Source: Wikimedia Commons A 76-year old man in Costa Rica was rushed to the hospital after he confronted a dangerous fer-de-lance (Bothrops atrox) snake that had killed its livestock. The incident occurred in Grifo Bajo, a small farming community in the canton of Puriscal, province of San Jose. During his entire life, Porfirio Gomez Quesada has earned his keep as a labriego (family farmer)....

Pope Francis. Source: Wikimedia Commons Priests and officials of the Roman Catholic Church in Costa Rica are ready to follow the example set by Pope Francis with regard to transportation, and this means downgrading their automobiles. It's not that ordained Catholic priests in Costa Rica are driving around in vehicles manufactured by Mercedes Benz, BMW or Ferrari; but, the current papacy calls ...

Source: Casa Presidencial de Costa Rica It wasn't long ago that the people of Costa Rica gave President Laura Chinchilla the lowest public opinion of a Latin American country leader. In fact, the Costa Rica Star compared her track record to that of President Dilma Rouseff of Brazil, another political leader whose term in office has been decidedly rocky. One of the lowest points in the admin...

Twilight in Golfito. Source: Wikimedia Commons Squatters of private property in Costa Rica, particularly those that trespass land owned by foreigners, are more than a just a nuisance. They are reminders of this country's painful transition from an agricultural nation to an industrial and consumer society. Many foreign landowners have come to learn the hard way about Costa Rica's murky agrarian...

Costa Rica celebrates Afro-Costa Rican heritage in August of each year, and this year's activities are strongly focused on film. The Costa Rica Star has already written about the Flowers of the African Diaspora Film Festival currently playing at Cine Magaly in San Jose; now the Southern Caribbean Chamber of Commerce and Tourism (CATCCAS in Spanish) invites you to enjoy part of the film festival in...

Source: Wikimedia Commons Less guns, more bullets: According to figures recently reported by Ronny Rojas of news daily La Nacion, there is a clear interest among people in Costa Rica in purchasing firearms of higher round (ammunition) capacity. In 2012, gun dealers in Costa Rica imported 4,540 semiautomatic pistols, double the annual rate since 2010. Revolvers, on the other hand, are losing fa...

Source: Alivebox A team of software engineers and developers from Costa Rica took second place at SenchaCon 2013, a specialized information technology (IT) conference that recently took place in Orlando. SenchaCon is organized by Sencha, a visionary company that develops frameworks, services and tools that are shaping the future of the World Wide Web. SenchaCon 2013 was essentially a combin...

Source: Flickr CC If you are in need of work in Costa Rica, you might feel encouraged by the various employment fairs that offer thousands of available positions to job seekers in diverse industries. Attending one of these fairs, which take place several times a year, will leave you feeling pretty upbeat about your work prospects, at least until you realize that after a few weeks not one poten...

Source: Flickr CC Although statistics from the Ministry of Public Safety (initials MSP in Spanish) indicate that overall crime is down in Costa Rica, many rural and farming communities are seeing criminal elements getting comfortable in their quiet towns. This is particularly true in the province of Alajuela, where the northern cantons of San Carlos and Los Chiles join the municipality of Ciud...

Source: Flickr CC In the early 21st century, the bed & breakfast (B&B) lodging trend became a cottage industry in Costa Rica and gave hope to families whose properties had the potential to attract tourists looking for cozy, alternative accommodations. More than a decade later, many B&B operators are closing their doors in Costa Rica, and the rest are weighing their options in the m...

Environmentalist Paul Watson, founder of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, has recently been very active in calling attention to the illegal practices of shark finning in Costa Rica, as well as the allegations of ties between fishery officials and what Mr. Watson defines as “narco-poachers.” On his Facebook Timeline, which is followed by nearly 235,000 social media netizens, Mr. Watson...

Several NGO’s and non profit organizations, including PRETOMA, Widecast and The Leatherback Trust, known collectively as Salvemos Nuestros Mares, have come together to improve marine management in Costa Rica through a series of legal, political and civil actions which will lead all around improvement of our valuable and incredibly bio-diverse marine resources. Their first action is an online pe...

Source: Wikimedia Commons Before Pope John Paul II was elevated to sainthood, someone had to be the bad guy in Costa Rica and oppose his canonization. That contentious responsibility was accepted by Dr. Mariano Ramirez, a 79-year old oncologist and gynecologist who became the devil's advocate against John Paul the Great and his entry into the Holy Canon. According to daily tabloid La Teja, ...

