as Mexico’s and Central America’s Leading travel Destination 2019 by the World Travel Awards but it also took 10 additional awards. The 2019 Latin America World Travel Awards ceremony was held in Bolivia. The Costa Rican Tourism Board (ICT) received an award in the category of Leading Tourist Board for Mexico and Central America .Costa Rica’s Hotel Nantipa p...

Costa Rica is home to seven of the best resorts in the world, distributed in the Pacific coast and in La Fortuna de San Carlos, according to Forbes magazine: Forbes Travel Guide - 2019 Star Award Winners These are the seven resorts listed by Forbes as being among the world’s best: Four Seasons Costa Rica at Península Papagayo: The spa is a destination in itself, with a volcanic purification ...

The U.S. Navy hospital ship USNS Comfort will arrive to Puntarenas, Costa Rica this Sunday, July 21 to offer medical attention between Tuesday, July 3 and Saturday, July 27. This hospital ship is on a five-month deployment to Central and South America as well as the Caribbean in support of humanitarian and partner-building efforts as part of the U.S. Southern Command´s Enduring Promise Initiati...

In an operation by land, sea and air that began last Wednesday and concluded this Friday morning Costa Rican authorities seized a total 1.4 tons of marijuana and 44 kilograms of cocaine. Members of the Coast Guard Service received information of international authorities of a suspicious boat and they immediately set out to intercept them. As soon as the suspicious vessel spotted the patrol boat...

Costa Rica won the World Travel Award as Mexico & Central America's Leading travel Destination 2019, the award was presented in a ceremony held in the city of La Paz, Bolivia. The country’s biodiversity and rich nature positioned it as the best destination in the region, the country was picked by a jury of professionals of the tourism sector and representatives of specialized media. The ...

President Carlos Alvarado, alongside the Minister for Environment and Energy, Carlos Manuel Rodríguez and the Minister of Health, Daniel Salas, signed into law the reform of the Law for the Integral Management of Waste. This Law enacts the prohibition of the import into national territory, the commercialization and the delivery of polyethylene containers, better known as styrofoam, in any commerci...

Costa Rican World Champion, Hanna Gabriels, will defend her WBA Super Welterweight Championship on Wednesday, July 17 against Argentinian Abril Vidal at the National Stadium in San Jose, Costa Rica. This is part of a three-part Broadway Boxing summer series promoted by DiBella Entertainment and tht will be streamed live on UFC Fight Pass, the world’s leading digital subscription service for com...

University of Costa Rica’s Bernal Rodriguez Herrera, has won the prestigious Aldo Leopold award for his work in the field of conservation of bats and their habitats – the first time a Costa Rican has won this honor in any scientific pursuit. Rodriguez is the Founder and Co-ordinator of the Latin American Bat Conservation Network, and has done much of his vital research at the Biological Reserve Tr...

Four dentistry students of the University of Costa Rica came up with a solution to reduce plastic waste caused by dental saliva ejectors, which are currently discarded after just one use. The students, Nicole Miranda, Maria Francinie Guevara, Yulieth Segura and Catalina Serra created a metallic ejector of surgical level that can be cleaned in the autoclave and used multiple times, eliminating ...

Costa Rican scientists discovered a new species of butterfly native of Guanacaste, the findings were presented during the first meeting of the United Nations Environment Assembly Bureau that took place in Norway. Philtronoma Cbdora, its scientific name, has back wings of a shiny pink color, which it hides under its grey front wings the moment it lands over a leaf or tree. “This new species ...

Here’s a relatively new business in Costa Rica, and a very lucrative one: Loan Sharking.(Loan Sharks) You don’t need an office, storefront, staff, personal assistant or merchandise. It has the added cachet of being an industry imported mostly via foreign criminal groups, so you don’t have to reinvent the wheel, just follow their tried and true methods. And loan sharking in Costa Rica is HOT now. C...

If you want to discover San José in a fun and different way try the Art City Tour this Wednesday, July 10, the best of all, it is entirely FREE. This edition of the Art City Tour, “Vacation in Chepe” (Chepe being the way Costa Ricans’ refer to the capital city of San Jose) will take participants to enjoy the cultural offer of San José and its surrounding areas. It will connect activities that t...

A Costa Rican man who also has a Canadian passport was detained this week as suspect of sending six tons of cocaine to Spain back in October 2018 in a banana shipment which was intercepted in Malaga, Andalucía in the South of Spain. The man, of last name Thompson was arrested when the Drug Control Police (PCD) raided his house in San Antonio de Coronado, San José. “The investigation allowed us...

Costa Rica’s Cocos Island National Park was nominated as candidate to the “Global Refuge Award” (GLORES), an initiative promoted by the Marine Conservation Institute. The Global Ocean Refuge System aims to safeguard marine biodiversity by assembling a strategic network of effective marine protected areas (MPA’s) that includes replicate representation of all marine habitats in each bio-geographi...

Starting November, JetBlue will offer a new route to connecting New York, USA to San José, Costa Rica , the announcement was made by the Costa Rican Tourism Board and Aeris, company in charge of the administration of the Juan Santamaría Airport. The direct flight #1793 will leave from John F. Kennedy Aiport in New York on Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays at 6:25 p.m. and will arrive in San José a...