On the same trip that took us to Costa Rica's sexiest new sustainable hotel back in October, we ended up acquiring a nasty bout of food poisoning (no, not from said sexy hotel, mind you!) a couple days before our flight home. When we stumbled upon San Jose's Corteza Amarilla Art Lodge & Spa, we knew we'd found the perfect spot to recoup. Sure, maybe it was all the antibiotics and electrolytes the ...

My girlfriend and I just returned from a trip to Costa Rica and, as a transportation professional navigating a foreign land, I couldn’t help but take notice of certain aspects of Costa Rican mobility. 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, despi...

Costa Rican's are warm caring people 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 s...

The Samara Chamber of Tourism recently issued an advisory cautioning people to keep their valuables with them in the bus at all times and not to use the overhead bins because of recent thefts. “The thefts are perpetrated by people who get on the bus posing as helpers, offering to stow items in the overhead bins. They disappear with the bags before the bus has left town,” according to the advis...

Crossing Latin American international borders is rarely easy or pleasant (why do they always smell like pee and desperation?). Things are even more complicated when you’re driving across in your own vehicle as part of an overland road trip. We hope these border crossing tips help you travel across the Peñas Blancas border from Nicaragua into Costa Rica smoothly with or without a vehicle. From: ...

Senior thesis research conducted last spring by Audrey Haynes at Costa Rica’s National University, under the tutorship of Johan “Joop” Varekamp, has shown that many residents of the Central American nation have levels of mercury in their hair that far exceed those recommended by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Varekamp, whose student made the discovery as part of a broad evaluation of en...

Dear friends and colleagues of Pretoma: Pretoma hereby wishes to express its sincere thanks to each one of you, whom at one time or another, for over a year, supported the campaign “Shark Fin Imports…Is Shark Finning.” With the signing of the decree “Ban on Shark Finning, importation and transportation, and transfer and possession of fins on board any vessel inside territorial waters”, Octob...

Article originally found on BirdingCraft.com. In the past The Costa Rica Star has published on bird watching excursions in Costa Rica and how Nature Air is supporting this fantastic hobby. Time flies just like the migrants that zip through Costa Rica. Although I haven’t listened to the night skies as much as the previous year, the Spring Peeper-like notes of Swainson’s Thrushes have drif...

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 i...

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, int...

The late twentieth century saw a wave of democratic transitions in Latin America and Eastern Europe. After the fall of the Soviet Union, the former Soviet republics became independent states in their own right, while countries in Latin America began to break away from their colonial pasts, as well as from the dictatorships and civil wars that followed independence in the 19th century. Whil...

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, ...

Chronic kidney disease has killed tens of thousands of young men and is becoming more deadly. But nobody knows exactly what it is, or what to do about it. It is stage five they fear the most. Stage five is the mysterious sickness in its deadliest form. "I'm entering stage five," Edilberto Mendez tells me as his wife looks on fretfully. I'm in their small home on the floodplains of Lempa Riv...

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 outstan...

With more than 90% of its electricity generated from renewable energy sources and goals to reach 95% by 2014, Costa Rica is certainly one of the greenest countries on the planet. It also is on track to become the world’s first carbon-free economy. I recently returned from a 12-day tour sponsored by Global Renewable Energy Education Network (GREEN) and showcasing renewable and sustainable en...

If you are presently on vacation in Costa Rica, or planning to make your getaway soon, Costa Rica's port town of Limón on the Caribbean side of the country, converts to an all out party every October to celebrate “Carnaval”! Vaguely disguised around celebrating Columbus Day (October 12th) or “Dia de Las Culturas” (as we know it in Costa Rica), locals as well as every strange character you c...

In conjunction with Mobile Payments Latin America (Dec 5-6, Miami), M for Mobile have released the latest most comprehensive White paper on Mobile Payments in Latin America. The White paper offers you expert insight into the most lucrative areas on mobile payments in Latin America in order to make sure your business plan is on trend and ahead of the game. Due to the rapid uptake and develop...

Over the past few years, the local media has tried to pin the Costa Rican prostitution and pedophilia problems on foreigners and the local politicians have branded these foreigners as sex tourists. Now, these same politicians are trying to pass a new law that will penalize anyone who describes Costa Rica as a sex tourism destination online or in any advertising campaigns. Furthermore, the new ...

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 considera...

At last, the summit -- the top of the highest active volcano in El Salvador. Volcan Santa Ana -- nearly 2,440 metres above the nearby Pacific Ocean and towering over the classic cone of neighbouring Volcan Izalco -- is known as Mother Mountain to the Maya people. Breathless, our family party of five looked out on the vista from the knife-edge summit ridge. It was startling. On one sid...

