During our trip, we spent all of our time in small, mainly rural towns – a vast contrast to the bustling urban environment in and around where we live in the Washington D.C. region. However, despite almost literally being in a different world, there were some interesting similarities in how people get around.

Tourism is one of the primary industries in Costa Rica, and promoting tourism in a sustainable way is a big part of that. Nearly everywhere we went, we encountered eco-friendly initiatives: green hotels, locally sourced food, wind-farms, human-powered mobility. Costa Ricans are keenly aware of their environmental impact, and focused on preserving the natural beauty and balance of their various ecosystems.

Admittedly, we did most of our traveling via rental car. We visited several interesting destinations, a couple of which were difficult to access. Having a car gave us the flexibility to see the country on our own terms – and the added challenge of navigating an unknown area on our own. In each destination, we tried to leave the car behind and explore local areas by foot or via tourist vanpools.

Here are a few observations about transportation, and life in general, in Costa Rica:

GPS is Your Friend. This is the first thing I noticed about Costa Rica. At least in the rural areas we visited – wayfinding information is very lacking. Roads and intersections are unmarked. Several times, were it not for our GPS unit, we would not even have known the name of the sleepy town we were driving through. Luckily, in many situations, the road we were on was literally the ONLY road to our destination, so it was easy to keep on course. Also – an added bonus, in certain areas, pavement is optional! As far as traffic-reducing strategies go, I don’t think I’ve seen anything that works as well as gravel and potholes. On our way to Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve, we drove for more than an hour on unpaved, winding roads, and only saw two or three other cars.

Take Your Time. One of the great things I noticed during our travels was that the pace of life in general seemed to be slower. People in Costa Rica just aren’t in a hurry the way most of us are in the U.S. This was evidenced by slower speeds on roads, and more “active” transportation. Even on major roads, like the Pan American Highway, there is only one lane of traffic in each direction, and speeds rarely exceed 50 miles per hour.

Costa Ricans are PALs. Arlington’s initiative to increase awareness for safe cycling and walking encourages people to be Predictable, Alert and Lawful (PAL) when interacting with cars, buses, bikes and pedestrians. In Costa Rica, PAL seemed to come naturally, as many drivers were more than willing to slow down as narrow roads became crowded with walkers, bicyclists, and bus stops overflowed with Ticos waiting for a Colectivo to the next town. Safety is even emphasized on the ubiquitous motorbikes on Costa Rican roads, with operators required by law to wear a reflective yellow vest.

Get on the Bus. In Costa Rica, most people don’t have their own cars. While outside of San Jose and Liberia, most towns are small enough to be traversed by foot or bike, getting between towns is another story. Costa Rica has a very efficient and comprehensive bus system, with nearly every town getting at least one bus connection daily. Perhaps more importantly – most rides are $2 or less, even to a city 100 miles away. Imagine a daily public bus from Front Royal, Virginia, out in the Shenandoah, to Arlington? Even remote Monteverde, at the end of a 45-mile gravel road, had daily bus service going to San Jose, Tilaran, and Puntarenas.

Coati Crossing. More than once we were stopped by packs of small animals, called Coati, that had wandered onto local roads. Most cars were more than willing to wait while these little guys took their time crossing or looking for food. Another benefit of a slower pace of life – taking time to stop and see the animals.

Submitted by Brett Jones of Mobility Lab

People are what make living in another country a positive experience, or a bad one. Here in Costa Rica, it’s made up of small communities all over the country and they’re never short of smiles and waves as you make your way through them.

It has a warm ‘hometown’ feeling and its filled with people who don’t have a care in the world.

I’ve heard so many stories from Expats when they were broken down in the middle of nowhere, only to be picked up by a Tico family, taken in, fed and assisted until they could make arrangements to get back on the road again.

There are many countries you can visit that simply look away like you don’t exist; especially if you happen to be an American. That just doesn’t sound inviting to me.

Ticos make Costa Rica the exceptional country and experience that it is.

Your surroundings makes all the difference

There’s nothing quite like waking up in morning to the sound of monkeys, toucans and thousands of other creatures that began singing come daylight. It really is magical and satisfying to wake up in a beautiful country and experience things you just don’t see in your home country; other than on your favorite TV show, or the zoo.

There’s something to be said for living a simple life surrounded by a tropical paradise. Peace, tranquility, beauty, peace of mind and a place where creativity seems to thrive. Most of all its a region of the world that ooze’s freedom and opportunity and it’s a good distance away from divisiveness, anguish and fear that seem to have most of our North American neighbors in their grip.

Doing business in Costa Rica

The experience you have living and doing business in Costa Rica will ultimately be determined by your attitude and your actions.

Let’s face it, business does not drive the Costa Rica mindset. Things don’t happen quite as quickly as they do in the U.S. or Canada. If you can adapt and accept the culture, you can have your cake and eat it too!

If you do most of your work over the internet, you won’t notice most of the inconveniences, such as getting a corporation established or opening a bank account. These two things alone can take a week or more; something that takes less than a day in the U.S.

As far as doing business in Costa Rica, it can be challenging. Some (most) employees can have that ‘pura vida’ mindset, which seemingly gives them the choice of coming into work, or not. If something comes up that seems more important, you’ll certainly know about it; but only after they don’t show up.

There are established laws and regulations that govern how business is done the country, so I recommend following them. Many Expats don’t have patience, so they pay ‘tips’ to connected people (so they say) to get stuff done at various levels in government.

You will be blown away at how many Tico’s you meet who are related to the President!

The only problem with this is, when election time comes around and your connections are replaced, the new folks coming notice irregularities and that can cost you dearly.

Avoid people doing business in manner like the plague. Do things properly if your going to do any kind of business or investing in Costa Rica. Most Expats who get caught in a lurch are usually the ones who tried to take shortcuts.

Living a life of adventure

There’s something about traveling to a new country and setting up shop to get business done that is just plain cool. There’s a sense of adventure everyday that inspires and unlocks your creativity like nothing else can.

There’s a sense of freedom that comes along with it too, something Costa Rica provides very well. With North America becoming a police state to protect all its citizens (what a crock), there’s something to be said for not seeing a police car for days or never hearing any sirens.

Everyday is an adventure in Costa Rica. There’s something here for the whole family to enjoy. You have thousands of miles of the most beautiful beaches in the world and the most majestic mountain communities you’ve ever seen.

Safety comes first

I’ve lived in some of the biggest cities in the U.S.; New York, Los Angeles, Miami, etc. and Costa Rica feels safer than any of them. Sure there area’s at night you don’t go in; but there are area’s in the U.S. you don’t go in broad daylight, or you’ll get your butt shot off.

I’ve always felt safe here, whereas some places in the U.S., I feel anything but safe!

I’ve never been robbed here, but I did have my car broken into at my home, which had a 9′ security wall around it. That didn’t feel very good, but overall, I think I’ve been pretty lucky.

The biggest crime that plagues Costa Rica is petty theft. If its left unattended, whatever that may be, it will be gone. If you use your head, lock things up and keep your stuff secure, you shouldn’t have any problems.

Any country you decide to call home that is not your home country will have challenges. It’s not the easiest thing in the world to do, or as they say, “everybody would be doing it.”

In the grand scheme of things most will never experience a world outside of the one they live in now, so if you’re thinking of living the unplugged lifestyle, Costa Rica might be a good option to explore; it’s sure to be the experience of a lifetime!

As they say in Costa Rica – “Pura Vida!” (Pure Life)

Source: MarkHarai.com

Undisclosed Pacific Coast Location

6:22am

It’s early enough that even the guard isn’t at his post yet. After about 10 minutes of driving through a series of shallow ponds wrongly called a road, we’re at the access gate. We’ve already ignored one “No public access” sign, what’s a unmanned guard shack? It’s not as bad as I think, the driver has already called ahead. We pull up to a government run ranger station and I unload my gear quickly while the others check in with the park rangers.

“He’s writing an article.” Fingers point at me. I am?

“I am.”

