Even though the latest engineer report presented by the Playas de Nosara ASADA’s (Administrative Associations of Rural Water and Sanitation Systems) affirmed the water infrastructure level can last 20 years with maintenance, the ASADA finds itself with a new question: how can they continue providing water service if growth exceeds the yearly 5% used in the study? According to ASADA Vocal Olivie...

Source: soulshelpingsoles.org Going shoeless in Costa Rica used to be a childhood rite of passage in rural areas. Children would spend a lot of time barefoot, especially out in the country. By the time they joined the first grade of elementary school, they would also start wearing shoes. In Guanacaste, however, not all families are able to purchase shoes for their young children. Public sch...

Many expatriates who visit household kitchens in Costa Rica are often surprised by the number of items that Ticos do not refrigerate. Bunches of onions colorfully hang from rafters, tomatoes and avocados are stored in baskets, fruits are placed on plates or in bowls, green onions are grown in glasses of water, and eggs never seem to be refrigerated. Do these items need to go in the fridge as soon ...

The demand for organically produced food has been growing in Samara and Nosara, as well as nationally and internationally. Weekly organic markets are now hosted, and both towns also have organic stores and restaurants that tout offering organic food options. As the demand for organic products grows, however, so have concerns about suppliers, with occasional accusations cropping up that some sel...

The Nicoya Peninsula in Costa Rica is a Blue Zone. A “Blue Zone” is a place where people live happily and healthily for a very long time. The term was popularized by author-educator-explorer Dan Buettner in his 2008 book, “The Blue Zones: Lessons for Living Longer from People Who’ve Lived the Longest.” Published by the National Geographic Society, Buettner identified places in the world where ther...

Recycling Center employees in Nosara Costa RicaBeginning in September of 2013, the Institute for Social Assistance (Instituto Mixto de Ayuda Social - IMAS) was giving 1 million colones ($2,000) every month to the Recycling Center in Nosara to provide a salary of 100,000 colones ($200) to all of its ten female employees. This subsidy was cut off completely in the month of December, and now the wom...

Canadian airlines West Jet offers service to LIR in GuanacasteShould there be a serious emergency at the Daniel Oduber Quiros International Airport (LIR) in Liberia, the province of Guanacaste would be ill-prepared to save lives. Such was the assessment recently made by journalist Carlos Eduardo Vargas of national newspaper La Nacion in Costa Rica. This theoretic evaluation was based on an estima...

Families enjoying Playas del Coco Beach in Guanacaste Costa RicaA 24-year old man who had been missing after being dragged into the ocean by strong currents was found by divers in Playas del Coco hours later. This is the latest report of a fatal drowning in the beaches of Guanacaste, a region that is heavily visited by swimmers, surfers and vacationers from around the world, and it serves as a re...

Close up of a Marijuana plant flowering during the final stages of growthAs 2014 begins, marijuana advocates are celebrating major legalization events in one Latin American nation and a progressive U.S. state. Activists in favor of cannabis legalization in Costa Rica are certainly encouraged by the current situation in Uruguay and Colorado, and they are longing for the day when they will be able ...

After a higher-than-expected death toll during the Christmas holiday in Costa Rica, public safety officials are preparing for what they believe will be a busy New Year's Eve celebration. Ten people lost their lives due to violent incidents on December 24th and 25th: Three were homicides, three suicides, one deadly fire, two drownings, and a fatal road traffic accident. As reported by national n...

Telethon in Costa Rica raises money for the needyAlthough the Telethon (Teleton in Spanish) was held between December 5 and 7, it will be until next February that the money for the Hospital de la Anexión in Nicoya will be allocated for the purchase of medical equipment, which would be delivered during the first half of 2014. After finishing the event, which brought together the people and busi...

Ecstasy drug use in Costa Rica is on the rise and increasing profits for narcosSan Jose, Costa Rica – Thirteen human-trafficking victims in Costa Rica this year were taken for their organs, according to a report on crime in the country that gives new life to an ongoing organ trafficking scandal unfolding in the country. The report, co-authored by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (U...

On December 20, members of the Playas de Nosara ASADA water board, sometimes referred to as the American Project ASADA, held a meeting to discuss the results of an engineering report required by the Costa Rican Water and Sewage Institute (AyA) as part of the rate increase application. Once the report has been sent to AyA, it will then go to ARESEP (Autoridad Reguladora de los Servicios Públicos...

