Manuel Alvarez, a 74 year-old man native from Asturias, Spain was reported missing in Costa Rica by his family, who explained the man traveled to this country on January 10 after he had received a call alerting him of a possible fraud to sell properties he owned here. Alvarez, who has resided in San Francisco, California for many years, owns some properties in Costa Rica and visited the country...

Out alone at sea in his small Hobie kayak Lance Clinton is King of Jaco Bay. Nobody can touch what this former Seattle stockbroker does in Costa Rica’s largest beach town. He’s a one-man wrecking crew armed with a fishing pole and a GoPro camera. Needless to say he loves the fight. “One of my favorite aspects of catching fish from a kayak is the adrenaline rush. Here I am in this tiny little pl...

The biggest hydroelectric plant in Costa Rica and in fact all Central America, Reventazon, a mega-project that was inaugurated just close to a year and a half ago will remain shut down for at least six months to fix a “strong water leak” present in the rock massif of the dam’s spillway. The Costa Rica Electricity Institute (ICE), company in charge of this project, confirmed the existence of a c...

The wonders of Corcovado National Park have been recognized by several travel magazines and environmental publications in the past, among them Discovery Corp. which considered it as one of the best National Parks in the world, and National Geographic which described it as “the most biologically intense area in the world when it comes to biodiversity”; today, the beauty of this park located in Cost...

This is the first time in history that a Costa Rican government complies with what is established in the Ley Orgánica del Ambiente of 1995 (Organic Law of the Environment) by presenting the State of the Environment Report, a document that provides a common frame of information to address environmental topics by sectors and in a comprehensive way, with the purpose of providing a diagnosis of the st...

The Pavas Criminal Court extended Ziad Akl's  preventive imprisonment for another three months. Ziad is the brother of Elias Akl, who was assassinated back in March 2017 outside a private school in Guachipelin, Escazu.  Ziad was arrested shortly after his brother’s death when he was trying to flee the country through the Juan Santamaria Airport, and was detained on separate charges of attempted mu...

Tourism is the main economic activity for Costa Rica, we are in the middle of the high season and having a lot of traffic in the airports is a good thing, or at least one would think that, except that for the past few months many tourists have entered or left the country with the bad experience of having to wait in line for a very long time at the Juan Santamaria Airport. The posts on different...

Most expats and Ticos alike remember the infamous death of multi-millionaire hedge fund manager John Felix Bender in Florida de Baru in 2010, and the subsequent three trials of Bender's wife, Ann Patton Bender, for Intentional Homicide. The Bender case put the Southern Zone of Costa Rica in the international news spotlight, and its infamy was spread far and wide by extensive television coverage on...

Despite the efforts made by the Ministry of Public Security in Costa Rica the request for the immediate deportation of Lebanese Ziad Akl after he was released from preventive imprisonment last week by the Pavas Criminal Court was denied. The same court who set him free is preventing this from happening by accepting a request of temporary permanence in the country presented by Akl’s defense attorne...

Costa Rican police detained two agents of the Judicial Investigative Police (OIJ) as suspects of attempting to sell information on an ongoing investigation to a third party for an amount of U.S. $15,000.00. According to Walter Espinoza, director of OIJ, the suspects were part of the Police Unit of Recollection of the Office of Plans and Operations (OPO) of the OIJ and had more than 10 years of ...

A colony of bats from the species Furipterus horrens set a nest under the roof of one of the rooms at the Selva Verde Lodge in Chilamate de Sarapiquí, Heredia. This species of bat had not been seen in Costa Rica for more than 45 years and in fact there are not many left worldwide. One of the bungalow type rooms at this hotel was the place picked by  close to 80 bats who set their nest; the h...

Every year thousands of tourists visit the Marino Ballena National Park, located in the South Pacific of Costa Rica and famous for the common sightings, specially certain times during the year, of whales and dolphins; however, this natural wealth is being threatened by climate change. “Climate change is already here. It is not just a change of temperature, it goes way beyond that”, said to EF...

The 5th edition of the Sustainable Cities International Conference will take place at the Radisson Hotel in San Jose, Costa Rica, May 17 and 18, 2018. The objective of this congress is to promote the design, planning and construction of sustainable buildings. Sustainable lifestyles, resource efficiency, society, finance, mobility, public space, waste, bio economy, inclusive cities and many ...