Clearly my status as a reporter has been slightly (or grossly) overstated but I’m carrying a bunch of gear which always lends credibility. I’m really here to get video of baby turtles for my client, who will use the footage to support conservation efforts.

I’m not about to blow it on account of a lack of clarification.

I keep my head down and look busy unpacking before anyone asks any questions about my credentials.

6:26am

A gentlemen appears carrying a 5 gallon bucket and dryly states:

“…But there’s a problem.”

Uh-oh.

“The tide is up and you will get your shoes and pants wet.”

Before he’s done speaking my shoes are off and am unzipping my pants into shorts (I suspected this might happen so I wore convertible pants). I prefer the beach barefoot rather than have shoes full of sand anyway. The same gentlemen who shows such concern for our shoes points to his bucket: “Here are the turtles.”

I take a quick peek and am shocked to find 100 wriggling newborn Olive Ridley sea turtles. It seems rather unceremonious, but I trust no harm is being done.

6:32am

The sun has been up for a while but the light is still a little flat (not much contrast), our portly guide charges ahead of us with his 5 gallon bucket. I hang back a bit trying to get some “dramatic” scenes of him leaving a trail of footprints in the sand. In retrospect though, there is nothing graceful or dramatic about a middle-aged man wearing rubber boots trudging through wet sand carrying a bucket. Try it you’ll see what I mean. Plus the footage ends up all foggy anyway since my gear spent the night in air-conditioning and the sea breeze instantly condenses on the lens.

6:35am

Our guide draws a line in the sand about 20 meters from the water line. The turtles need a bit of space to get their bearings so they can make their way back later in life. They are removed one by one from the bucket (wearing latex gloves so as not to contaminate them). They come out flapping oversized flippers with amazing ferocity, desperation even. They are painfully cute. Once on the sand they don’t head straight for the water but sort of wander around in fitful burst before finally heading towards the surf.

It’s quite difficult to keep the camera steady and the two inch turtles in manual focus while not interfering with any of them. I manage to get some nice footage while narrowly avoiding a wave or two splashing onto the camera.

As amazing an experience as it is, my version is a bit anesthetized since I live it through the view screen on my camera with a head full of settings and trying to keep things in focus. It’s something I’m glad I got to see since most folks aren’t allowed.

6:51am

The babies are on their way to a sadly low survival rate in the water and our guide turns his attention to a nest he’s spotted. He expertly digs up the rubbery eggs and puts them in a plastic grocery bag (again it seems somewhat unceremonious). He carries the bag gently—no swaying allowed—to the nursery.

7:06am

Fenced off and laid out in a grid, dozens of transplanted nests await their moment protected from any number of predators. After drawing a diagram for our edification he recreates a nest with the requisite shape and reburies the eggs.

7:22am

The term translates to exhumation. I’m instantly not a fan of the word. Too many negative implications in English. It means digging up a nest that has recently hatched to find any stragglers. We find a few survivors while as tallying up the ones that didn’t make it and the eggs that stopped forming in different stages of development. It feels like the icky part of biology class or Discovery channel. I get footage that probably won’t be used.

7:40

Back out on the beach we find a disturbed nest. It might have been an animal, but after closer inspection: “People…people stole the eggs.”

Fortunately there are people who save them as well. People who work crazy hours without enough pay or the equipment they need. Volunteers too. What I saw isn’t really allowed in order to protect the turtles, but I just can’t help but think that if it were allowed it might be helpful to the cause. What might someone pay to have a one in a million experience?

I won’t say I was stunned, but I admit to being surprised when I read the following story in Reuters: Panama leader tells Germany he wants to adopt euro.

Anybody who follows the news at all has undoubtedly read about the problems in Greece regarding their participation in the European Economic Union, and you probably have heard dire predictions about the future of the euro due to problems in Greece, along with problems in Spain, Portugal and Italy.

So, it sounds pretty strange that Panama, which currently uses the US dollar (along with some of it’s own currency tied to the dollar) wants to adopt the euro as legal currency along with the US dollar.

Why in the world would Panama want anything to do with the euro? Do I know? No, but I am willing to speculate.

Sadly, Panamanian president Martinelli gives no reason, but simply said “In Panama the currency in free circulation is the American dollar and I told the chancellor we are looking for ways for the euro to become another currency of legal circulation and to be accepted in the Panamanian market.”

So what is my take on it?

For what it’s worth, Martinelli’s statement is less about the euro than the US dollar. Panama hitched its economic wagon to the US dollar since it came into existence in 1903. The very existence of the country of Panama is a result of the United States wanting to build a canal across the isthmus, which was, until late 1903, a part of Colombia. With the backing of the United States, Panama declared its independence, allowing the US Army Corps of Engineers to begin work on the Panama Canal.

For more than a hundred years, Panama has been using the US dollar. Now, for some reason, they want to include the euro as legal tender, even though the future of the euro is in doubt. If you’re scratching your head, I can’t blame you.

My own take on this is that President Martinelli’s statement is more a reflection of his fear regarding the US dollar than his faith in the euro.

Depending on how much you pay attention to such things, you may or may not have heard the term ‘quantitative easing.’ I suspect you almost certainly aware of the size of the national debt in the United States, or at least the fact that it is worrisome to a LOT of people. ‘Quantitative easing’ is what the Federal Reserve is doing, theoretically, to fight the current recession. To oversimplify the term, it means the Fed is printing a lot of money. When a country prints a lot of money, the VALUE of that currency tends downward.

Panama, tied as it is to the US dollar, is at the mercy of US economic policy. Wherever you are on the political spectrum, it’s likely that you have serious reservations about the direction of the US economy. I could go into a lot of detail but that’s not the point of this article. The point is simply that one of Costa Rica’s two neighbors would seem to be nervous about the US dollar, and would like to hedge it’s (gigantic) bet on the US dollar.

The dollar has been losing value against the lowly Costa Rica colon for quite a while. To put it another way, the currency of a semi-third world country has gained value against the currency of the world’s largest economy. If you want to think this is because Costa Rica is managing its finances so well, so be it. If you believe it’s more that the US is being mismanaged, then we have something we agree on. We may disagree on what should be done, but I think we can agree there is a problem.

In Costa Rica, we see steady inflation creeping. My Social Security isn’t buying as much as it used to, but it’s out of my hands. One thing I am looking into are certificates of deposit denominated in Costa Rican colones. I can get 9% return on them. I do know that the interest I get on my savings account in the States is well under 1%. Unless the dollar makes a gain against the colon next year, or the nationally insured banks here explode, a Costa Rican CD will outperform a US CD by a mile.

Source: NocalCostaRica.com

Costa Rica is quickly becoming one of Central America’s hubs for all things design. There are a growing number of design education initiatives that have seemed to gain some momentum in the past few years by the local creative community.

This year, Costa Rican designers have launched a national sketching workshop in their home country. They call it Sketching Lab Costa Rica. It’s a 3-day, intensive workshop that focuses on the development of rapid visualization and the most effective ways to visually communicate your ideas as a creative. The workshop follows the principles of the sketch aerobics that uses music and the very basic elements in drawing to promote learning by doing.

The 3-day workshop kicked off at the end of August and brought in 70+ participants. The event was led by Costa Rican designers Jóse Gamboa of Slingshot Product Development Group and Joey Zeledón of Smart Design and was organized by Mario Ramírez and David Melendez of Plex Studio.

The first day of the event was focused on rudimentary form development and drawing in perspective. It was held at the National Museum of Gold “Museo del Oro” in San José, Costa Rica. The museums exhibit features many ancient artifacts and objects from the pre-Columbian era that gave the participants inspiration during sketching breakout sessions.

Day 2 focused on biomimicry. Held at INBio Park (National Biodiversity Institute of Costa Rica) in Heredia, Costa Rica. This bio diverse oasis is home to poison dart frogs, butterflies, iguanas, sloths, caimans, birds, turtles and snakes, among many others. The participants were given the task of choosing either a plant or animal and translating its characteristics into a shoe design. The participants were encouraged to sketch an evolution of translation. In other words, to show how the plant or animals characteristics could be integrated into a shoe design literally and abstractly.

