Two games in the space of four days against Costa Rica could see Mexico qualify for CONCACAF´s Hexagonal on the road to Brazil 2014 with two matchdays to spare. Mexico comes into the Costa Rica games off the back of a 1-0 defeat to the United States in the Estadio Azteca, but all indications suggest El Tri should collect six points. Coach Jose Manuel "Chepo" de la Torre has an almost comple...

“The greatest risk in action is the risk of revelation, and that is also action’s greatest joy. No one can know us fully, not even ourselves, but when we act, something of our inner mystery often emerges, and it can shock or delight us when it does.” –Parker Palmer I knew it would be a challenging experience, but I could never have imagined the extent to which it would push all of my bounda...

As the boat carried our group from a coastal airstrip in eastern Panama to the Yandup Island Lodge, in the autonomous territory of the Guna Indians, I admired the timeless beauty of my surroundings. A woman in colorful traditional dress glided slowly across the glistening sea in a dugout canoe powered by a lateen sail. The shore of nearby Playón Chico island was lined with Guna huts, their can...

Guatemala's claim to fame, apart from the ruins of the highly sophisticated Mayan civilisation, which present generations had nothing to do with, is that it is the country with the worst human rights record in the 20th century among all the countries in the Western hemisphere. I recall once going to interview the then secretary-general of Amnesty International, Thomas Hammarberg, and asking...

The following article is part of a series on the Rainforest Alliance’s effort to bring fair and sustainable trade to coffee growers in Guatemala. Read the rest of the Guatemalan coffee series here. Guatemala is a country of colonial architecture, exotic jungle ruins, cloud forests, beaches, active volcanoes and a rich indigenous Mayan culture. It is also known for producing some of the worl...

When Charles Brewer was shown the piece of land in Guanacaste province, Costa Rica, back in 2006, he knew immediately it was what he had been looking for. Located on the Central American nation’s Pacific coast, it consists of 1,200 acres of rolling hills, with numerous overlooks, a crescent beach and roaming monkeys. Brewer, an Atlanta Internet millionaire turned New Urbanist developer, saw...

Scarlet macaws, yellow orchids, iridescent butterflies that shift shades in the light. Under the Corcovado canopy, you could call it Hunter Green, but hunting here there is not. A National Park since 1975, this region boasts 263 square miles of protected territory that extends along the southern boot by el Golfo Dulce. Beyond Corcovado Park, though, there exists other walks of life beside t...

For Thursday’s Geo Quiz, we journey to an abandoned town on Nicaragua’s Caribbean coast. We’re looking for signs of its former inhabitants, who had hoped to build the hemisphere’s first trans-oceanic canal. British citizen Peter Stevenson traveled to this former British protectorate to find the graves of relatives who lived in the town. They’d gone there in the 1800s, to work with US indust...

While its big brother the Charger has always been at home in Nascar country, the Challenger lives out west. Would you take one on the ultimate Western road trip? Welcome to Morning Would, where we present you with some of the most desirable, controversial cars ever built and ask what you would do to drive one. The Challenger is a little low for the Baja 1000, so why not run it along ...

“It was more like going to a different world than a different country,” said Rochester resident Sue Kantner of a recent trip to Dipilto, Nicaragua. With a population nearing 6,000, the rural municipality is comparable in size to Rochester, Marion or Mattapoisett, but there the similarities end, especially when it comes to education. Now, Sue Kantner and her daughter Angie, a second year ...

Renewable World recently visited our programme sites in Nicaragua, the first stop of which was Kahka Creek Nature Reserve in the Rio Wawashang area of the Southern Atlantic Autonomous Region (RAAS), accessible by a 3-hour boat journey from the Caribbean hub of Bluefields, followed by a 40-minute walk from the riverside community of Pueblo Nuevo. Managed by local NGO - Foundation for Autonomy ...

Dear Readers: We want to take this opportunity to say thank you for your ongoing time in reading our news content. We do not take this for granted and are thankful for your choice to read news with The Costa Rica Star. Since launching in December of 2011, we have grown day by day into what many would call, a top contender position for English news covering Central America. Our original f...

National and international environmental policies have direct impacts on local conservation initiatives. Motivated individuals and groups of people have to lobby directly to governments in order to raise attention to vital issues with the goal of greater protection of natural resources and cultural heritage. This blog is about a positive event that happened recently that gives us hope for the...

