Source: Kevin Manzur for T-Mobile Wireless provider T-Mobile and pop superstar Shakira recently teamed up to announce the end of exorbitant roaming charges for United States customers traveling to Costa Rica and other countries. On the last day of October 2013, just in time for the start of the busy tourist season in Costa Rica, T-Mobile customers who subscribe to the Simple Choice U.S. data p...

Genesis is a young lady in Costa Rica who feels that her life has been filled with blessings -despite the fact that her mother, Ana Acevedo, made a difficult choice 17 years ago: She gave up her baby daughter to Shirley Gomez, an infertile neighbor. Thanks to a daily tabloid newspaper in Costa Rica, Genesis traveled to Playas del Coco earlier this year to meet her biological mother and maternal gr...

The Ministry of Culture and Youth (Ministerio de Cultura y Juventud), through the National System of Music Education (Sistema Nacional de Educación Musical), is promoting a music program in which the stars are disabled. This program is called Música con Accesibilidad Para Todos (Music With Accessibility For All) and gives the physically challenged population the possibility of a musical educati...

The dredging of the Río Nosara’s channel and dike construction are in their final stage. So says Marcos Avila, president of Integral Development Association of Nosara (ADIN – Asociación de Desarrollo Integral de Nosara), who mentioned that the works could be completed by early November. In a trip made by the Voice of Guanacaste on Wednesday October 9th, one could see the progress and work of...

Three medical doctors of the Hospital Calderón Guardia and a pizza maker, in San José, were detained by police, suspected of human organ trafficking. Authorities say their investigation led to the four suspects, who are alleged to have paid victims between 3 and 10 million colones (US$6.000 to US$20.000 dollars). Two of the doctors are urologists, identified by their last names Anunzia Mauro...

Samara residents are currently looking for a missing woman who has being missing for almost three weeks. Dana Colligan, U.S citizen, is a small woman with brown hair in her early 40's and has lived in Samara for three and a half years. Colligan is best known for her natural product line sold around Samara and Nosara called "LaPura LoCura". According to Louise Tangri, who is helping Colligan'...

The human-animal relationship is ancient, and dogs primarily have provided man with countless and invaluable physical and psychological benefits; however, far from paying them back in the same way, they have been treated as consumer goods, which often become - most of the time – a bother, that under circumstances such as lack of economic capacity, changes of residence, onset of allergies, a compul...

The second-most-common catch on Costa Rica’s longline fisheries in the last decade was not a commercial fish species. It was olive ridley sea turtles. These lines also caught more green turtles than most species of fish. These findings and more, reported in a new study in the Journal of Experimental Marine Biology and Ecology, indicate that the Costa Rican longline fishery represents a major th...

The Integrated Solid Waste Management Program of Nicoya’s Municipal Department of Environmental Management (Departamento de Gestión Ambiental) has achieved the reuse of 350 metric tons since May 2011, when the Materials Recovery Center was opened, which required an investment of $140,000 total (₡70 million) including infrastructure, equipment and vehicles. The selective collection of materials ...

The 159 earthquakes registered in Costa Rica this past September did not leave any casualties or material damage but unleashed "seismic energy" equivalent to the "explosion of one million tons of dynamite," reported the National Seismological Network (RSN – Red Sismológica Nacional). The average daily number of tremors in the past month was 5.2, but Costa Ricans reported feeling only 14 earthqu...

Singer-songwriter and pro-surfer Donavon Frankenreiter is returning to Nosara in November after a two year absence and will be performing a concert Nov. 8 at the Tropicana. Frankenreiter will be in the local waters as part of the “Surf With a Pro” program sponsored by Billabong at the affiliated Safari Surf School. He and his musical partner Matt Grundy will offer an acoustic show featuring som...

The ongoing supermarket and shopping plaza wars in Costa Rica are expanding to Playas del Coco in the Guanacaste province. This beach town, which has experienced incredible commercial growth in the last few years, is already awaiting development of a luxury marina for the yachting and sports fishing crowd, but that's not all. Coming soon to Playas del Coco: New shopping centers, supermarkets, bank...

Source: CocoArtsCenter.com An artist and real estate developer from Seattle has teamed up with a renowned architect to create the future mecca of arts and culture in the Pacific Coast of Costa Rica. Coco Arts Center is the name of this future art gallery and cultural exhibition facility, which will be located 100 meters east of Iguanas, on the northern sector of the town. This ambitious projec...