Ziad Akl brother of Elias Akl, the Lebanese man who was killed outside a private school in Guachipelin, Escazu, back in March 2017, and who had been in preventive custody on separate charges of attempted murder, extortion and kidnap after being arrested trying to flee the country at the Juan Santamaria International Airport, just hours after his brother had been killed, was released Friday. Ak...

The Ministry of Public Works and Transportations (MOPT) will begin this Monday, February 19 with the establishment of security devices in 91 train intersections located in the areas of Pavas -San José- Curridabat, Heredia-San José and San José-Cartago. Engineer German Valverde, Minister of Public Works, explained that they expect these devices will force drivers to be more respectful of the tra...

Sadly, this is not the first time this happens, the Costa Rican Police (Fuerza Publica) and the Municipal Police found this Friday a hydroponic marijuana lab with 317 plants in a luxury house in Guachipelin, Escazu. The Police and Fire Department were alerted of an explosion that occurred in a house in the residential Pinares del Rio, when the authorities arrived they realized the explosion occ...

The construction of the project Discovery Costa Rica was set to begin this 2018 and was supposed to open its first stage by 2020, according to the announcement made back in April 2017; however, to date, there are many doubts regarding whether or not Discovery Costa Rica will actually become a reality. Julio Viales, Mayor of Liberia, affirmed in an interview with El Financiero, that currently th...

Andrea Miralles is only 13 years old, but she is already forced to face a big and difficult battle, she was diagnosed with an aggressive type of cancer that is allocated in her left thighbone (femur), now she fights to save her leg and her life. The young Costa Rican is the youngest of three sisters and is passionate about dancing, reading and singing. It was actually after participating in a...

Costa Rica just had presidential elections this past February 4, but none of the candidates got the required minimum of votes (40%) to be able to win the elections, now, Costa Ricans are forced to vote again in a “second round” for one of the two candidates that got the most votes, Fabricio Alvarado (PRN) or Carlos Alvarado (PAC), this time around whoever gets the most votes, even if the differen...

The remains of the ship that surfaced last weekend in Playa Grande, Punta Uva, Limon,  after being examined by experts are estimated to belong to a vessel built between the XVII and XVIII centuries. The remains will be returned to the bottom of the ocean because the country does not have the necessary conditions to maintain them in good condition out of the water. “Because of its size, giving i...

Photo Credit: +QN Facebook It is not uncommon that foreigners sometimes appreciate and care more about a country than its own citizens. That seems to be the case of Canadian Jimmy Vietz, a 45-year-old man that has been visiting Costa Rica for the last fifteen years, and for the past three he spends his vacation time in the county of Atenas in Alajuela, and the neighbors are familiar with h...

The United States Coast Guard Service intercepted this Wednesday around 200 miles from Punta Burica in the South Pacific of Costa Rica, a vessel carrying a load of 1,256 kilograms of cocaine. The boat is Costa Rican and the five crew members, all natives of the area were arrested and taken into custody to Golfito. According to Gustavo Mata, Minister of Security, this is the largest load of...

Production company Primo Entertainment has informed through a press release of the cancellation of the debut show of Cirque du Soleil in Costa Rica “Séptimo Día: No Descansaré” (Seventh Day – I won’t rest) that was scheduled for today, Wednesday, February 14, 2018. The strong winds affecting in the majority of the Costa Rican territory are the cause of the cancellation of the show that was supp...

Bananas, pineapple exports and medical devices, all of great importance to Costa Rica’s economy but they still don’t come close to the numbers tourism generates for the country. Throughout the last 10 years the tourism industry has contributed over U.S. $28 billion to the country's finances and with the exception of 2009, when the world crisis affected the numbers, the growth has been of close to...

Costa Rica will lift a 30-year ban on Robusta coffee trees, a crop that is considered of lower quality than Arabica but that is more resistant to diseases and rising temperatures, confirmed the Ministry of Agriculture. The Ministry of Agriculture’s resolution, will allow the production of robusta varieties, a crop that was banned since 1998 for phytosanitary reasons that are no longer relevant;...

Authorities from the National Emergency Commission (CNE), the National System of Areas of Conservation (SINAC) among others, are meeting again to evaluate the current conditions of the Poas Volcano and the steps towards a reopening of the park. Although just a few weeks ago members of the National Emergency Commission spoke of the unstable conditions of this Volcano which makes it difficult to ...

