Press Release - Christmas time is here and its lights, colors and shine announce the arrival of this season that excites children and grownups alike. Those who enjoy Christmas do not wait too long to find the perfect place in their home for the Christmas tree and all traditional ornaments. Big selection of toys for this Christmas at Universal Stores in Costa Rica Universal, the official ...

The United States today celebrates Memorial Day, and in Costa Rica the expat community often gathers to observe the men and women who gave their lives while serving in the dear Armed Forces of their country. Author’s Note: The use of the noun and adjective “American” in this Article conforms to the definition in Princeton’s WordNet: (A native or inhabitant of the United States), and the recomme...

Traveler Under Pressure Remix NEW YORK, NY (PRWEB) MAY 03, 2016 - Music can provide hope in the darkness. Music can bring light and joy. As iconic recordings go, Queen & David Bowie’s “Under Pressure” (EMI) is one of the most brilliant songs ever recorded. Paying homage to the original, Southern California-based Traveler have updated the song for a new generation of house music lovers. The T...

The National Museum of Costa Rica, in conjunction with the community development associations of the Osa, Palmar and the Diquis Delta region, invite you to the 11th Festival of the Stone Spheres from May 13th to the 15th . The Annual Festival of the Stone Spheres is a cultural and festive event that celebrated the magnificent National Park of the Stone Spheres of Costa Rica, which is a UNESCO W...

Rainforest in Costa Rica By Carol Blair Vaughn Friday, April 22nd, is Earth Day, an international celebration of education about environmental issues that began in the United States in 1970, marking the birth of the environmental movement. It is now celebrated by over 1 billion people worldwide, including here in Costa Rica, as a day of action in support of environmental protection of our p...

An Electronic Dance Music (EDM) event in Costa Rica Buenos Aires, Apr 16 (EFE).- Five people between the ages of 20 and 30 died early Saturday and five others remain unconscious at three Buenos Aires hospitals after attending an electronic music festival in the Argentine capital's Costa Salguero events center, medical officials said. The five hospitalized individuals were on respirators aft...

Turismo Miramar Buenos Aires, Mar 27 (EFE). - Residents of Miramar, a coastal city in Argentina's Buenos Aires province, have built the world's tallest chocolate Easter Bunny, a creation that stands 5.2 meters (just over 17 feet) tall and weighs 3,000 kilos (3.3 tons), city officials told EFE on Sunday. "In the past six years, around this time, we have made giant Easter eggs, but since othe...

Mabel Flores, Flickr Commons More than 70 Fire Departments across Costa Rica will be very vigilant from now until the early hours of Easter Sunday as communities engage in the traditional burning of the Judas Iscariot effigy. The burning of Judas begins with the hanging of the effigy, which happens on Good Friday and is followed by burning on the night of Holy Satruday. This religious tradi...

SAN FRANCISCO, Feb. 10, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Fest300, the most comprehensive guide to the world's best festivals, announced today its annual list of the 300 most highly regarded festivals from around the globe. Making this year's list were returning favorites Glastonbury (Pilton, UK), Diwali (India), and Envision (Costa Rica), as well as list newcomers Electric Zoo (New York, USA) and Cape Town In...

Wikimedia Commons Rio de Janeiro, Feb 5 (EFE).- Mayor Eduardo Paes took the opportunity of Friday's ceremony marking the state of Rio's famous Carnival to urge residents of Brazil's second city not to forget the fight against the mosquito that transmits the Zika virus and dengue fever. "Don't forget the mosquito, which now brings us a new disease, Zika," he said. The spread of Zika and i...

Wikimedia Commons If you're looking for something unique and exciting to do next New Year's Eve, celebrate aboard a Holland America Line cruise. With options in Australia, Asia, South America, Mexico, the Caribbean and Panama Canal over the holiday, you can be sure you'll welcome 2017 in grand style. When guests break into 'Auld Lang Syne' at midnight and you clink glasses with friends old ...

Source: Flickr Commons A man gored by a bull during the traditional holiday “bullfights,” known as "Toros a la Tica," is currently under intensive care at the Calderon Guardia hospital in the capital city of Costa Rica.   The incident took place during the afternoon run of Sunday, January 4th, and it was broadcast live by national television network Teletica. The man has been identi...

Source: Flickr Commons A group of activists plans to stage a protest against animal abuse at the Zapote holiday fairgrounds, located in the eastern suburbs of San Jose, on Sunday afternoon. The protesters specifically want to call attention to the holiday events known as “Toros a la Tica,” which are sometimes characterized as bullfights, but they are more of a cross between the running of the ...