Source: Fuerza Publica Fuerza Publica, the national police force of Costa Rica, is stepping up its vigilance in Guanacaste. Increased foot patrols, strategic operations and good community relations have resulted in the arrest of several suspects allegedly involved in drug dealing, poaching, robbery, and smuggling. Population growth and enhanced foreign investment in Guanacaste call for increas...

The Costa Rica Star recently reported that Johnny Araya is leading the polls in the 2014 presidential election. The presidential candidate of the National Liberation Party (PLN – Partido Liberación Nacional), Johnny Araya Monge, was on tour in Guanacaste, in Liberia on Friday, September 27th and Nicoya on Saturday the 28th. A meeting was held at 10:00 AM at Hotel el Regalo in the city of Nic...

In Santa Barbara of Santa Cruz, one small organization is having a big impact in the debate surrounding genetically modified organisms (GMOs). Sol de Vida, a non-profit organization, was founded in 1989 to promote the use of solar ovens and since then has become a driving force behind the battle to keep the canton and the province free of transgenic crops. During its first years, their focus wa...

The Costa Rica Star recently reported on how President Laura Chinchilla stated in an interview with Spanish news daily El Pais, that there is no censorship or corruption in the government of Costa Rica. The Development Association of Nosara (ADIN – Asociación de Desarrollo Integral de Nosara), may declare Laura Chinchilla, President of the Republic, as non grata (undesirable person), for having...

File photo. Source: MSP Costa Rica The migratory patterns of certain marine species during the green (rainy) season prompt illegal fishermen and shark finning crews to ply their wicked trade in Cocos Island National Park, off the Pacific coast of Costa Rica. Tuna, sharks, large sea turtles, and even the curious-looking mola mola (ocean sunfish) are the typical catch that these poachers of Cost...

The Costa Rica Star previously published on the amount of Marijuana grown and consumed in Costa Rica versus the rest of the world. You don’t need dirt to grow a garden of organic vegetables and herbs. Hydroponics is a method of growing plants without soil, using mineral nutrient solutions in water as fertilizer. The agricultural practice offers economic benefits, healthier food, no pesti...

The Costa Rica Star recently reported on how Papaya seeds can defend your body against dengue fever contraction. This time of year, at fruit stands on the streets or in the supermarkets you are likely to find the spiky red Rambutan fruit, also known as mamon chino. This fruit has been employed in traditional medicine in Malaysia and Indonesia for hundreds of years as a treatment for various ail...

The Municipality of Nicoya will establish an environmental park on 15 hectares that were purchased during the administration of former County mayor Eduardo Gutiérrez to build a much-needed landfill. The reason why the park has been planned, instead of the landfill, is because the land is not suitable for a dump. Furthermore, the lot was purchased for about $330,000 (₡165 million), but according...

Gwadar, before the earthquake. Flickr CC In the aftermath of the terrible earthquake in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, a new island has emerged off the coast of Gwadar, leaving the people of Costa Rica to ponder about two things: 1 – The geotectonic birth of our country in the Jurassic period, and 2 – How long before President Daniel Ortega claims the new island as part of Nicaragua (insert...

Los Suenos. Source: Wikimedia Commons A significant drop in sports fishing tourism and the global financial crisis are to blame for causing investors to shy away from marina projects in Costa Rica. According to a recent report by business journalist Ana Cristina Camacho Sandoval of El Financiero, out of 21 marina projects that filed for permits in 2007, only nine remain -and they are all stall...

Happy and proud of the hard work done. In this way the soccer team of Torito and Sámara Schools finished as runners up in the province’s 2013 Student Tournament. The championship game was against the team from Alba Ocampo School in Liberia. In the first leg, which took place in the Torito soccer field (Plaza de Football del Torito) in Sámara this past September 18th, the score was 1-4 against t...

Lots of music, dancing and fun for all ages. In this way the community of Playa Brasilito will celebrate World Tourism Day on Friday, September 27th. The activities will begin at 11:00 AM and will take place in the communal center (Salón Comunal) and Brasilito’s sports field (Plaza de Deportes de Brasilito). Jason Vargas, head of the tourism management department of the police in Playa Brasi...

With determination, the group of five police officers line up next to their patrol vehicle for a photograph, following the order of their captain, Omar Chavarria, who introduces me and explains my job. Four men and one woman made up the team that would go out on the afternoon of Friday, August 16, as part of the operations being performed by a new division of the Nicoya Public Force that was fo...

The "green season" months of September and October are often equated with limited opportunities for work, and at times transportation hardships due to flooding, which can be a major financial burden on residents here in Guanacaste Costa Rica. With this added stress, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed. The negative health effects, both physical and emotional, that result from stress around money have...