Waking up to howler monkeys greeting the morning, hiking past colorfully plumed toucans flying through the trees and looking out for poisonous vipers winding through the forest, Natalie Teale, a senior Earth sciences and geography major in Syracuse University’s College of Arts and Sciences, spent the summer as part of an immersive research experience in the cloud forest of Costa Rica. Teale wa...

Carla lost everything when she got pregnant at the age of 13: her first year of secondary school, her family, her boyfriend, and her happiness. She spent a year panhandling on the streets of the Nicaraguan capital before she was taken in by a shelter for young mothers. Her life fell apart in December 2006, when her mother discovered that she was three months pregnant as a result of being ra...

On Monday morning we headed to Bri Bri near Puerto Viejo along the Caribbean coast. Working with Carolina from Fundecooperacion, the crew was comprised of Melissa and I, two business and marketing students from the National University, a well-established Costa Rican artisan named Lil, the Founder of IE’PA, an NGO working with indigenous artisans to promote and market their work, and a special...

Article by Joe Walsh of Witches Rock Surf Camp. Surfing is one of those special things in life that grabs ahold of you and turns your world upside down. All of a sudden your mind is consumed with thoughts of riding waves, wondering what the wind is going to do, setting your alarm for earlier than you used to set it, so on and so forth. The thrill of gliding across the open face of a wave is...

We were hiking through the woods of the Cockscomb Basin Sanctuary and Jaguar Preserve in Belize, the more-than-150-square-mile verdant reserve that is a no-hunting haven for many species of this hemisphere's wild cats -- the puma, ocelot, jaguarundi, margay and jaguar. As we moved along well-tended trails, there were signs of activity -- muddy paw prints by a riverbank, bits of jaguar scat -- ...

A historical and wonderful thing is happening in the small country of Honduras in Central America. Despite terror imposed by the U.S. and Honduran ruling classes; despite beatings and assassinations; despite centuries-old poverty and misery, the masses and their organizations are organizing, mobilizing and fighting back. In fact, developments in Honduras today brilliantly bring to life the ...

Note:The Costa Rica Star has previously written extensively on Paul Watson. Pete Bethune used to be a skipper of Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, now he works with Earthrace Conservation. I took a call last week from a Journalist in Costa Rica, and he had an interesting take on Costa Rica’s impending (or attempted) extradition of Paul Watson. He was adamant that all the nonsense about Co...

On June 1, 2009 US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton arrived in San Salvador to attend the swearing in of El Salvador´s newly elected president, Mauricio Funes. Secretary Clinton was dressed in red, the color of the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN), the political party born of a former guerrilla army. Such a sight would have been impossible to imagine two decades ago when the ...

Based in the rural community of Santa Ana, Costa Rica, the Costa Rican Humanitarian Foundation (CRHF) works to improve the quality of life of the most vulnerable populations in Costa Rica. The CRHF now manages more than fifty projects throughout the country, focusing on education, community development, primary and preventive health care, and extensive support services for women, at-risk y...

Note: This article is published in the Blog section, contains opinion, and was graciously given to The Costa Rica Star by Dave Playfair. “If you have a business, you didn’t build that.” Baffling as it may be to comprehend the sheer volume of misinformation and outright lies in today’s society, whether you are in the U.S.A. where this comment originates or in Costa Rica where misdirection...

Boston-area authors escape city life for taste of pura vida lifestyle in new book. A travelogue with a guidebook twist, Two Weeks in Costa Rica entices and educates readers. Cambridge, Massachusetts – Well known as a slice of paradise, Costa Rica has more to offer than just sun and adventure. Matthew Houde and Jennifer Turnbull should know; they have been drawn back to this tropical dest...

Deep in the Mosquitia jungle of Honduras, the US Forward Operating Base Mocoron is at the heart of one of the most active narco-trafficking routes in Latin America. Soldiers at Mocoron are fighting on the newest front in the US war on drugs. We spent two days at the base. An hour after we arrived, a helicopter made a dusty landing. On board were US-trained elite Honduran Air Force person...

The Human Impacts Institute (HII) is proud to be partnering with the University of Connecticut (UConn) and the University for Peace (UPEACE) for their Women’s Empowerment Through Social Entrepreneurship Fellowship Program. The program addresses topics such as economic development, environmental, and health issues facing indigenous and Afro-descendent regions in Costa Rica. It aims to provide 1...

I gave the taxi driver a $20. He looked at me in disappointment. I'd arrived in Cahuita, Costa Rica, poorer than I’d expected. Having to chase a bus down with a taxi from Limón put my wallet on a diet plan. There were no ATMs in Cahuita and hardly any tourists here either. It was quiet. Very quiet. This town was way different from the party atmosphere of Puerto Viejo de Talamanca when I ...