Source: Flickr CC On the morning of Saturday, December 26th,  the traditional Gran Tope Nacional de Costa Rica (equestrian parade) will kick off next to the train tracks of Plaza Viquez, where it will continue on to Avenida Segunda (Second Avenue) until 14th street before flowing through Paseo Colon until La Sabana Metropolitan Park. The participation of thousands of horses and riders in th...

New York, Dec 24 (EFE).- The temperature in New York soared to more than 70 F (21 C) on Thursday, the warmest Christmas Eve on record in the Big Apple, and is expected to climb even higher later in the day, U.S. media reported. The previous mark was set in 1996, when the mercury rose to 63 F (17 C), according to American broadcast TV network NBC. Record-high temperatures also are expected on...

Flickr Commons By Yeny Garcia Havana, Dec 24 (EFE).- At the close of a year marked by the reestablishment of relations with Washington, Cubans are celebrating the Christmas holidays without big parties but the private restaurants known as "paladares" are causing family traditions to evolve and many people are trying out their culinary offerings. Since 1997, when Christmas was reinstated ...

In 2014,  the School of Statistics at the University of Costa Rica published a report (PDF) that focused on topics beyond the traditional demographics. The 2014 Current Events Survey investigated sentiment and facts related to Pope Francis, Ebola, football, mosquito-borne diseases, extraterrestrial life, and even Christmas traditions. With regard to Christmas and the end-of-year holidays, the S...

Wikimedia Commons By Carol Blair Vaughn Santa’s going to have more help delivering packages this year than just Rudolph’s very shiny nose. The universe is giving us all a gift that we don’t even need to unwrap: a full moon on Christmas Eve. This phenomena is called the Yule Moon, or the Full Cold Moon, and it’s the first time since 1977 that this has happened, 38 years ago. NASA predicts...

Jack Donnelly By Jack Donnelly If you don’t want to see a bull bleeding and dying in front of you, don’t worry: in Costa Rica the bulls win! Costa Rican style bullfighting, toros a la tica, is nothing like the gory spectacles that take place in Mexico and Spain. Here the bulls are well cared for and almost never injured. Tico (Costa Rican) friends of mine joke about the bulls’ contracts cal...

Wikimedia Commons The U.S. Embassy in San Jose reminds U.S. citizens that the holiday season in Costa Rica traditionally correlates with an increase in the frequency of property crimes.  Home invasions, robberies, burglaries, and thefts occur with greater regularity during the period between the end of October and the start of the new year.  The holiday season also tends to correlate with an i...

Source: MSP In the eastern suburbs of San Jose, officers from Fuerza Publica (the national police force of Costa Rica) rescued a snowman that had been illegally taken from a second floor balcony. The incident occurred past the midnight hour of Friday, and it unfolded in the residential community of Los Olimpos, located in the Purral district of the Goicochea canton. According to official pr...

Source: UPR San Juan, Nov 22 (EFE).- Students and professors from the University of Puerto Rico, or UPR, made a Christmas tree using plastic bottles to draw attention to the need to recycle and protect the environment. The six-meter (20-foot) tree at the campus in Carolina, a San Juan suburb, will be decorated with 2,000 plastic bottles and the manger was constructed with shipping pallets, ...

Although there are no clear statistics on how many turkeys will be served at dinner tables in Costa Rica later today, the Thanksgiving holiday is increasingly celebrated by more families in this country. To this end, it is not unusual to learn about supermarkets such as AutoMercado and PriceSmart running out of turkeys just before Thanksgiving. Who is buying up all those birds? Author’s Note: T...

US CBP Press Release - Additional Reporting by The Costa Rica Star / LOS ANGELES—U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agriculture specialists assigned to the Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) seized 450 prohibited pork meat tamales discovered inside the luggage of a passenger arriving from Mexico, on November 2. The passenger, who was referred to agriculture examination, marked “YES” ...

Rachel Brathen at the Envision Festival. Source: Instagram Envision Festival Press Release – The Envision Festival in Costa Rica announces a world-class music, yoga, and speaker lineup for their sixth annual gathering, taking place on the majestic shores of Uvita, Costa Rica from February 25th to 28th, 2016. With the goal of creating a festival that represents the harmonious blending of many d...

Starbucks News Media Release / The holidays are a special time at Starbucks with tastes and experiences that inspire the spirit of the season. The 2015 holiday season has arrived as Starbucks® stores around the world are now filled with a full assortment of seasonal food, beverages and merchandise. Starbucks Reserve® Christmas 2015: Select stores will offer this first-edition holiday coffee wit...