M for Mobile is pleased to announce the 2nd annual Mobile Payments Latin America event is back, December 5-6, Miami. Latin America’s most exciting names and companies will gather to discuss and overcome the key issues the industry faces, case studies throughout the different regions, a special focus on Brazil and the latest most exciting initiatives in mobile payments industry in Latin Americ...

Scaling is hard. Really hard. As we have seen with the recent speed bumps at highfliers like Groupon and Zynga, taking "lean startups" from foundation to creating sustainable, scalable, profitable business models is a very rare and special task. So I'm highlighting a few companies outside of the Google/Amazon/Facebook pantheon that have built large, sustainable, profitable business models at s...

The content in this article was taken from CostaRicaLaw.com, the best online resource for getting familiar with the laws of Costa Rica. Always retain the advice of a lawyer, however you can educate yourself beforehand. Costa Rica is on the verge of passing two new laws, which will bring about significant changes to the tax structure currently in effect. The two legislative bills have alread...

Whether Mitt Romney or Barack Obama wins in November it is hard to say that either candidate is a good choice for people who care about economic and social justice in Latin America. “If El Salvador becomes another Latin platform for advancing an anti-American agenda, it will negatively impact future levels of U.S. assistance through the Millennium Challenge project and USAID as well as on U...

"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...

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 schoo...

The first time I heard about sustainable development was during high school and throughout my college years. In 1994, Costa Rica had elected president a member of one of the most influential families in the history of the country. Jose Maria Figueres Olsen, the son of Jose Figueres Ferrer, served himself — not the country — from 1994 to 1998. During this time I worked as a Journalist for a loc...

Intro: Mike Poynton is the founder and CEO of Paradise Social here in Costa Rica. He has been a long time friend of The Costa Rica Star since day one, and recently he wrote an article on SocialMediaToday.com about 5 apps you should consider when traveling. Mike not only works full time as a media consultant, but he finds time to raise money for charity and help to keep the beaches of Costa Ric...

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 tha...

Every day, I immerse myself in stories. And not just any stories. In my day job at Twitter, Inc., and in my work as an author (Twitter for Good: Change the World One Tweet at a Time) and speaker, I have the good fortune to sink into the best of stories. Stories of individuals taking the power of technology into their own hands to make the world a better place. Stories of folks using digi...

Picture above by Arthur Lavooy. From the back of a truck bed, fat Nicaraguan men auctioned off produce through giant loud-speakers. The assorted fruits and vegetables they advertised culminated into a song, and I smiled because it was familiar song, one that I hadn’t heard in two years. It was nostalgic, just like the smell of burning trash. The burning trash and strong scent of resin mi...

This year, I am homeschooling my three children, ages 10, 7 and 5, on an extended international adventure. We moved to a remote coast, accessible only by boat, on the south shore of Utila, a small island off the coast of Honduras. We are here for my husband's work, but also to immerse ourselves in a different reality, a real-life experiment about living with less and experiencing more. We have...

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 o...

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 ...

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. ...

Nosara Wildlife Rescue (NWR) is asking for volunteers to assist in the development of a Proof of Concept program designed to temporarily deter the howler monkeys from coming into contact with the uninsulated power leads of transformers. Of course, the main goal is to insulate these "hot" leads to the transformers. However this takes both time and money, and both are in short supply. NWR believ...

The drought-parched harvests around the world this year, along with the season’s hottest archeological finding, offer a cautionary tale. Benjamin Cook, who sifts through mountains of computerized data rather than dusting off shards of pottery like old-fashioned archeologists, has developed a climate model that explains one of the great mysteries of Western hemisphere history – the sudden co...

The Costa Rica Star reported last week on the 3 new cities being developed in Honduras. Honduras has unveiled a radical free-market plan to establish three "charter cities" in the violence-racked Central American nation. The government this week signed an agreement with US developers MKG group to begin building the cities – complete with their own governments, laws, courts, police forces...

Guatemala has risen to become one of the world’s rum production hubs — from Ron Zacapa to Zaya, which was made in the country until moving its production (and Guatemalan recipe) to Trinidad. But a longtime player is Ron Botran, which has the advantage of several area rums in that it is aged at a high altitude and includes sugar cane grown in the country’s rich volcanic soil – touted as so-c...

The Costa Rica Star has recently reported on a Facebook founder renouncing his US citizenship to avoid paying taxes, and of course Mitt Romney's offshore accounts have sparked discussion on the topic. If you’re following this year’s election news, you’ve probably seen Romney come under fire for his offshore accounts. While his campaign isn’t offering explanations for keeping money in place...