Day 3 was focused on refinement of visual communication and problem solving skills. Held in an inspiring renovated church at Ave del Paraiso Hotel. The participants had the opportunity to summarize all learned techniques in a final exercise where they implemented perspective, composition and biomimicry to create concepts for their personal projects. The final results amazed all the participants because they were able to see all the improvements that they had made during their participation in the Sketching Lab and recognized the value of constant practice. They also had a demonstration of 3D modeling and 3D printing solutions based on a design that was chosen from the participants on the first day of the workshop.

These workshops are a great opportunity to improve visual communication skills, all while exploring Costa Rica’s beautiful and inspirational environment. As guest speakers, we were impressed by the punctuality and thirst for knowledge that the participants demonstrated. It was a pleasure to be part of this event and we hope
to continue the Sketching Lab as an annual workshop.

Source: Core77.com

One appealing aspect of moving to a place where you don’t speak the language is you no longer have to hear anything stupid. Living in New York City, where strangers rub elbows and ears together, means that you are constantly overhearing cell phone conversations, 90 percent of which constitute of “I dunno, where do you feel like eating?” and what passes for bon mots on the subway (“No azzhole, you step back”). There was also the ongoing dread of flipping TV channels, with a thumb never quite quick enough to avoid all mentions of “that hilarious photo of Katy Perry,” how Vinny made Snookie cry, Beyonce’s buckwild moves, or how an 11 year old girl in need of heart and liver transplants killed a 335 pound bear. (No, really! It’s true! She did!)

So the idea of retiring in Costa Rica, land of jungle, beaches, poison dart frogs and two-toed sloths, was further enhanced by knowing we’d be able to ignore the conversations around us. If two Ticos were debating “Hot or Not” about Laura Chincilla, the Costa Rican President, we’d be blissfully unaware.

But 99 percent of my friends here are Tico, and being unable to communicate beyond tourist Spanish (“Hello, how are you? Where is the bathroom? I have been robbed…”) was a big drawback.

When we needed to retrieve some cajas (boxes) we’d shipped down from NYC, I said I had seven faces (caras) I needed to pick up in San Jose. A strangely entertaining bit of performance art ensued as my friend Ronaldo pantomimed the act of transporting seven faces in his banana truck, while I tried to communicate where the faces were being stored, and how large and heavy they were.

How were other ex-pats faring?

One guy we know communicates primarily in onomatopoeia, dented-brain English, and made-up Spanish: “Yo, is neccisario for me a… boom boom boom.. ya? Mmm, pop-a-pop-a-popa? Es possiblay? Cabish?” He accompanies this with an ambitious little finger puppet show, and one can only imagine what the listener might be thinking: “Oh, the Itsy Bitsy spider? Went up the water spout? I see…”

Some ex-pats simply speak English with a Spanish accent ala Speedy Gonzalez, the Frito Bandito or El Kabong: “I luff leefing in joo country…” “Ees thees jour poosycat?” “Looosey, I’m ho-oome!”

Clearly, we needed to get going on our Spanish; shunned by Ticos while avoiding fellow-expats like Grim Death itself was no way to live.

We started with the basics, thanks to a Pimsleur CD (“I enjoy the broad promenades of Madrid! Do you have sardines in a can?”) But the best lessons came from day to day experience.

From my baseball team I learned broad, useful, everyday terms like “Bunt,” “Don’t swing,” “Why are you limping?” and “Do you need a seeing eye dog to help you out in left field?” Gay’s yoga class is in Spanish, and she can hardly wait for the opportunity to tell someone, “Open your heart and lower your hips.”

My teammates were also helpful in teaching me how to curse. Now, I grew up in New York City, the cursing capital of the world, a veritable Mecca for the potty-mouthed. A place to which men, women and children from all over the world come to curse each other out in ways they might only have dreamed possible at home. “Your mother to fc*king a pickle then, you!!” “Go! Go f*cking a new goat, guy!!” “Why you don’t go back to your own country, nosebag!!?” Cursing in a foreign language, like telling a joke, can be a tricky proposition. So despite my teammates’ coaching, I keep it simple, puta. And I keep that mierde in the dugout where it belongs.

Numbers should have been simple enough. But if something costs, let’s say, 4,250 colones, that number might be expressed as 42-50, 42 hundred 50, or 4 thousand 2 hundred and 50. On paper, no problem; but when you’re standing in the store with a line of people behind you and the cashier mumbles something like quatromilledoscientoscinquenta and it sounds like quatromillcan’tyouevencountyoustupidstupidgringo, it’s a bit nerve-wracking.

If you use a larger bill (yeah, this should cover it) to avoid looking like a dope, eventually you end up with about 84 pounds of change, and the storekeepers hate you for always paying for your 75 cent ice cream bar with the equivilant of a $20 bill. Learn your numbers.

When it comes to functional communication it’s all about stringing sentences together, and when it comes to sentences, it’s conjugate or die. We’re still on life support, having only conquered the infinitive. Here’s a taste of our sparkling conversation.

I to go.
I to eat it yesterday.
To look! Frog!

Now we’re the people whose overheard conversations make others cringe.

I’m still lost with regard to the whole gender thing (the mountain’s a girl, the poem’s a guy…), and tend to issue odd breathy throaty sounds where my els or las should be… or simply drop them completely. So I see moon, I like bike, I am imbecile.

But I to work on it!

Source: HuffingtonPost.com

An open letter to the honorable Sir Richard Branson and Jose Maria Figueres Olson, from Shawn Larkin, one of the most sincere animal activists in Costa Rica.

I have raised my family on Costa Rican seas. The oceans sustain and provide for us everyday. So, I would like to thank you deeply for your most excellent support of saving sharks in this green country embracing blue. Having outstanding world citizens such as both of you, sets the example for the rest of the world to take notice.

That’s why I think you would like to know about how Costa Rican dolphins of the Osa Peninsula need saving as well. Videos and photos of the giant groups of dolphins here show numbers of animals unequaled by any known media (see video below). Unlike anywhere known around the world, dolphin superpods can be found offshore in Costa Rica at the Osa peninsula all year round.

The dolphins are being killed by nets and lines.

Like large land animals, large sea animals need large areas of protection to survive. A pelagic ecosystem park for offshore Osa Peninsula would not only save the largest known resident dolphin pods, but also myriad other marine life, including sharks. This pelagic nursery would benefit all of Costa Rica and indeed, all denizens of our planet.

I urge you to dive into the challenge of speaking up for the dolphin superpods of the Osa Peninsula, Costa Rica.

This petition online has over 2000 signatures in support of creating a dolphin protection zone for the Osa Peninsula.

http://www.change.org/petitions/costa-rica-stop-killing-osa-dolphins-and-make-a-pelagic-dolphin-superpod-park

And this web page has much more information about this crucial mission…

http://www.costacetacea.com/bluewaterpelagicpark.html

Respectfully yours,

Shawn Larkin Strunz Oreamuno
Drake Bay
Osa Peninsula
Costa Rica

The terrain here in Costa Rica varies sometimes from foot step to foot step. You can drastically change your elevation in just a few minutes. The composition of the soil is just as varied. The piece of land down by our river has a beautiful dark, wormy soil while the orange soil at the top of the hill crumbles underneath your shoes. When we plant food and flowers we have to take into consideration what the nutrient requirements are for each plant. In most cases, we need to haul soil from the riverbank and mix it in during planting. It’s not as hard as it sounds when you have help.

When we decided on growing coffee our reading suggested that coffee normally only grows at higher elevations. A great coffee bean is grown on the side of a volcano at about 2000 ft elevation with clearly defined rainy and dry seasons. Our farm is only 300 ft above sea level at its highest point and summer last year was from April to July versus July through September this year, basically anything goes when it comes to weather here. I walked to the store one day and it was raining in town and it was dry as a bone back on the farm. So, we set out to find a coffee plant that would meet our unique requirements.