Jaime Barboza with President Laura Chinchilla in 2011. Source: Facebook Ukrainian pugilist Stanyslav Kashtanov is still the World Boxing Association (WBA) Super Middleweight Champion after Jaime “Indio” Barboza from Costa Rica failed to take his belt. It was a great night for boxing for 30,000 fans in the Donbas Arena in the Ukraine, a country that is producing quite a few luminaries of the...

Source: Flickr CC The first-ever legally recognized civil union between same-gender partners in Costa Rica might take place in one or two weeks. Such was the statement pronounced by Marco Castillo, an attorney and president of the Diversity Movement in Costa Rica. Mr. Castillo is currently handling petitions from three couples who want legal recognition of their rights to civil unions as lesbi...

Rowdiness that escalates to violence is now a “no no” at sporting events across Costa Rica, as the new law to curb violence and racism went into effect on Friday. The “Ley para Prevención y Sanción de la Violencia en Eventos Deportivos” (Law on Prevention and Punishment of Violence at Sporting Events) was passed in the Legislative Assembly in June, but it did not come into effect until its publ...

A ticket from the previous World Cup. Source: Flickr CC Officials from the Federation Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) and MATCH Hospitality AG will visit Costa Rica in September to meet with their counterparts at the National Consumer Commission (Spanish acronym: CNC), an agency of the Ministry of Economy, Industry and Commerce (MEIC). MATCH Hospitality AG, owner of the exclus...

Source: U.S. Embassy Author's Note:  This article is condensed from two official press releases issued by the United States Embassy in San Jose. Communications between the National Coast Guard Service of Costa Rica and United States vessels or aircraft involved in search and rescue (SAR) or law enforcement (LE) operations is now possible thanks to the recent donation of five Harris military...

Ronald McDonald sits in the Netherlands. Source: Wikimedia Commons Is Arcos Dorados Costa Rica (ADCR) S.A., opening a new McDonald’s restaurant in the municipality of Atenas, province of Alajuela? A recent post in a blog authored by an expat living in Costa Rica claims that: A pretty innocent status update on Facebook has blown into a brouhaha regarding McDonald’s coming to Atenas. The blog ...

Britt Nelson standing alongside some of the exhibit. Patio Bar, Jacó, Costa Rica Every generation has its cultural icons and historical high and low points. Baby Boomers, coming along at a time when the world was shifting dramatically on every conceivable front, have proper claim to an inordinate number of defining moments: landing a man on the moon, the assassination of JFK, Woodstock, the Br...

Source: Wikimedia Commons If you live near the banks of the Tempisque River in Guanacaste, you may want to keep an eye on your livestock, as well as your dogs and cats. An anaconda slithered away from its unnatural farm habitat, where it was kept as an exotic pet by an owner described by neighbors as “a powerful gringo” in Costa Rica. The 12-meter long anaconda is not native to Costa Rica, ...

Fans of quality rock music and cinema in Costa Rica continue to be a lucky bunch. This country is already a magnet and source of inspiration for some of the coolest rock bands, and in the next few weeks Costa Rica will host a couple of film festivals where Hollywood celebrities such as Danny Glover will be guests of honor. This weekend, good rock music and excellent cinema come together at the ...

No one was hurt when assailants in a passing car fired shots at the Colombian Embassy in San Jose, Costa Rica’s security minister said Friday. Six shots were fired, apparently from an AK-47 assault rifle, Mario Zamora told a press conference. Four of the shots hit a guardhouse on the grounds and two struck the embassy itself. “Fortunately, there are no casualties,” the minister said. ...

Seventh-day Adventist professionals from throughout the Inter-American Division territory gathered for the church’s 13th annual Adventist-laymen’s Services and Industries (ASI) Convention in San Jose, Costa Rica, Aug. 14-17, 2013. The event brought more than 200 professionals and church leaders to Barcelo San Jose Palacio Hotel to celebrate their passion in sharing Christ through their businesses,...

A new shopping center will open next October in San Martin Avenue, Los Yoses, San Pedro. This new shopping center will include a Fresh Market, a Henry’s sports bar and a New York Pizza. Vivo Plaza is the name of the commercial project, which is developed and marketed by ServiGlobal for the corporation that owns the property: Zeta Group (specialized in building zones). Tammy Roitman, project ...

Four new industrial parks will be built in Santa Ana, Alajuela and Heredia. Alajuela will have two, one will be called Green Park and another Life Free Zone and Business Park, a third one will be located in Ulloa, Heredia, and will be named Tech Park, and the fourth one will operate as Lindora Business Park, which will be in Pozos, Santa Ana. The four real estate developments are currently bein...

Article by Central America Data with insights from La Nacion. The international crisis and exchange rate fluctuations caused the agriculture sector to export 7% less during the first seven months of 2013, when compared to the same period of 2012. The Costa Rican agricultural sector is not experiencing good times. Nacion.com reports: "According to the monthly index of economic activity (M...

