120 students from different regions of Costa Rica experienced their first flight this Friday, the activity “Unforgettable Journey” was certainly a unique and life changing experience for this kids. The COPA Boeing 737-800 was full of laughter and even some tears this past Friday, December 9th when 120 kids had the opportunity to experience flying for the first time; the plane took them for a q...

The various sources of renewable energy represent an opportunity for Latin America to have its development shared by the entire population, and would particularly favor the more than 20 million people living in regions without electricity, according to World Wildlife Fund expert Tabare Arroyo. Arroyo, the NGO's adviser on the economy and energy, visited Asuncion this week for a series of meetin...

Obnis App Costa Rica Private Transportation - Cab service Costa Rican company Obnis launched today their application, a competition of UBER. Obnis was created as an alternative in the private transportation sector, and in order to give clients a “Test drive” of their service they will be offering free trips for all new users for a limited time and with some restrictions. Over 4,000 users...

By Wendy Anders Residents of a public nursing home in Costa Rica, source Facebook. Welcome to the Latin America of contrasts. Whereas Costa Rica used to be a relatively egalitarian society, that can no longer be said, as the gap between the very rich and very poor widens each day, said researchers at the State of the Nation (Estado de la Nación) institute. A recent list of the country to...

By Wendy Anders The new payment service offered by Banco de Costa Rica, called Tucán, photo Facebook. Costa Rica’s left-leaning Citizen Action Party (PAC) legislator, Javier Cambronero, denounced a new advertising campaign by the state-owned Banco de Costa Rica (BCR) as sexist, and demanded they withdraw the publicity, reported Elperiodicocr.com, a Costa Rican digital news source yesterday....

The annual study done by Reporters without boarders in relation to the state of the Freedom of the Press in the world in 2016 shows Costa Rica in the sixth position worldwide and the first in America. The ranking of 180 countries, shows Finland, Netherlands, Norway, Denmark and New Zealand in the top 5, followed by Costa Rica, Switzerland, Sweden, Irland and Jamaica in the next 5 slots. The ...

Press Release / Corcovado National Park was included in the top 10 of the best National Parks in the World by Discovery Corp.  This recognition is based on criteria by National Geographic that considers this area as “the most biologically intense area in the world when it comes to biodiversity”. Corcovado encompasses diverse ecosystems, including cloud forests, montane forest, mangroves and tro...

By Wendy Anders Cahuita, Limón, Costa Rica. Yesterday, police captured a 21-year old Costa Rican man at his home in Hone Creek, Limón in connection with the murder of a hotel owner in late October this year, reported the Judicial Investigative Police (OIJ). A 50-year-old French woman by the last name of Claire was found lying dead and bound on the ground at her boutique hotel south of Pu...

By Wendy Anders A view of Turrialba Volcano's craters by scientist Javier Francisco Pacheco, courtesy of Ovsicori-UNA. After a 5-day period of calm, Cartago’s Turrialba Volcano rumbled back into action yesterday, said scientists at the National University’s Seismology and Volcanology Research Institute (Ovsicori-UNA). This most recent “passive phase” started at 7:00 a.m. yesterday with e...

By Wendy Anders Costa Rica cell phone tower. The Superintendence of Telecommunications (Sutel) postponed until the first quarter of 2017 a decision on whether market competition conditions exist in Costa Rica’s postpaid mobile telephony service, reported the superindentency’s office yesterday. After a thorough analysis of the country’s 11 telecommunication markets, Sutel determined there...

Dentons and Muñoz Global approve combination to create first global law firm in Central America The partners of Dentons, the world’s largest law firm, and Costa Rica-based Muñoz Global have agreed to combine to create the first global law firm with offices in Central America. The combination will enable Muñoz Global clients to access the experience of more than 7,600 lawyers and 13,600 peopl...

By Wendy Anders Photo posted on the Accidentes de CostaRica Facebook group page. As Costa Rica’s traffic police bolster their year-end patrols in an attempt to prevent the typical spike in traffic accidents and fatalities that accompany the holiday festivities, some hopeful data came in for November. With 20 traffic-related fatalities November 2016 had the lowest recent traffic mortality...

By Wendy Anders The Caribeño busline bus that went up in flames Weds., Nov. 30 on its way to Limón. All people aboard were uninjured. Three buses burst into flames over the past week in Costa Rica, bringing the total to at least 35 buses gone up in flames this year. Channel 7 TV, Costa Rica’s Teletica station, reported last Wednesday on a Caribeño busline fire. According to Fire Chief Hé...