We heard of an Indian couple that was growing coffee in an enviroment much like ours. They lived just on the next ridge and they had some starts for sale. They didn’t have a road going up to their place so we would have to walk in. It took us a little while to find our way and we had to follow the sound of a dog to get us to the house. There we met this lovely couple.

They have their food interplanted beautifully. The bananas shade their coffee plants, the ginger is shaded by cacao trees and the corn is in the open spots. They have fruit trees that are the size of our house if not bigger. We took a long walk around while we were inspecting the health of the coffee plants and listening to the man’s stories. He had a lot of questions for us about the United States. They asked us about snow, which is a common question for us here. It makes me miss a cold winter day on the farm in Indiana everytime I am asked to describe it.

The plants were in great condition and just looking at the beans made me thirsty. We decided to buy 30 starts.

The woman and I went to the house while the men discussed the price. We have found that in this part of the country, especially on a farm, the men take care of the business. I had already told the husband what to pay so it didn’t bother me. Maria showed me drawings done by her granddaughter that lived in the city. She said that her daughter was very busy and didn’t visit much. I had a difficult time understanding everything she said but she looked proud while talking about her family.

When the men finally came to an agreement on $2 a plant I was summoned to start picking out the ones I wanted. I wanted signs of growth, but nothing root-bound.

We planted our coffee directly across from where our house will be up on the hill. We didn’t prepare the area for planting. We simply made holes directly where the plants were placed. The organic material left around the plants will slowly decompose adding nutrients and less pests will be attracted to them because they are camoflauged. They get dappled sunlight throughout the day and are protected from heavy winds and rains. Hopefully, my next coffee post will include the bright red coffee “cherries”, how we roast the beans and us enjoying our first cup!

You can read the original article and check out more HD pictures on 10DegreesAbove.com.

Tucked away somewhere in Río Segundo in Alajuela, behind veiled chain link fencing and sporting nearly no signs is The Ara Project.

Between my unfamiliarity with the area and Tico-style directions it might have been easier just to roll down the window and listen. 200 macaws squawking carries a pretty long way…

Chris Castle opens the gate and I finally meet what was had been just a voice on the phone with a funny island accent (I couldn’t determine if Aussie or Kiwi). He’s upbeat, happy and thankful that someone (the gentlemen who hired me to take video) has taken an interest in the project. If you didn’t know better you might mistake Chris for a surfer. He’s tall, with piercing blue eyes, 3 days of stubble, an old t-shirt and blond dreadlocks. It takes less than five minutes of conversation to know that he’s no smoked out bum seduced by lazy afternoons in the sun and too much ‘pura vida.’ In fact he’s the accidental heir to the project after the original founders passed away.

His co-conspirator in conservation, Jenny Pettigrew, pops up a couple of minutes later, just as cheerful, though slightly less unkempt, and sporting the same accent: New Zealand we are informed. Both have degrees in biology from Kiwi Universities, and since there are no programs to study macaw husbandry anywhere I’m guessing that makes them some of the world experts on the subject.

They show us around the property and let us in the cages while explaining how they take care of the birds during the nearly year-long pre-release process, what they eat and where they finally release them. At one point as I’m filming, two young macaws begin playing with Chris’ hair (I nearly drop the camera when one decides to do the same to me) while he just keeps talking. He’s in his element, passionately so. He’s so passionate that he only takes 3 days off every 3 months in order to renew his tourist visa. Jenny does the same. They don’t make enough to apply for permanent residency despite doing this for years.

Over coffee and home-made chocolate muffins, Chris and Jenny explain how their social life revolves around the volunteers that come through (there’s never enough), that the money they make from tours to foreigners doesn’t even cover the costs of feeding the birds, never mind paying themselves properly (they have very supportive parents). They do have local support though. A prominent local family helps with funding while a Canadian woman helps find them furniture, second hand fridges and microwaves. Tico volunteers help regularly as well, one woman even cooks certain food for the birds over a fireplace on the farm.

So much self-sacrifice and dedication aren’t enough to overcome some of the problems they are facing. Their regular monthly funding will stop in March 2013 and the property that has been home to macaws for some 30 years is for sale (fortunately it’s overpriced). A hotel in Punta Islita, where they release birds, has donated land, but they need quite a bit of money to build the infrastructure for birds and humans. I guess the macaws have plenty of reason to squawk.

Maybe they just need someone to squawk and make some noise for them. If the foreign soccer players can get high-level meetings with immigration officials, surely these two should get their papers. I don’t know if the president has the power to grant citizenship for meritorious activity but at minimum I’m betting she can speed things along for residency. A little Internet shame goes a long way in a small country.

So here’s the deal, if you’re friends with an ambassador (or better yet you ARE an ambassador), have a sister-in-law in immigration, make their case known. Plus this presidency could use a win, this could be one.

We need to get more folks on board in general to help the macaw cause. As I mentioned there will be a fund-raising campaign featuring the video I took as well as an art contest called the Amistad Prize which is looking for sponsors (local artists depicting the effects of deforestation). I don’t have a ton of details on either but I will try to keep you all posted or you can stop by my website (see more pictures too!) or my Facebook and I will put you in touch. Thanks for helping if only by sharing this article.

The Tico Times is a long standing tradition here in Costa Rica, and the rest of Central America. They have been regarded as a pillar of English language media for many decades. However, The Tico Times is not the oldest English language newspaper in Costa Rica, that honour goes to The News founded in 1897. We know how The Tico Times likes to claim they are the oldest, but that is simply not true. With the end of their print newspaper publication, marks the beginning of a new era, or late adoption of a global trend happening in all countries, depending on how you look at it.

If you read the article that was published on their website yesterday, you will get a sense that the people managing The Tico Times are somewhat bitter at the need to make this drastic decision, though it has been blatantly obvious over the last few years that the newspaper is getting thinner and containing less useful information. A reader of The Costa Rica Star mentioned that they liked The Tico Times for the crossword puzzles, but other then that, it was a mystery how the print publication survived until 2012.

Here at The Costa Rica Star, we have not been around for that long, launching in December of 2011 and quickly gaining attention with our original content, aggregation, and Blog publishing strategy. Somewhat like a Central American micro-version of The Huffington Post. From day one our strategy has been smart phone content optimization and focusing on reasonable quality hand picked news topics, not trying to play copy cat and publish what everyone else is publishing in Costa Rica. We consider ourselves to be a “discovery platform” meaning that we do not reinvent the wheel, but take the best of global news media related to Central America, filter it down, and ensure it hits the homepage of The Costa Rica Star in one format or another.

In the past The Costa Rica Star reached out to The Tico Times via email twice to try and create communication channels that would lead to us working together positively. However, these emails were never returned, which makes us feel less sorry for the fact that The Tico Times is down-sizing their infrastructure. Media businesses have to be willing to at least listen to what others have to say in the same industry, keeping a closed ear and mind leads to isolating your business. Standing alone in the digital publishing of news media is never a good strategy in 2012, even if The Costa Rica Star is the new kid on the block.

If you look at the homepage of Nacion.com or CRHoy.com, they contain news from a Reuters, Associated Press, or a similar feed. This is the concept of taking your original content, and augmenting it with the information provided elsewhere, to ensure your readers get a sound experience consuming your news publication online. It is nearly impossible to publish all articles as unique content written in house by staff writers, that is an old school way of thinking. Crowdsourcing topics and content using social media is very important and often proves more timely then traditional data gathering techniques.

In the last month another leading English news media website in Costa Rica (InsideCostaRica.com) was acquired by a very business savvy investor, Timothy Williams, whose writings have often been seen in publications like the New York Times. He is going to take InsideCostaRica.com far away from its publishing past. Near the end of the article that was published yesterday by The Tico Times they mentioned that the competing media websites in Costa Rica plagiarize content, which may have been true in the past, but shows how disconnected and uneducated the management is with day to day industry trends. The new InsideCostaRica.com is nothing like we have ever seen before, and all of us at The Costa Rica Star consider InsideCostaRica.com to be the most likely to take the crown for top English news publication covering Costa Rica. Seriously, check out their homepage every day for the next week and you will see what we are talking about.

If anything can be learned from what is happening at The Tico Times it is that change is the only constant in life (and business).