As previously published in The Costa Rica Star last month, Hard Rock Cafe will be opening a location in Guanacaste Costa Rica, either Playas del Coco or Tamarindo. Which follows on the coat tails of a planned multi-million dollar marina project in the area. According to Gustavo Araya, a partner of the Hard Rock Cafe franchise in Costa Rica, the possibility of opening one of the firm’s restauran...

Four youths united by a passion for surf are making waves online with creative videos and images that promote the Costa Rican surf culture as well as creating awareness of environmental initiatives like the Costas Verdes reforestation program in Playa Hermosa and in Playa Guiones. The co-founders of Gallo Pinto TV are “Tití” Enrique Uribe Herrera, Daniel Berrocal Ferris, Kevin Woodbridge an...

Source: ANDRÉS GARITA, La Nacion It has been 192 years since the final defeat of the Spanish in the Mexican War of Independence (1810-1821) when the authorities in Guatemala declared the independence of all of Central America. And so now, every year a flaming torch is carried from Guatemala starting on Sept. 11 all the way to the former colonial capital of Costa Rica in Cartago, symbolizing th...

Without skipping a beat after being crowned Miss Costa Rica on July 12, Fabiana Yanory Granados Herrera is gearing up to compete for Miss Universe on November 9 in Russia. Fabiana, age 23, was born in Nicoya and grew up in Hojancha, and although she now lives in San Jose to study and prepare for pageants, she comes home to Guanacaste every chance she gets, usually on weekends to spend time with...

Source: Facebook The death of a pizzeria owner in a sleepy beach town in Costa Rica has many expats wondering what may have happened to the 36-year old man. Jose Elkin Gomez Sanchez had been missing since Thursday, August 15th, when Costa Rica was busy celebrating Mother's Day and the Feast of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary. His body was found floating off Playa Flamingo, province of Guanac...

If you would like The Costa Rica Star to cover your business press release, please contact us. Stay at Peninsula Papagayo, Play Four Seasons Costa Rica Golf, Relax in the Privacy of Your Own Luxury Vacation Rental. Papagayo Luxury announces fall promotion for their private vacation home rentals at Peninsula Papagayo, Costa Rica: -Stay 7 nights, pay for 6 (valid Sep 1- Nov 14, 2013) -St...

At 3 p.m., the traditional Annexation Tope horse parade began a tour of the main streets of Nicoya, amidst a very festive mood and passion for the equine culture, organized by the Nicoya Riders Association (ASOCANI). This is the eighth consecutive year that ASOCANI has handled the planning. Ronald Montero, vice president, said this year around 400 riders successfully participated from Hojancha...

At 9:00 a.m. on Monday, July 22, Nicoya's streets were filled with movement and color during the typical parade of cultural emblems organized by the Ministry of Security and the Ministry of Education, which included a float devoted to foods. This activity was a favorite of Nicoyans, and hundreds of people enjoyed the event along the main streets of the city center, some even walking along with ...

Everyone who has been diving out of Playas del Coco, Costa Rica has their own story. Whether it is seeing the biggest sea turtle you have ever seen come out of a hidden canyon on the back side of the Bat Islands, coming upon a group of adolescent Humpback Whales with their Mother calling in the distance out at Santa Elena Point, being engulfed by a huge school of fish only to have them ins...

Renting golf carts to enjoy your vacation or for an alternative transportation method instead of a car, is becoming a very popular option for people who come to Playas del Coco Beach. When you get into town from the Liberia International Airport or the San Jose International Airport, as you come down the main road to the beach, you will see a few companies that provide rentals. We will list th...

After living in San José for almost all my life (30 years) I decided that it was time for a change. I was tired of being in traffic jams for hours, breathing all the smoke from the cars, listening to people honking about everything, fighting for parking space at the shopping mall and all the stress that cities bring with them. I started to look for a job in the area of Guanacaste and I found a ...

Playas del Coco is one of the more well known beach towns in the country for both locals and tourists. Although it is one of the smaller beaches in the Guanacaste region, it is still full of nightlife and activities to do such as scuba diving, sport fishing, and snorkeling along with many bars and restaurants. During the main holidays such as New Year and Easter, Playas del Coco becomes packed wi...

Nosara’s popular fiestas are fast approaching and this year there are some new additions. One of the most exciting is the construction of a motocross track next to the bull ring. The track, built in one week, is 1.3 kilometers long, and the course includes the classic obstacles, although this particular track has the advantage of being completely level ground. In addition, it has some small s...