On this day, the good people of the United States celebrate Veterans Day, and in Costa Rica the U.S. expat community often gets together to celebrate those who served in the Armed Forces of their nation, and some of these veterans are from Costa Rica.   Author’s Note: The use of the noun and adjective “American” in this article conforms to the definition in Princeton’s WordNet: (A native ...

Source: Wikimedia Commons Latin American air carrier Avianca is offering a special discount period on airfares to nine North American destinations in the United States and Canada from Costa Rica and other Central American nations. Ticket prices range between $399 and $549, and they include travel during the busy holiday season. According to a news report filed by Karla Madrigal of business ...

Rachel Brathen at the Envision Festival. Source: Instagram Envision Festival Press Release - The Envision Festival has released an awe-inspiring video recap of Envision 2015 produced by Pure Souls Media. The breathtaking video shows global revelers celebrating unity and life amidst Envision's world-class curation of over 50 musicians, art, workshops, and yoga classes all set amongst the stunni...

Rosh Hashanah treats. Flickr Commons Shalom. As a prime destination for medical tourism, many dental clinics in Costa Rica are staffed by multilingual professionals. At the Flikier Dental Institute, for example, English is spoken along with Spanish, French, and even Hebrew. On the day that Judaism celebrates its New Year holiday, which is known as Yom Teruah and Rosh Hashanah, it is importa...

Wikimedia Commons By Maria Jose Brenes San Jose, Sep 7 (EFE).- Every year some 700 humpback whales from the Northern Hemisphere swim down to Marino Ballena National Park, located close to Manuel Antonio on the South Pacific side of Costa Rica, to mate and give birth to their young. During four months of the year, the warm waters become a natural sanctuary where hundreds of humpback whale...

Today, August 31st, Costa Rica celebrates Afro Costa Rican Day, and one of the first activities that many Ticos will undertake this morning will consist of enjoying the most iconic dish of this country. It so happens that gallo pinto, a delicious breakfast that masterfully combines day-old rice and beans with fresh vegetables and spices, is a meal that we owe to Afro Caribbean immigrants in the fi...

Wikimedia Commons Today is the feast of Assumption of the Virgin Mary into Heaven, a Holy Day of Obligation in the Roman Catholic faith, and it is also Mother’s Day in Costa Rica as well as in some regions of Belgium. Home appliances are some of the most traditional presents for mothers in Costa Rica on their special day; some of the most popular choices are stoves, refrigerators and washing m...

A replica of La Negrita. Source: Flickr Comons At the Romeria, a very important Roman Catholic pilgrimage in Costa Rica that takes place every year, Red Cross medical personnel have treated 397 faithful pilgrims over the last couple of days. According to a news report filed by Jason Torres for online news daily Costa Rica Hoy, 267 cases are related to heat exhaustion, dehydration, respirato...

Faith No More dressed up during a recent charity concert in ChileOn the same day Costa Rica will celebrate 193 years of independence, iconic rock band Faith No More will visit for the first time in their history, which dates back to 1981. Faith No More will play a live concert on the grounds of Viva Park, a former racetrack that was acquired by media leviathan Grupo Nacion a few years ago.Althoug...

U.S. Ambassador Haney To commemorate the 239th anniversary of Independence as well as his recent arrival to Costa Rica,  held a formal function at his residence on Thursday afternoon. More than 600 attendants from various sectors of civil society and private enterprise attended the event, which took place in the capital city of Costa Rica. As previously reported by The Costa Rica Star, Amba...

Source: Embassy of Canada As Canadian expats in Costa Rica gather today to celebrate one of their most important national holidays, a few will reflect on whether this celebration is appropriately named. Though it may seem as if July 1st has always been known as Canada Day, this holiday has only been officially called as such since 1982, and some would like to revert to the old “Dominion Day.” ...

Wikimedia Commons San Jose, Costa Rica – Online sports betting company, 1Vice.ag is moving beyond giving away free money and bonuses to giving vacation prizes to attract new and existing clients.  This summer, 1Vice is giving away an all inclusive vacation to Costa Rica for four people that will last five days and four nights. When 1Vice opened its doors to the gambling public back in 2011,...

Dr. Karla Hidalgo A renowned dermatologist in Costa Rica explains: “A good sunshade with UV protection is even better than a palm tree's shade, and you not always may find a nice, shady palm tree at the beach". Have you ever thought about how many hours spent at the beach can affect your family? Too much unprotected exposure to the sun can increase the risk of skin cancer, but there is a s...

The United States today celebrates Memorial Day, and in Costa Rica the American expat community often gathers to observe the men and women who gave their lives while serving in that country’s Armed Forces. Author’s Note: The use of the noun and adjective “American” in this Article conforms to the definition in Princeton’s WordNet: (A native or inhabitant of the United States), and the recommend...