If you run a business for many decades doing it the same way, while the industry changes around you, eventually you will fail. Every day on the internet a new technology or publishing method is created, not all of them are necessary to use right away, but you have to be aware of the coming tide and make calculated timely changes to stay afloat. In the not to distant future, with the rise of smart phone usage in Costa Rica, we may even see Nacion.com publishing only digital.

We welcome your thoughts, comments, and opinions using the comment feature below. All the best to The Tico Times and their digital publishing strategy moving forward.

When trying to find cars, real estate, jobs, and other products or services in Costa Rica (and Central America) it often proves to be difficult.

Everyone knows about Craigslist, however it lacks the quality that a fully managed classifieds service has. Many of the listings on Craigslist are spam or opportunists looking to take advantage of people.

Another option here in Costa Rica is Encuentra24.com which is a solid classifieds service, however you have to pay for prominent placement and the listing process takes longer then it should.

Here at The Costa Rica Star we are happy to announce that we have a new Costa Rica Classifieds free listing service, to buy, sell, and trade your products or services.

All of the listings in our new classifieds section will be watched closely to protect against duplicate postings and opportunists.

The classifieds section is fully automated and very easy to use. You can flag listings at the bottom to bring them to our attention if you see anything unsavoury while browsing or creating listings. You can upload pictures, detailed descriptions, link to a website, and your privacy is protected using a contact form system so your email is never displayed.

During beta testing of The Costa Rica Star classifieds all of the listings are within one category in chronological order, however as the listing volume grows over the coming days, we will break this down into category specific listings to continually increase the user experience and save your time in finding what you are looking for. You can also use the search function to locate your desired product or service.

We hope that you decide to create a free listing with The Costa Rica Star classifieds.

Please visit news.co.cr/classifieds to get started and send us an email if you have any questions: classifieds(at)news.co.cr.

“We got sunlight on the sand, we got moonlight on the sea / We got mangos and bananas you can pick right off the tree…”

We have all of the above in Puerto Viejo, plus snorkeling, surfing, gorgeous beaches, wildlife to rival the Bronx Zoo, and one of the world’s most laid back cultures. What ain’t we got? Well…

Hot Water

Living on the Lower East Side of Manhattan in a building with a boiler that looked like Edison himself might have put it in was good preparation for Puerto Viejo — hot water heaters are about as common around here as mittens.

We do, however, have warmish showers thanks to a contraption affectionately known as the “suicide shower.” To use one you simply have to forget everything you were ever taught about water and electricity. Here, apparently, the two DO mix, as water for the shower flows freely through 110 volts of hot, glowing coil. Go ahead, step in, turn the metal handles, enjoy! (Just don’t touch that other part…)

Dishes get washed with room temp water and an abrasive cleanser called Axion (“Now with extra abrasiveness!”), which somehow gets about 50 percent of the dirt from the plates, while averaging a healthy 75 percent when it comes to removing the skin from your fingers. Laundry? The combination of weird, two-part, made-in-China washing machines and no hot water means that our clothes don’t ever get clean, just slowly, inexorably, shredded.

Good, Cheap Beer

I’d take either at this point. Good or cheap. We have neither. Imperial and Pilsen are the two big brewers in Costa Rica, Pura Vida’s answer to Budweiser and Miller. But they run a surprisingly high $9 a six, and a tall-neck Bud would be a Duval compared with these sad local contrivances. Imperial recently begun a promotion offering “33% Gratis.” I’m still trying to figure out if that’s a discount… or new ingredient.

Pick the piss you’d care to compare it with (cow? monkey? dog? cat? goat?) and you’ve got a fair fight. Follow up thought: Gay is from a dairy state and knows how easily cows are offended (“Mooo..? Have you ever actually tried our piss!!?”)… so let’s leave the cows out of it. I go with monkey.

Internet

The area of Costa Rica we live in was (is?) considered the hinterlands — and the 21st century is still slow on the come. Probably less than 10 percent of the houses have the landlines needed for high-speed WiFi, and it’s impossible to get ICE, the national phone company, to put in new lines around here. The reason for this state of affairs, we’ve been told, is the phone company has run out of numbers. Shall I repeat that? Nah. We’ll talk about misinformation a bit later on.

To get online, most people use a flash drive-looking thingy that feebly tries to connect our computer to a cell phone tower somewhere. If you are reading this online, the little stick that couldn’t has actually managed to make a connection. On a really good day, we can post on Facebook to let our friends know why we haven’t posted on Facebook. Skype calls drop like T-ball pop-ups, and it’s impossible to watch even a two-minute video on YouTube (so long, girl who loves every kind of cat!) Netflicks? Fuhgeddaboudit.

Of course, we didn’t move to Costa Rica to watch TV, but sometimes in the midst of a three-day downpour, it’d be nice to see something other than each other. We’ve heard that ICE will be releasing new numbers (hmm, let’s see; 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9… what?), but as in all small towns, rumors are bread and butter. The last bit of juice off the local rumor grapevine was that the greater Puerto Viejo area was seceding from Costa Rica to join Panama (A man, a plan, a canal, Puerto Viejo!)

Mostly, we read (assuming we’re lucky enough to grab a signal with strength enough to download books to the Kindle).

Accurate Information

Ain’t gonna happen. You’ve got about as much chance of finding out when something starts (ballgame? parade? party?) or where something is (doctor’s office? waterfall?) as you do of guessing how many jellybeans are in the giant jar. And this isn’t an issue of something being lost in translation. For whatever reason, no one ever seems to know… and no one will ever cop to that fact. It’s sort of the Unofficial Tico Way. Ask a man who does not know how to get to Bribri (the administrative capital), and the man who does not know will tell you anyway. “Sure, go that way! You are welcome! Pura vida!” and the next thing you know, you’re in Nicaragua.

ON THE OTHER HAND, here are some other things you don’t get when you get here: annoyed, hassled, stuck in traffic (unless there’s a sloth crossing), bored, behind schedule, over-worked or under pressure. Just todo bien… todo el tiempo.

Source: HuffingtonPost.com

I live in the Zaragoza region, one of the poorest areas in central El Salvador. We have limited economic development opportunities for our people, yet one of the highest rates of population density in the country. While grappling with poverty, our municipality must also deal with gang activity and school violence.

In order to respond to this situation, my school joined with 12 other schools to form a cluster under the Ministry of Education’s Integrated System for Full Time School (SI-EITP, its acronym in Spanish). SI-EITP is supported by USAID/El Salvador’s Strengthening Basic Education Program.

We share limited resources so that we can equitably offer educational and extracurricular services to all students, especially those who are at risk of joining a gang or dropping out of school. For example, my school shares its sports auditorium with all 1,670 students coming from those 12 schools. The group of schools provides extracurricular activities in areas such as technology, baking, dressmaking skills, school gardens, art, culture, sports and recreation. Because of these activities, our students are more excited to attend school and learn new skills.

Teachers are also using new resources, materials, and techniques like more group work that allow students to more actively participate in their lessons. The response from students has been very positive. The lessons have been so successful that students from the Barillo school, who previously had spotty attendance, said that they were excited to go to school each day.

And this integrated system doesn’t end at the school gate. Parents, teachers and school principals all participate in the school cluster. For instance, parents are walking to school with their children every day, as they need to cross dangerous areas where gangs are prevalent.

School principals are also working together in new ways. Because of SI-EITP, the principals of the Corralito and Canton Guadalupe schools collaborated to improve transportation for their students. As a result, 56 students who finished sixth grade, but did not have a secondary school close to their home, are now able to travel to neighboring secondary schools and continue their education.

With the support of the Ministry, USAID and its implementers, we have made a lot of progress but we must acknowledge the leadership of the students. When the educators were worried about gang clashes, the student governments mitigated our concerns. They formed a “Peace Band” with participants from all of the schools. Today the Peace Band has 300 members whose purpose is to promote healthy living and a culture of peace. We are proud to say that, not only are the student working hard to reach their own potential, they are showing real leadership skills and giving back to the community.