Officials at the National Blood Bank of the Calderon Guardia Hospital in Costa Rica woke up last week to an alarming sight: Reserves were near zero. An urgent call for type O Positive blood donations was issued across the Central Valley, and technicians plan to work through most of the holidays to conduct blood collection drives. Blood bank officials were able to ameliorate the situation over t...

A widely held assumption about the use of pesticides in the agricultural industry in Costa Rica puts our country at the top of lists that rank nations by how much they use agrochemical pesticides. At 51.2 kg of pesticide used per hectare of farmland, hospitals in Costa Rica should be filled with patients languishing from poisoning and cancer. Somehow, this is not the case. How come? The two mos...

The lack of financing and manpower leaves the child welfare agency, the Patronato Nacional de la Infancia (PANI), with thousands of open cases, with new ones opened daily. PANI says that on average about 150 children every day are victims of domestic violence. The figures show that the agency received 53,000 complaints so far this year, up from 49,000 for the entire year of 2012. To attend the ...

This article is for entertainment purposes only and is not factual, originally posted on ElPeji.com. Costa Rica’s thriving public peeing community got its wish this week when Culture Minister Manuel Obregon officially declared the activity a national pastime and holiday. “Peeing in public is what makes this city great,” Obregon said of San Jose during the announcement of the new holiday. “Im...

Source: Fuerza Publica San Jose, Costa Rica - December 16, 2013. This past Thursday, officers from the Directorate of Police Intelligence (DIPOL) in Costa Rica intercepted a major shipment of contraband cigarettes in the capital city of San Jose. In total, 40,000 packs of cigarettes were confiscated, and officials estimate that perpetrators stood to make up to $100,000 from this shipment -depe...

The hot days of December in Costa Rica entice children to enjoy a quick dip in the many beaches, lakes, ponds, and rivers across the country. One of the hottest regions during this time of the year is Guanacaste, and this is where three children recently passed away as they tried to escape the heat. One drowned in the Gulf of Nicoya and two others died in a pond near Sonzapote. The sad events w...

Officials from the Ministry of Public Health in Costa Rica have tallied the latest dengue (or breakbone) fever infections and have announced that the national vector-borne epidemic has finally come to an end. In the Guanacaste region, however, residents and tourists should continue to take precautions since they were the last to be affected by the epidemic. According to a news article published...

Exercising in the hot sunny weather of Costa Rica presents a set of challenges one has to take into account. For those coming from cold climates, it takes about two weeks for your body to acclimatize and be able to maintain a lower inner temperature and heart rate, therefore reducing the risk of dehydration. After two weeks, you will start to sweat sooner and your sweat will be more diluted than b...

After hearing several people talk about a new kind of gym that "transforms your body," my editor asked me to take a TRX and Kettlebell class to write about my personal experience. Honestly, I felt a bit intimidated by the class because I am not used to that kind of exercise. I do yoga and I like to run but I'm used to an easier pace of exercise. I didn't know what to expect from the class - som...

The community of Nosara will come together next Saturday, November 30th to celebrate the 2013 Nosara Ecological Blue Flag Community Festival, with the objective of recognizing the environmental efforts of a diverse group of organizations and individuals from the area. Jessica Sheffield, one of the event’s five organizers, explained that for the occasion there will be at least 15 stands of organ...

Avoid excess sugar that contributes to kidney stress, try honey or extra milk in your coffeeIn the past year, a surge of articles and reports has surfaced investigating kidney failure and the link to sugarcane farmworkers who live in the Guanacaste province. It is now well known that not only the farmworkers but others who live here are at high risk for developing chronic kidney disease. This ...

Wastewater treatment in Costa Rica is once again making headlines, and the latest reports indicate that strict measures such as limiting access to entire beach towns along the Pacific coast of Guanacaste could be taken unless a comprehensive water management strategy is adopted soon. Earlier this year, Playas del Coco was one of the beaches slated for closure due to a high count of 450,000 fecal c...

The morning of Thursday, November 21st brought shock and awe for officials and those carrying out court processes in Nicoya. The work and services normally provided at the court in Nicoya were suspended for more than two hours after the report of a bomb threat in the building. The alert was registered at 9:10 a.m. through the 911 emergency telephone service. At 9:45, officials from a special...

With the motto “Let your food be your medicine," EUPI Pedagogical Institute is implementing a comprehensive nutrition program in order to look out for the health of the 240 children and youth that attend the institution and to achieve higher academic performances. The project began in October of 2012, and according to Eugenia Ovares, director of EUPI, the results are satisfactory. “We’ve achiev...