Article by Central America Data with insights from Prensa Libre. The Costa Rican Institute of Aqueducts and Sewers (AyA) is planning a borrowing program of $838 million of state funding, lasting until 2019, to fund its own projects. Yesenia Calderon, chief executive of the institution, reported that included in the list of projects is $662 million worth of projects which have already bee...

The number of homicides in Costa Rica has increased by 8% and assaults by 20% in the first seven months of the year, as compared to the same period last year, says the Organismo de Investigación Judicial (OIJ). A report by the Crime Analysis Unit of the OIJ indicated that between January and July 2013, 227 homicides occurred in the country, while only 209 were recorded in the same period in 20...

Imagine a blend of surfboards, wakeboards and kiteboards. Now, add motor power and a Formula 1 design engineer. That’s it. Meet the new JetSurf, a custom designed carbon fiber hull equipped with a two-stroke engine that can ride waves of all kind. The Jet Surf has an automatic electronic control unit that is manually operated to reach a maximum speed of 57 km/h (35 mph). Looks like awesome fun...

In Guanacaste this Thursday President Laura Chinchilla led a march protesting Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega’s bid to claim the Costa Rica province of Guanacaste. Chinchilla was joined by legislators, Cabinet members and protesters in a “marcha por la patria” (march for the homeland) that began in the town of Nicoya in the northwest province of Guanacaste. The province, home to some of Cost...

Costa Rica has been host to thousands of foreigners who have settled here for four centuries, if one counts the Spanish. But before the 1990s, none of them were able to scuttle across the ceiling like spiders. That ubiquitous little Far Eastern lizard, the Gecko, may have hitched a ride aboard a freighter (or a series of them) touching in at Costa Rican ports. However it happened, they found Co...

A reader of The Voice of Guanacaste recently wrote in asking if we know of an agency that provides support to victims of violence, because his neighbor had fled to San Jose to escape a violent boyfriend. First, I would like to refer to the impossibility of reconciling in situations of domestic violence, not only in the process of precautionary measures, but also in the other judicial processes ...

Members of the brutal street gangs widely known as Maras continue to wreak havoc in El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras -- but why haven’t they taken root in Costa Rica as well? MS-13 and M-18, the two strongest and most widespread Mara gangs, were spawned in the 1980s in poor Los Angeles neighborhoods by disaffected Central American youth. Most were transplanted to the US by their families, de...

On Tuesday, the presentation "Costa Rica to Feel and Live" took place, presented by the Tourism Department of Costa Rica in association with Peruvian Airlines. The event was focused displaying the various attractions that Costa Rica has to offer. Providencia, Peru — The event began with an introduction by the CEO of Peruvian Airlines, Alberto López, where he presented the opening of new routes ...

7 out of 10 Costa Ricans believe that Ticos are not able to consume alcohol in moderation, is the conclusion of a study by Educalcohol Costa Rica, for the Escuela de Estadística de la Universidad de Costa Rica (UCR) - School of Statistics at the University of Costa Rica. Educalcohol Costa Rica project manager, Eugenio Regidor, explained that the purpose of the study was to know the pattern of a...

One of the most popular day tours from San Jose, Costa Rica, is the charming artisan town of Sarchi. Called the “cradle of Costa Rican handicrafts,” both international tourists and locals alike visit Sarchi for its more than 200 stores and small family-operated woodworking and leather workshops. It is a perfect Central Valley day tour to combine with the Poás Volcano, a coffee tour, or the Juan...

Source: Wikimedia Commons Every day, reports about incidents of animal abuse in Costa Rica make news headlines and fan the flames of social media discourse and indignation. A stray dog savagely sliced by a machete, sea turtles gutted for their meat, a female sloth hit with rocks, a porcupine cut with knives, sharks being brutally killed for their fins, illegal hunters who shoot down and dis...

Deportivo Saprissa moved top of the Costa Rica Primera Division with a 3-1 win over Carmelita on Wednesday. Ariel Rodriguez's brace and a Mauricio Castillo effort helped Deportivo Saprissa triumph at the Estadio Nacional de Costa Rica in San Jose. Mario Camacho pulled a goal back for the visitors in the 81st minute but they were unable to stage a remarkable comeback. Ronald Gonzalez Brene...

The universal health care system of Costa Rica (Caja) has doubled its capacity to give radiation treatments to cancer patients with a new building for treatment at Hospital Mexico. The building cost 9 billion colones, approximately $17.3 million US dollars and includes two new linear accelerators, in addition to the two purchased last year. Cancer, according to the national newspaper La Nacion,...