Source: USAid.gov

From exotic animals to mysterious Mayan ruins; don’t miss these six stops on a trip to this underestimated Central American country

1. Crooked Tree Wildlife Sanctuary

Crooked Tree is a village rich in Creole culture and a reserve with abundant bird life.

This is possibly one of the richest birding areas in Belize and Central America. It is recognised as a wetland of international importance and has the highest number of indigenous and migratory birds. The huge Jabiru stork (the world’s largest flying bird) is Crooked Tree’s most famous resident.

Plan to stay the night and be there at dawn when the birds are most active. Explore the inland waters of Crooked Tree Wildlife Sanctuary and experience the astounding diversity of birds and wildlife for which Belize is renowned… From northern jacanas, white ibis, and wood storks to the infamous Jabiru stork!

Head for the jungle during May – the best time of year for birdwatching – when the lagoon’s water level drops and the animals must stray further for their food.

2. Lamanai

Magnificent Maya ruins surrounded by dense jungle; accessible by boat.

The ancient Mayan city of Lamanai is on the New River Lagoon. Lamanai, which roughly translates to ‘Submerged Crocodile’, was one of the most important trading and ceremonial centres in the Caribbean lowlands. Occupied for over 3,000 years, from 1500 BC until 1600 AD, the ruins are unique as they illuminate a period of history that encompasses the early formative years of Mayan civilisation through to initial European contact and colonisation.

With structures ranging from pre-classic temples to the Spanish colonial-era, jungle trails, refreshing swimming holes, and an excellent on-site museum, Lamanai is one of the most charming of all the Mayan sites in Belize. Travel upriver and explore these ancient Maya ruins surrounded by jungle and accessible by boat. As you cruise the waterways, enjoy tremendous birding and wildlife opportunities, including iguana, parrots, toucan, aracari, and Morelet’s crocodile.

3. Lighthouse Reef and the Blue Hole

Made famous by Jacques Cousteau.

Lighthouse Reef is one of only four coral atolls in the Caribbean and home to the famous and unique Blue Hole. In 1972, Captain Jacques Cousteau and the intrepid crew of the Calypso explored and filmed this incredible atoll, showing its amazing underwater diversity to the world for the first time.

The Blue Hole is a mesmerising cenote – a water-filled limestone sinkhole – around 100m in diameter and at least 33m deep. It makes for a cool place to swim on the hottest days of the year.

4. Glover’s Reef

The diving here is about as good as it gets in the whole of the Atlantic. Protected as a Marine Reserve and a designated UNESCO World Heritage Site, Glover’s Reef has the greatest diversity of reef types of all the atolls in the Caribbean.

Divers can spot whale sharks, manta rays, black tip and hammerhead sharks, or corals of every colour and a range of fascinating marine fauna and flora.

Plus you can kip on Southwest Caye with Marine Basecamps, ideally located for snorkelling, sea kayaking, kayak sailing, diving and fishing. Sleep in comfortable, oceanfront tent cabanas and wake up to the cool sea breeze.

5. Five Blue Lakes National Park

Centred around an intensely blue lake, still unexplored but thought to be 200 feet deep.

Five Blue Lakes is a 10-acre natural wonder of earth and water, surrounded by over 4,000 acres of limestone hills and tropical forests. The varying water depth and ambient light filtering through the trees cause the water to take on remarkably different shades of blue, giving the lake its name. Five Blues is one of the newest parks in Belize so there are fewer visitors and you get a real feeling of unexplored terrain.

A total of 217 species of birds have been identified in the park and all five of Belize’s wildcats (jaguar, ocelot, mountain lion, margay and jaguarundi) are known to make their homes within its boundaries. Inside the tangle of broadleaf trees, howler monkeys, tapir, gibnut, peccary and armadillo roam in a kaleidoscope of liana, bromeliads and orchids.

6. The Belize Zoo and Tropical Education Center

Native Belizean animals, conservation programs and forest cabanas.

The Belize Zoo is situated on 29 acres of tropical savanna and exhibits over 150 animals, representing over 45 species, all native to Belize. The zoo keeps animals which were orphaned, rescued, born at the zoo, rehabilitated animals, or sent to The Belize Zoo as donations from other zoological institutions. It is home to one of the world’s only Jaguar Rehabilitation Programs.

The Tropical Education Center is adjacent to the zoo and has nature trails with raised boardwalks, wildlife observation platforms, birdwatching tours and caving and kayaking trips on the Sibun River.

Source: Wanderlust.co.uk

It would obviously be adaptive for some animals to be able to distinguish between natural phenomena, like wind, and phenomena that have similar effects but are caused by hidden agents like predators. One example (used in the paper below) is the rustling of trees in a tropical forest canopy. We know how to distinguish between the rustling caused by wind, which is general, and the rustling that is localized and moves slowly, like that caused by a troop of monkeys moving through the trees. (I experienced this myself on a recent trip to Costa Rica). If you’re liable to be disturbed (or eaten) by monkeys you need to pay attention to avoid the troop, but in the case of wind you don’t want to waste valuable foraging time looking up and getting nervous every time a leaf rustles.

This notion of “hidden causal agency,” of course, has been suggested as a pivotal factor in the origin of religion. If you’ve read Pascal Boyer’s provocative book Religion Explained, you’ll remember his thesis that before humans understood natural phenomena (e.g., thunder, lightning, or tree rustling), it was natural for them to impute them to causal agents—supernatural ones. This was, he thought, a “spandrel” piggybacking on our evolved notion to be alert, and to mentally ascribe natural phenomena to things that could either help us or hurt us. (For example, it’s better to think that a rustle in the bushes is a predator than to ignore it, even though there’s a “false positive” cost of interrupting your tasks because you’re hyper-alert. But better to be hyper-alert than to ignore a rustle that could kill you.) And that, says Boyer, ultimately led to religion: the ultimate belief in hidden causal agency.

So far the only animal shown to have the ability infer hidden causal agency is Homo sapiens. A dog lover told me that he’s absolutely sure that dogs can do it (caninophiles attribute all sorts of wisdom to dogs in the absence of any scientific evidence!), but so far there have been no studies demonstrating this.

To read more about this, please visit: Why Evolution Is True.

I was going to write a post today about listening for nocturnal migrants in Costa Rica but given the circumstances of 9 AM on September 5th, I opted for an earthquake theme. As I write, we don’t have electricity, phone service, or Internet but the battery on this Toshiba laptop works! Every time there is a strong earthquake in Costa Rica, I guess it shakes some wires loss to disrupt any sort of electrical service. This morning, we finally got hit with another strong earthquake. I don’t say “finally” meaning that I was hoping for a plate tectonic jolt. No, I use that “finally” in terms of trepidation, dread, and probability.

Costa Rica is one of the newer land forms on the globe. Unlike the ancient, uplifted Appalachians, the mountains here are maybe 3 or 5 million years old at most and the same dynamics that caused their formation are still going on to a certain degree. Since I am not a geologist, there are probably inaccuracies in what I just wrote but I think readers should get the picture. To sum things up, this place is seismically active. We’ve got a few active volcanoes, others that are sleeping, and dozens, maybe hundreds of fault lines. Sometimes the earth on either side of these big cracks slips or crashes together and the darn ground moves. The closer that deep earth movement is to the surface, the stronger the shaking. This morning, the epicenter was almost as close to the surface as the Cinchona quake a few years ago and the shaking was uncomfortably and disconcertingly long.

As with most quakes I have felt in Costa Rica, it started out as a gentle swaying of the ground back and forth. When it got stronger and the rumbling noises started, I called Miranda to my side, picked her up and went into the backyard. As the ground kept on shaking and we saw the house moving back and forth, I realized that this was at least no 4 or 5 on the Richter scale. It was bigger and when it gets above 5, things can get serious faster than the flight of a White-collared Swift. We heard a few objects crash down, I started to feel a bit dizzy from the swaying of the ground, the neighborhood dogs were barking, and Miranda clung to me in fright. Thankfully, everything calmed back down before any serious damage was done and we got in the car to go to Mirandas pre-k. I told her it was an earthquake. She told me that “the planet was moving!”