By Wendy Anders The Ministry of Health is tracking the situation of people in the country's shelters after Hurricane Otto. Saturday, the National Emergency Commission (CNE, in Spanish) lifted all emergency weather-related alerts. The announcement came just in time for a new spate of rain to set in. The National Meteorological Institute (INM, in Spanish) said the rains that pelted the cen...

By Wendy Anders Evidence collected in last week's arrests of homicide and house theft suspects in Puntarenas, source OIJ. Last Wednesday saw a shoot out in Puntarenas as police closed in on suspects in recent thefts who are also linked to the gruesome murder of a Dutch couple around Christmastime last year, said the  judicial investigative police (OIJ) press office. The Dutch news servic...

The Telethon 2016 in Costa Rica surpassed its goal and was able to collect over 1,200 million colones, the equivalent to $2,196,140.76 USD. 27 hours of work paid off, as the night fell this past Saturday, December 3rd in Costa Rica, the board of the 2016 Telethon was not even close to reaching the established goal of 690 million colones ($1,254,310 USD), the attending audience and the different...

The Costa Rica International Film Festival returns for its 5th edition and is scheduled from December 8th to the 17th. A total of 58 feature films and 14 short films will be shown in five different theaters: Magaly Movie Theater, La Aduana Theater, Theater 1887, the Theater of Dance and the Amphitheater of the National Center of Culture. Entrance is free of charge for the 10 a.m. and 5 p.m. sho...

By Wendy Anders Universal health care was established in Costa Rica after the army was abolished. "Blessed is the Costa Rican mother who knows that her son at birth will never be a soldier," said the well-known Japanese politician and philanthropist Ryoichi Sasakawa in one of his visits to Costa Rica, as reported in Costa Rica’s Elperiodicocr.com digital news source today on the anniversary...

By Wendy Anders Damages reported near the epicenter of this afternoon's Cartago quakes, photo CRHoy.com. Lately there seems to be no end to the variety and amount of natural phenomena on display here in Tiquicia. Starting at 3:50 this afternoon, a 4.6 magnitude quake was registered 45 kms south of Dominical on the south Pacific at a depth of 10 kms, said the National Seismology and Volca...

By Wendy Anders Luis Alberto Monge Alvarez, Costa Rica President 1982-1986. Luis Alberto Monge Alvarez was a Costa Rican farmer and politician who served as President of Costa Rica from 1982 to 1986. He came from a humble farming family in Palmares and was involved from a young age in social and union movements, said Wikipedia. He passed away yesterday due to cardiac arrest at the San Ju...

By Wendy Anders A Costa Rican rainforest. After Costa Rica’s Legislative Assembly ratified the Paris Agreement on climate change last month, Environment Minister Edgar Gutierrez said that, despite being a small country, “Costa Rica showed the world that it has the courage to take bold and timely decisions to work for a sustainable development,” as reported in the World Politics Review. I...

By Wendy Anders University students in Nicola, Guanacaste. According to the San José, Costa Rica-based American University (UAM, its acronym in Spanish), students who push to earn a college degree can wind up earning up to a 60 percent higher salary than their counterparts who don’t. According to recent census data, there are a total of 703,000 people with a higher education degree in Co...

By Wendy Anders Moín, Limón port. The French container company, CMA CGM S.A., the third largest container company in the world, alerted that a closure of a pier at the Moín dock in Limón on Costa Rica’s Atlantic coast has led to delays. The delays will translate into an emergency surcharge for ships docking at the Moín port as of December 1, and will apply until the pier is reopened, sai...

By Wendy Anders The Ministry of Finance (Hacienda) announced yesterday they would grant an exceptional one-time extension this year for tax filers in light of the complications many faced due to Hurricane Otto’s flooding in numerous parts of Costa Rica last week. Instead of November 30, the last day to file returns this year is Monday, December 5, giving filers an extra weekend to put togeth...

By Wendy Anders Spain is now Costa Rica’s entryway to Europe’s markets with the opening of new commercial headquarters inside the Costa Rican Embassy in Madrid, announced Procomer, Costa Rica’s foreign trade promotion agency, last week. Over the past five years, exports from Costa Rica to Spain have grown 120 percent, with 144 Costa Rican companies exporting 340 products to Spain last year, ...

By Wendy Anders Police distribute aid in Upala, photo Public Security Ministry. In response for calls for help from families affected by Hurricane Otto in Upala, Saturday night and Sunday, hundreds of public officials went door-to-door with food rations, reported the Public Security Ministry yesterday. Police officers, judicial police, migration police and fireman all joined together for...