Official announcement from the US Embassy of Costa Rica. The Social Security Administration (SSA) regularly contacts beneficiaries with addresses on their SSA record that shows they reside outside the United States to verify their current status. This year, questionnaires were sent to beneficiaries receiving their own benefits whose social security number ended in 50-99 or to beneficiaries w...

Steven Farrell, owner/general manager of Finca Luna Nueva Lodge in San Isidro de Peñas Blancas, and a member of the Slow Food Convivium of San Jose, Costa Rica will celebrate and host the third “Slow Food in the Rainforest” Terra Madre Day luncheon on December 8, 2013. The festivities will begin at 10:30 a.m. in Casa Luna where the participants can enjoy coffee, tea, juice, or chocolate tea (...

“This was basically a dead zone. The open-range cattle industry basically murdered the soil,” related Ray “Tarzan” Beise, owner of Pura Jungla nature reserve and eco community in Paraiso of Santa Cruz. We are seven stories up, looking out across the treetops of the 100-hectare (247-acre) reserve, watching some monkeys hanging around. Beise has spent 25 years reforesting the land and protecting...

Due to the health alert in parts of Guanacaste related to the presence of arsenic in water, the private company Agua Solutions has decided to offer free tests to detect arsenic levels until December 15th. The initiative began this July and so far they have received samples from about 50 private residences, farms and ASADAS. In addition, since 2011 they have performed tests in conjunction with t...

The Costa Rica Star recently published a similar article called: Learn About the Venomous Snakes of Costa Rica, which you may enjoy reading after this one. The green season could also be called the slithering season due to the increase of snake sightings. The rain brings the snakes closer to residences, because of this fact, you should know a few things about them. Out of 139 species of snakes ...

Pistol shown for illustration purposes only, WikimediaAnother episode of violence occurred yesterday morning in broad daylight, this time inside a school in Nicoya, with the death of Rosibel Gomez Enriquez, age 46, cook at the Virgilio Caamaño School. The incident occurred at 10 a.m. when Melvin Zuñiga Muñoz, a 37-year-old resident of the IMAS neighborhood of Nicoya and apparently Gomez's roma...

At the beginning of October, the Administrative Environmental Court ruled for the third time that the Nosara garbage dump must be closed, adding more force to previous orders to close the dump, which have been received since 2007. The court decision is the resolution of a denunciation that was filed in February of 2011 against the Ministry of Health and the mayor of Nicoya, Marcos Jimenez, by D...

Santa Cruz, Guanacaste - A local charity plans to give children in Guanacaste a very special reason to smile this Christmas. Una Sonrisa por San Cruz (A Smile for Santa Cruz) is an organization that has identified 150 children living in low-income neighborhoods across the county, and who could certainly benefit from getting a little help this holiday season. According to Primero en Noticias, an...

Currently patients that are attended at the EBAIS clinic in Cangrejal of Samara aren’t able to get prescribed medications immediately. They have to go to Nicoya to fill their prescriptions, incurring extra costs of transportation. But that will no longer be the case, as preparations are being made to open a pharmacy at the EBAIS in January of 2014. The clinic’s doctor, Fulvio Paniagua Acuña, su...

Playa Hermosa, Guanacaste - Come Join us this Saturday, November 16 at 10:30 AM to celebrate the raising of The Ecological Blue Flag on Playa Hermosa and to enjoy lunch and dancing during our Zumba Beach Party! Meet us on the Beach, right in the middle between the two beach entrances. You will hear the music and smell the food, so you can’t miss it. Everyone is invited. After we raise the flag...

The Telethon this year will be broadcasted nationally on December 6 and 7 and will have a goal of 700 million colones ($1.4 million). This time the main beneficiaries will be the children of Guanacaste, as the money will buy medical equipment for the hospitals of Nicoya and Liberia, as well as the canton of Upala in Alajuela. “This year we turn our eyes to the Guanacaste area, specifically Enri...

Sick leave and vacation have become synonymous for many people around the globe, as healthcare costs skyrocket in top nations. The world medical tourism industry has become a $10.5 billion business based on the availability of high-quality medical services at reasonable rates in many developing countries. Patients are travelling abroad not only for quick-recovery cosmetic surgeries or dental pr...

What if keeping a doctor’s visit at bay is solved simply by what we eat? Even more, what if herbs grown right in our backyard and foods we can pick up at any corner store can heal what ails us, including the pesky common cold? For thousands of years humans relied on foods and herbs for medicine. In Costa Rica, it turns out that plenty of easy-to-find familiar foods are actually just what the do...