Given the strength of the quake, I wasn’t sure if school would still be open or if roads might be blocked by fallen posts. The guard at the gate was pretty frighted and said that he could see the ground moving back and forth and thought that the big, cement, telephone line posts were going to fall down. Thankfully, none of the above occurred, I brought Miranda to school and came back here to a house bereft of the refrigerator hum. On the radio, I heard that the quake was 7.6 on the Richter scale and that its epicenter was in the Nicoya peninsula. No damage reported yet but I will be surprised if that’s the case. I can hear helicopters flying around no doubt to asses damage but wont get the full story until later today or even tomorrow.

Now as far as birding goes during an earthquake, since the shaking doesn’t last too long, the actual quake itself won’t disrupt any birding activity and would actually provide a rare glimpse into bird behavior during a strong quake. Will they fly into the air? Take shelter in trees? Do certain types of bi9rds act differently? I didn’t notice any activity at all but since I wasn’t actively watching birds at the time, those observations might not count for much anyways. If you are in a hotel, I am sure that the employees would guide you to a safe zone and there are signs for that too. If outside, it would be better to be in an open field than standing under the trees. With that in mind, I’m not sure what one should do while birding in a forest! Maybe stand against the trunk of a big, stable tree so as to decrease the chances of being hit by falling branches?

While driving, I would say to pull off to the side of the road except that in Costa Rica, the lack of shoulders and presence of eager ditches makes this a bad idea in many areas. Probably best to stop right where you are in the road and wait it out. I think that the most dangerous places during a quake in Costa Rica are on mountain roads, especially beneath a steep slope due to possible landslides and rock falls. Of course there is little or no time to react but if you can, try to immediately get away from any steeply sloped spots.

Also, be prepared when traveling around Costa Rica by carrying such basic essentials as drinking water, high energy snacks, and a small first aid kit. Really, those should be carried for any type of travel to any country in any case. After all is said and done, though, your chances of even feeling a small earthquake during two or three weeks in Costa Rica aren’t very good. People who live in Costa Rica might feel quakes in the 3-5 Richter scale range a maybe 4 times a year and I haven’t felt a strong one like this since the Cinchona quake three years ago. Since I hadn’t felt any quakes for several months, I wondered if we were in for something strong so I can’t say I’m too surprised that a fairly large earthquake happened this morning. I hope no one was injured. I am also supposed to go on a trip to Laguna del Lagarto on Friday, I hope the roads are open!

The electricity is back on now and reports are coming. Thankfully, no injuries yet but buildings are damaged in many parts of the country, especially near the epicenter where some roofs have collapsed. The hospital in Puntarenas was damaged and subsequently evacuated and most businesses, government ministries, and schools have closed for the day and sent employees and students home. A bunch of aftershocks have also been reported although I haven’t felt any.

By the time I posted this, reports have come in about damage to dozens of buildings and structures in Guanacaste and elsewhere. Two deaths have been reported so far (one a heart attack and the other someone who perished beneath a falling wall), and several roads are closed. Let’s hope it’s nothing worse than that. Given the intensity of the quake, it’s a welcome surprise to hear about so few injuries and deaths.

Source: FocusingOnWildlife.com

English-speaking people have not always had a positive impact in Nicaragua. In fact, until recently it has been all negative.

In the 1600’s, Sir Henry Morgan was given a Letter of Marque by the British Government. This meant that the British thought the Spanish were not good people and Morgan could steal anything he wanted from them. He chose to sack Granada and take all their gold.

Having done this he sailed to a nearby island and let them replenish their stocks of gold. Then he sacked them again. And again.

During the 1850’s Cornelius Vanderbilt built a transportation system across Nicaragua to move gold rushers from the east to the California goldfields. By bypassing the Nicaraguan system he was able to price his trip 10 ounces of gold less than a crossing in Panama where the canal had not been built.

Then a Tennessean named William Walker organized a force of men, sailed into Granada and announced he was president of all of Nicaragua. The other Central American countries banded together to throw him out but not before he burned Granada.

As if all of this were not enough, President Clinton chose another man named William Walker to be ambasador to Nicaragua. The State Department couldn’t figure out what the problem was.

Things are better now according to Rotary District Governor Nominee Bill Denby. The English-speaking influences there now include a lot of Rotarians. Denby recently took his wife to Nicaragua for an anniversary trip. While there they learned what local Rotarians are doing and what U.S. Rotarians are doing to help.

The local club, which had 10 members, had completed a number of clean water well projects in the area.

In addition they were improving school lunch kitchens and many other projects.

Seeing the school kitchen project, Denby returned to his local club in Red Oak and was able to fund two more kitchens.

They have organized a “Nicaragua – Heart of Service” project for the Spring Break of 2013. They are taking high school Interact students, community college Rotaract students, Rotarians and a few others to distribute 560 wheelchairs, work on school projects including English and computer tutoring, painting and light construction. They will also spend time at Tio Antonio’s, the largest vocational school in Central America for disabled children and youth.

For more information how you can help make this trip even more successful call Bill Denby at 817-797-8029 or e-mail him at governor1415@rotary5810.org .

For more information about the Rotary Club of Waxahachie, where we believe in Service above Self and doing things as a club we cannot do alone, visit the club website www.waxahachierotary.org.

You can find American flag subscription forms there so you don’t miss the next flag day.

Source: Waxahachietx.com

One of the best ways retirees can immerse themselves in Costa Rica’s culture and get the most out of the country is to understand its traditions. Costa Rica’s typical food dishes play a large role in its culture and traditions.

Probably the first introduction retirees and others have to the country’s cuisine is a dish called gallo pinto. Gallo pinto means spotted rooster in Spanish and the dish probably got its name because the white rice and black beans resemble some varieties of roosters with spots. The dish is mainly served for breakfast and in addition to rice and beans contains cilantro, onions, salt and Salsa Lizano to give it added flavour.

Regarding the latter, Salsa Lizano is a 100 percent Costa Rican condiment made from fresh vegetables and natural condiments that was developed in 1920 when a Costa Rican by the name of Lizano manufactured this tasty new sauce in his home in Costa Rica. Lizano Sauce was a result of an exquisite blend of vegetables and natural condiments which señor Lizano selected to create the sauce’s unique taste and aroma. Lizano Sauce contains no artificial flavorings or colorings. The exact recipe for Lizano Sauce is kept secret but its ingredients include water, vinegar, sugar, salt, black pepper, cumin, mustard, turmeric and fresh vegetables such as carrots, cucumbers, cauliflower and onion. It is light brown in color and somewhat thin in consistency with a sweet, mildly spicy favor lent to it by the black pepper and cumin. Because of its widespread popularity you may find it in some stores in the United States.

Another Costa Rican food tradition is its famous casado. A casado is a combination plate of meat, fish or chicken which may be combined with salad, white rice, minced vegetables like chayote and plantains. Similar dishes exist in other Latin American countries but they have different names.

Casados are very nutritiously balanced since they contain a combination of protein, carbohydrates, vegetables and fruit. Beans are a very important ingredient since a casado without frijoles is not considered to be a casado.

The history of the popularity of the casado goes back to the 1960s when a large number of Costa Ricans began to work in the San José area. Many of the ticos yearned to have a home-style meal for lunch, so they looked for sodas and restaurants that served home cooking. Marjorie Ross, who is an expert in culinary anthropology, says the dish casado got its name because many workers asked the proprietors of a local sodas to prepare meals like the ones married men were served at home.

Since the word “casado” refers to a married man, the name was applied to this plate of assorted typical foods like the ones I mention above. Cazado, which sounds the same, can also refer to any combination of things like food. Perhaps that is where the name for the dish really came from.

Source: LiveInCostaRica.com

To arrive to a new place in the dark is like tasting a new food with a blindfold on. You can feel the edges, but a full color appreciation isn’t possible until daylight arrives. Night time in the small town of La Pirraya on an island in Jiquilisco Bay is quiet; the fishermen and their families gather in small compounds preparing the days catch and saving energy for an early rise the next day. But hiding outside the lights of the town is the beginning of a conservation movement that could save one of the world’s most endangered populations of ocean wildlife.