The Costa Rica Tourism Institute (ICT) will be participating in the meeting Routes Americas which will be held in Quito, Ecuador starting today, February 13 and through February 15, with the purpose of negotiating the arrival of new airlines to the country. This event gathers all airlines that operate in America, close to 70, as well as representatives from different airports in the region, de...

The Ministry of Environment and Energy in Costa Rica (MINAE) is carrying out the campaign “Limpia tu Huella” (Clean your Footprint), on Saturday, February 24 and are requesting the help of volunteers that wish to participate on the cleaning of National Wildlife Refuge Camaronal located in the North Pacific of Costa Rica, seven miles south of Playa Samara. The contamination of the oceans is af...

The lake that reappeared at the crater of the Poas Volcano in Costa Rica late January, is still somewhat superficial, but in its deepest point it reaches 15m (50 feet). Eliecer Duarte from the Observatory of Volcanic and Seismic Activity in Costa Rica (OVSICORI), explained to national daily La Nacion, that some of the formations that had been documented just a few weeks back have now disappe...

The Turrialba Volcano registered yet another important eruption, this Monday, February 12 at approximately 4:30 a.m. with a column that reached 1000 meters above the crater and 4,340 meters above sea level (14,235.2 ft.). The impressive was even visible from the Irazu Volcano as you can see in the video included below. The emission of ash is continuous and of variable volume and has been consta...

The Costa Rican Caribbean has been experiencing high tides and the level of the sea has increased in the past few weeks to the point that it has even put at risk some hotels, restaurants and houses and the intervention of the Municipality’s machinery was necessary to create small dams; this phenomenon could have been what brought the remains of an antique ship to the surface in the area of Playa G...

The University of Costa Rica is organizing the International Symposium based around Isla del Coco, an event that will bring together experts from different countries who have researched and studied this National Park which was declared a World Natural Heritage site twenty years ago. Isla del Coco has been an object of different investigations and studies for centuries. At the end of the XIX and...

Costa Rica is known among other things as a great producer of bananas, it has been for many years one of the main economic activities of this country and one of the most important export products. During 2017 Costa Rica was able to generate over U.S. $1 billion through the export of bananas, increasing from U.S. $800 million in 2016. This industry also sustains over 100 thousand families. ...

A new species of the plant Tachia was recently discovered at Isla del Coco, Costa Rica; the information was published in the Journal of the Botanical Research Institute of Texas. Guillermo Blanco park ranger of the National Park was the first to discover the plant and immediately informed a group of botanic experts from the Costa Rica National Herbarium which belongs to the National Museum. Th...

This Monday, February 12 the road work near the Juan Santamaria Airport will begin with the purpose of improving the flow of vehicles in this area. According to engineer German Valverde, Minister of Public Works and Transportation (MOPT), they will address two initial parts of the project , the construction of the loop that will connect the General Cañas highway to Route 3 (Rio Segundo) and ...

The sexual education guides that the Ministry of Education provides teachers of public elementary schools and high schools in Costa Rica have raised controversy for several months, but this week, as students were scheduled to return to classes this became a bigger problem as parents from different education centers organized manifestations against these guides that made it impossible to open the...

A newly discovered wasp species that so far it has only been found in Costa Rica, has experts around the world shocked because the small insect cuts its host open from the inside. Dendrocerus scutellaris is the scientific name of this sesame seed size wasp that has the characteristic of having saw-like spikes which scientists suspect are used by the wasp to cut open the host and lay their eggs,...

A couple was arrested as suspects of participating in at least 20 thefts that took place between June 2017 and February 2018 and where tourists were the main victims. The man of last name Caicedo and a native of Colombia and the woman, a Costa Rican of last name Centeno, would operate by puncturing the tires of the tourists’ vehicles and then showing up to offer help, at which point they would ...

The conversations in Costa Rica after the presidential elections that took place this past weekend, have geared around two topics: the unexpected results of the elections that now have the country going to a second round, and the 57 “diputados” (deputies) elected for congress (Legislative Assembly). But was has the discussion been all about regarding the deputies? Costa Rica the Legislativ...

The Costa Rica Central Bank (BCCR) affirms that the Costa Rican economy is not going through an economic recession process and is not heading into a recession process. According to Eduardo Prado, manager of BCCR, the evolution of the recent and past numbers allows them to project an economical growth for the years 2018 and 2019 of close to 3.6% which is higher than the average of the Latin Am...