This week I am in San José, Costa Rica, running a visualization workshop at La Nación, the main newspaper in the country. The participants —around 40— are a mix of journalists (reporters and editors), designers, infographics artists, developers, etc. La Nación is an uncommon case in Latin American journalism. They have a very strong investigative reporting team, led by Giannina Segnini, whi...

Nicaragua’s Cerro Negro volcano has erupted 23 times in the past 100 years, burying homes, crops and people in lava and ashes. But recently the menacing black mountain has become a tourist draw, thanks to a newly invented extreme sport: volcano boarding. Thousands of thrill-seekers have climbed to the top of Cerro Negro, peered into its crater, then zipped down its rough-and-rocky 41-deg...

It is early morning, and my guide, Jose, has just stopped the four-wheel drive jeep in the middle of a dirt road in the middle of the forest. “We get out here,” Jose says. “But first we stop and listen.” We stand in the hush of dawn, the gray light slowly lifting the night, revealing a gray-green mist-shrouded forest. And then we hear a shrill, delicate cry. “Listen,” says Jose excitedly...

Note: This article was sent to The Costa Rica Star anonymously from a gmail.com email account. It raises some concerns about a condo development project here in Costa Rica. We have no way to verify the accuracy of this content, however we wanted to publish it to see what kind of comments and reactions are taken by the readers. Have you experienced anything like this? As the first cold winds...

From the crest of a wave or deep below the water’s surface, among the coral: whichever way you look at it, there can be no denying that Central America is one of the world’s hottest spots for adventure travel. With plenty of things to see and do, it is quickly becoming a hub for many international travelers, leading to easy access to all types of amenities, a variety of airports and sea ports ...

The Costa Rica Star previously published about a Kosher Food Center in Costa Rica. Come to the Table: Chef Gayle Squires explores the wonders of Panamanian kosher cuisine. When two single Jewish women arrive in Panama for a week, they can expect to eat very well. They will be wined and dined every evening by the sons of the friends of the parents of the friends who are hosting them. Eve...

Dear Costa Rica, What began as an instant love affair has turned into a complicated love-hate relationship. Over the past three years, we've had some mind-blowing adventures as well as some teary-eyed breakdowns. I fell in love (or was it lust?) with you in 2009. You can't blame me, really. You took me on a death-defying whitewater rafting ride, brought out my energizer-bunny cycling ski...

As an initiative organized by FOMILENIO and Millennium Challenge Corporation funded by the U.S. Government (2007-2012), part of a project to promote the north of El Salvador included the Guachipilin Classic Downhill skateboard competition. Part of the project to promote the north of El Salvador FOMILENIO present for the first time in El Salvador an event with the perfect combination of adre...

Driving north for an hour from Liberia, Costa Rica, passing skinny cows in postcard-green meadows, one wonders if civilization is ever going to reemerge. Then the taxi driver slams on his brakes. He comes to a smoking halt behind a row of eighteen wheeler trucks at a standstill spanning as far as the eye can see, inching forward like a row of dinosaurs migrating north. The driver makes the ...

For the first time since the world began speculating why Captain Paul Watson made the decision to forfeit his bail and depart Germany after being held there under house arrest for 70 days, the Captain himself is speaking out. He relayed a message to Sea Shepherd headquarters over the weekend, asking that it be provided to his supporters. The complete message follows: To my friends and suppo...

It’s hard to believe that Costa Rica’s microbrew movement is just getting started. It seems like only a couple years ago that I was desperately crying out for an alternative to Imperial and Pilsen. Oh wait… that was only a couple of years ago! Today, Costa Rica’s beer aficionados are singing a much different tune. The local “beer scene” is growing quickly. Craft Brewing Company, a produ...

“We have more friends than ever—our kids can’t believe how social we’ve become,” says one expat couple. “I’m busier than ever before,” says another expat in Panama. It’s a constant refrain from those who thought their retirement years might be marked by the restraints of a fixed income and a waning social calendar. Only to find that in Panama, the retiree lifestyle is a lot of fun… Take, fo...

SAN JOSE - Bangalay came to Costa Rica by accident. He arrived while travelling from his native Côte d'Ivoire, heading towards what he believed was the United States. However, the ship he boarded left him in Panama and after being detained for some time, he managed to take a bus to Costa Rica, where he sought asylum. This explains how the 17-year-old came to be seated in a Spanish class cre...