My arrival to Jiquilisco Bay in southern El Salvador started at the small port town of Puerto Parada. We waited for the boat to arrive on a small concrete dock at the end of the main road into town. There was little indication that we were on the edge of the largest wetland in the country other than the mangrove trees across the channel. The dark boat ride was punctuated by distant lightning that was more entertainment than threat. Once our group, an international team of sea turtle conservationists, was settled into our rustic cabins, our night began. We received word of hatchlings at a nearby hatchery and set off on a short boat ride up the beach.

The few dozen hatchlings in the blue bucket at the hatchery were the first newborn hawksbill turtles I’d ever seen. With a red flashlight to protect their eyes, we inspected this healthy group who were eager to get to the water. No sooner had we released them on the beach than we received a call of a nesting female hawksbill on a nearby island. We hopped back into the boat for another short ride across the calm water.

Hawksbills are well known for their preference for nesting much further up the beach, normally venturing into the beachside vegetation to lay their eggs. That knowledge didn’t prepare me for the location of this turtle, probably more than 50 feet inland on the other side of a barbed wire fence that was tall enough to keep people out but let turtles through underneath. That turtle was the perfect illustration of why this population remained hidden for so long; many turtle experts had considered the hawksbills of the Eastern Pacific functionally extinct until just a few years ago.

That turtle decided not to nest so a few of us broke off from the group to visit another hatchery where we waited for sunrise to inspect three hawksbills that were being held to put satellite transmitters on the next day. Along the way, we stopped the boat to see another hawksbill that was on another isolated stretch of beach. Finally, we arrived at the hatchery with an hour or so left in the evening. I stole off to find a hammock and was asleep before I could even take off my sandals.

I wish I could accurately describe my first impressions of Jiquilisco Bay in the daylight but after the long night, I was so disoriented my vision was pretty blurred. Stumbling out of the hammock, I walked over to a four-foot deep hole where three large hawksbills were calmly waiting to be released. These turtles were much larger (their shells measured about 3 feet long) than the one small hawksbill I had worked with years before in Costa Rica; if I didn’t know better I would have thought they were a different species. In addition, there were more hatchlings to release.

Our visit to Jiquilisco was organized by ICAPO (The Eastern Pacific Hawksbill Initiative) and these turtles are part of an ongoing study looking to unlock the mysterious life cycles of these turtles. There are estimated to be fewer than 500 nesting females hawksbills left in their range, which goes from southern Baja California, Mexico to Peru. Until recently, researchers assumed that hawksbills only lived in and around coral reefs, of which there are relatively few along the Pacific coast of the Americas. However, research by ICAPO and their partners has shown that these turtles live primarily in mangroves, a fact that surprised many turtle experts.

Jiquilisco Bay is estimated to harbor nearly half of their nests and most of the rest are found in Padre Ramos Estuary, not far south in northern Nicaragua. Through the hard work of several organizations working in these two hotspots, there is a growing group of people working hard to ensure these turtles are around for a long time. ICAPO and its partners coordinate a local team of 75 residents, known as “careyeros” (carey is Spanish for hawksbill) who patrol key beaches around the bay, looking for nesting turtles and relocating their eggs to hatcheries.

Once I finished photographing these turtles and headed out to the beach, the incredible beauty of this area hit me full force. Across the water, a series of perfectly shaped volcanoes rose up over the bay. As the baby turtles slid into the water, the human residents of Jiquilisco were just getting started. Fishing boats crossed the water, heading to preferred spots in the brightening day.

As we arrived back to La Pirraya, the town was in full swing, preparing for their annual hawksbill festival, complete with parade, dignitaries, throngs of media, and more. The parade got off to a loud start with the Navy’s marching band and a parade of more than a hundred local students. The students held home made signs about protecting turtles and keeping trash out of the ocean and a few wore turtle costumes despite the quickly rising temperature.

While I was pleasantly surprised at the large turnout to the festival, the sheer number of media outlets in attendance was shocking. Roughly 30 people from seemingly every media outlet in the country was there including TV news, radio stations, newspapers, magazines, and more. Many citizens of El Salvador are proud of its role in protecting hawksbills and the mix of cutting-edge technology, international turtle experts, and beautiful children was a potent combination that media outlets could not ignore.

Many of the students stood outside a canopy, looking over the shoulders of the researchers to catch a glimpse of the turtles being prepared for attaching the transmitters. It took more than an hour to clean and sand down the shells, place several layers of epoxy around the transmitter, and allow them to dry. Once completed, the turtles were taken to the water and released. The crowds were kept back to give the turtles room and once they had their bearings, they went directly to the cool water.

I wish this story could have a neat and tidy ending with the turtles heading off into the water, their transmitters providing valuable information for years to come. However, less than a week later I got word that one of the hawksbills was already found dead. The likely culprit was blast fishing, a barbaric practice where fishermen use homemade bombs to kill everything in their range of impact. Read more about this tragedy on our partner EcoViva’s website here.

That news was a reminder that, despite a tremendous amount of progress studying and protecting Jiquilisco’s turtles over the past few years, there is still a lot of work to do. The first order of business is to ensure that the bay receives protection; there are currently no regulations in place for this spectacular wildlife hotspot. ICAPO is hoping to guarantee protection of the critical hawksbill habitat, namely the 50 meter fridges along the primary nesting beaches as well as all the waters within the estuary. These actions by the government of El Salvador are the minimum necessary to give hawksbills the best shot at survival in the eastern Pacific.

SEE Turtles is supporting this work by raising funds to help pay for the egg collection. Last year, we donated more than $5,000 and hope to exceed that this year. To help support this effort, visit our website; for every $1 donated, we can save 2 hawksbill hatchlings at this project.

Even though over 1,000 aftershocks have been recorded since the ‘big one’, last week, many of us on the peninsula are suffering the shock of the resulting damages, many of which we are still becoming aware. The quake hit on Wednesday, but the heavy rain that came in on Saturday night brought unwelcomed water into many homes, hotels and other businesses that were unaware of their roof damage until it began to rain—INside. Numerous structures with heavy tile roofing found many of those tiles on the ground after the trembler. Because of the extreme weight of the tiles, that is often considered enough to hold them in place; however, in areas where earthquakes are prevalent, it’s wise to adhere them with concrete to better ensure their stability.

Barcelo Tambor Beach, who said they were fully booked, had approximately 150 of their most exclusive and expensive rooms-many overlooking Tambor Bay, declared unsafe and uninhabitable by the Paquera Municipality, until repairs can be made. Other homes and businesses have received quotes for thousands of dollars worth of necessary roof repairs that cannot be put off, because of the timing, as we enter into the heaviest rains of the season.

Damages suffered at Los Delfines also depended on where you were—some people’s pools suffered major cracks while others just had high waves. Patios sunk several inches and cracks separated foundations and garage floors, while others sustained no major damage. The clubhouse kitchen had a wall come down and the restaurant suffered cracks in the floor and wall that made it necessary to close for a week, but has now reopened, after spending about $100,000 in repairs. Many Pacific beachside businesses also suffered as mud slid, rocks fell and floors and walls suffered damaging cracks.

While businesses were trying to ready themselves for the holiday local/tourist run, it was announced that the Puntarenas ferries running to and from Playa Naranjo and Paquera would close for dredging, for an entire week, surrounding the holiday weekend. That, of course, requires that everyone, including delivery trucks, take the Tempisque Bridge. It does mean that you will have to allot a little more time to drive around (3 hours by car vs. 1.5 hours by ferry) instead of beginning your holiday by imbibing on the ferry.
So if you were planning to come to the peninsula over the holiday to find some relaxation and tranquility, why not start out with a nice drive across the Tempisque Bridge. Then, when you get here, the pura vida will be waiting for you. And if we have a shaker while you’re here, just lean back and sing along with us, “I know, it’s only rock and roll, but I like it, like it, yes I do!”