By Wendy Anders A map of the emergency status of Costa Rica's regions as of late Saturday, source National Emergency Commission. A total of 22 communities in southern Costa Rica are virtually unreachable by road following the passage of Hurricane Otto, the head of operations of the National Emergency Commission (CNE), Walter Fonseca, reported yesterday. "These are eight communities in th...

By Wendy Anders A view of the ravages from a weekend fire in Leon XIII, Tibás, as posted on Facebook. At around midnight on Saturday, screams rang out in the Leon XII shanty town in San José’s densely populated district of Tibás as flames from an apparent arson act spread quickly through the makeshift abodes, reported police sources and local media. Despite a rapid emergency response, th...

According to the 2016 Open Doors Report on International Educational Exchange data released by the Institute of International Education (IIE) in partnership with the U.S. Department of State's Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs,  there is a significant increase in the student mobilization between the United States and Costa Rica. President Obama launched the initiative “The force of 100...

Costa Rica is among the preferred destinations by expats, every year many tourists visit the country on vacation and fall in love with the place, they make the decision of moving here, but the first question they ask themselves is: Where should we live? With the help from our friends from Immigration Experts, here we offer you information on the best and preferred places by expats to live in Co...

The recovered body of a one year and eight months old girl in Bijagua, Upala elevated the number of deaths as a consequence of Hurricane Otto in Costa Rica to ten. The house where the toddler, Bianca Pichardo, and her family lived was destroyed last Thursday and in the event her mother also died, her body was found on Friday and buried today, her father was barely able to make it out, while the...

Guayabo de Bagaces in Guanacaste shares limits with Upala, Liberia, Carrillo, Cañas and Nicoya, and is just 15 kilometers north from Miravalles Volcano, it’s in the foothills of this volcano where we can find the Miravalles Geothermal project. The area is visited by many tourists, naturally because of the Volcano, and also because of several touristic centers located in the area, many of which ...

The help started arriving in Upala , Bagaces and all other communities affected by Hurricane Otto in Costa Rica. The government informed that funding from Developing Banking will be used to help recover the areas affected, by providing assistance to all the farmers and business owners that demonstrate the damage suffered by their company or industry, they will also provide monetary help for the...

By Wendy Anders Animals such as these dogs left behind during an evacuation in Bagaces often suffer and die during and after natural disasters. The country's National Animal Service (Senasa) announced extended hours at their Heredia headquarters to tend to livestock owners with concerns related to Hurricane Otto. Monday has been declared a national day of mourning  in Costa Rica for the dea...

Upala and Bagaces are the two communities in Costa Rica that were more strongly hit by Otto Hurricane, the heavy rain and strong wind, washed away in just a few hours everything some families possessed. Houses, cars, businesses… gone. The photos and videos of the areas show the devastation left behind by this phenomenon of nature. The impotence of the emergency services, and the population in ...

By Wendy Anders A satellite image of Hurricane Otto as it made landfall yesterday mid-morning. After Hurricane Otto’s high winds and heavy rains lashed northern Costa Rica all day yesterday and most of last night, Costa Rica has all of its emergency personnel working at maximum capacity clearing roads, searching for possible disappeared persons, keeping shelters supplied, tallying of damage...

Guayabo de Bagaces, Guanacaste The North of Costa Rica, specially the areas of Upala and Los Chiles in Alajuela and several areas in Guanacaste, were severely affected by the heavy rains and winds of Hurricane Otto, which made landfall in Nicaragua yesterday and moved through Costa Rica as a category 1 hurricane. So far 3 people have been confirmed dead and there are several people missing hav...

Currently Otto storm is affecting the North of Alajuela province, most specifically in Upala which lost electricity service a couple of hours ago. Watch the video below: (EFE).- The eye of Hurricane Otto passed over Costa Rica Thursday afternoon bringing winds of at least 150 kilometers (93 miles) per hour and dumping rain in the northern part of the country, the National Weather Institute,...

By Wendy Anders Emergency Commission staff load supplies for delivery to northern Costa Rica today. Costa Rican authorities extended the red alert (highest emergency alert) to the entire province of Guanacaste due to the change in course of Hurricane Otto that made landfall as a Category 2 hurricane at 10:35 a.m. today, reported the Costa Rican National Emergency Commission (CNE). Accord...

Some stores began their promotions early in the month, others have been preparing to receive hundreds of shoppers tomorrow, Friday, November 25th in the famous “Black Friday”. Although this is a U.S. tradition, it started gaining traction in Costa Rica and other countries in the world several years ago, as an alternative for stores to get rid of inventory and make space for December’s collectio...