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Spain's No. 2 in command: Spanish Vice Prime Minister María Teresa Fernández speaks in Costa Rica Monday during a visit with President Oscar Arias, during which they discussed Central America-European Union trade relations and the Honduras crisis. |
Ronald Reyes | Tico Times |
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Mapping Costa Rica: This map of Costa Rica and another of San José were unveiled this week by the National Tourism Chamber and can be found online at the chamber's Web site: www.costaricatourism.co.cr. |
Courtesy of CANATUR |
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Costa Rica cabinet-members line up
for positions on Chinchilla’s campaign |
| Three top officials in President Oscar Arias' cabinet will announce their resignation Wednesday to pursue a position with presidential frontrunner Laura Chinchilla, according to Minister to the Presidency Rodrigo Arias. |
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| Costa Rica and capital city boast new detailed maps |
After several months of work, the National Tourism Chamber (CANATUR) has unveiled two new digital maps of Costa Rica with the hope of providing tourists with the maximum amount of information possible. |
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| Water outages across western San José Tuesday |
Several towns and districts outside the Costa Rican capital will be without drinking water Tuesday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. They are: Mora, Santa Ana, Alajuelita, Desamparados, Ciudad Colón, Piedades, Río Oro, San Marcos, Lindora, Forum, Pozos, San Felipe, San Josecito, Concepción and San Rafael Abajo de Desamparados, Bello Horizonte, San Antonio and Bebedero in Escazú. |
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| Spain hopes to increase investment in Costa Rica |
Accompanied by a fleet of more than 15 journalists, Spanish Vice Prime Minister María Teresa Fernández arrived in Costa Rica Sunday to nudge two pending bilateral agreements closer to implementation. |
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Hard Work as Turtle
Volunteer Has Rewards |
It is 3 a.m., we have been walking on the beach for four hours, we are not allowed to use flashlights or insect repellent, it has been raining hard for the last two hours, all our clothes are soaked, and we have not seen a turtle. |
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Costa Rica cabinet-members line up
for positions on Chinchilla’s campaign |
By Chrissie Long
Tico Times Staff | clong@ticotimes.net |
Three top officials in President Oscar Arias' cabinet will announce their resignation Wednesday to pursue a position with presidential frontrunner Laura Chinchilla, according to Minister to the Presidency Rodrigo Arias.
Under Costa Rican election rules, those serving in political office are not permitted to work on a campaign unless they step down six months before the election.
Labor Minister Francisco Morales, Treasury Minister Guillermo Zúñiga and Justice Minister Viviana Martín all indicated their desire to join Chinchilla for the February election.
Vice President Roberto Thompson, who shared the vice presidency with Laura Chinchilla less than a year ago, and Tourism Minister Carlos Ricardo Benavides have also shown an interest.
With so many of Arias' appointees and staffers leaving to join Chinchilla, political analysts say it's just another signal that the frontrunner is positioning her campaign on the back of Arias' success.
“The message she has shown is that it's going to be a continuation,” said Fernando Zeledón, a political science professor at the University of Costa Rica. “But that will become clearer in the points and actions of a government plan.”
Asked whether the resignations of the ministers will hinder the work of the Arias administration in its remaining eight months, Zeledón said it would have a small impact, but each minister carries behind him or her a team who knows how to step in.
At Monday morning's announcement, Rodrigo Arias said, “The departure of a minister always has an effect.”
As far as their replacements, he said it was too early to give any names but he added, “We will choose capable and well-prepared people so there will be enough time to continue to move the work of the government forward without problems.” |
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| Costa Rica and capital city boast new detailed maps |
By Mike McDonald
Tico Times Staff | mmcdonald@ticotimes.net |
After several months of work, the National Tourism Chamber (CANATUR) has unveiled two new digital maps of Costa Rica with the hope of providing tourists with the maximum amount of information possible.
The two maps – one of San José and another of the entire country – detail roads and highways, popular tourist locations such as beaches and national parks and the distances between commonly visited towns and points of interest.
The San José maps also provide practical information about the metropolitan area such as the location of government institutions, hospitals with phone numbers and well-known city reference points.
“These maps, without a doubt, allow a much higher range and level of accessibility for any person in all parts of the world,” Gonzalo Vargas, president of CANATUR, said in a statement. “They attempt to give more attention to Costa Rican tourist destinations and make it easy and fast for the tourist.”
Both maps can be found on the left-hand column of the chamber's Web site: www.costaricatourism.co.cr. The chamber will update the map with latest business, destination and visitor information every six months. |
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| Water outages across western San José Tuesday |
By Adam Williams
Tico Times Staff | awilliams@ticotimes.net |
Several towns and districts outside the Costa Rican capital will be without drinking water Tuesday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. They are: Mora, Santa Ana, Alajuelita, Desamparados, Ciudad Colón, Piedades, Río Oro, San Marcos, Lindora, Forum, Pozos, San Felipe, San Josecito, Concepción and San Rafael Abajo de Desamparados, Bello Horizonte, San Antonio and Bebedero in Escazú.
According to the Costa Rican Water and Sewer Institute (AyA), the National Power and Light Company will conduct electrical work that will shut off electricity in the sections of San Rafael of Alajuela, northwest of San José, and Calle Potrerillos. AyA has water pumps in the area and, due to the electrical work, much of the greater metropolitan area will be without drinking water from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.
“If we do not have electricity, our teams cannot pump water to the systems that depend on us,” said Guillermo Arce, general manager of AyA. “This means we cannot provide service to the thousands of Costa Ricans that live in the western sector of San José.” |
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| Spain hopes to increase investment in Costa Rica |
By Chrissie Long
Tico Times Staff | clong@ticotimes.net |
Accompanied by a fleet of more than 15 journalists, Spanish Vice Prime Minister María Teresa Fernández arrived in Costa Rica Sunday to nudge two pending bilateral agreements closer to implementation.
One would create an Association Agreement between Central America and the European Union and the other would eliminate double taxation for companies operating in Spain and Costa Rica.
During her visit, Fernández pledged to “continue or augment (Spain's) investment” in Costa Rica, naming security, insurance and communications as areas in which her country would like to focus.
Joined by the president of the Organization of American States José Miguel Insulza and by Ibero-American Secretary General (SEGIB) Enrique Iglesias, much of the conversation circled the situation in Honduras.
All expressed continued support for the San José Agreement, which would require the return of ousted President Manuel Zelaya to the presidency. They also showed interest in the creation of a commission of foreign ministers tasked with encouraging the conflicting sides to accept an agreement. |
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Hard Work as Turtle Volunteer Has Rewards |
It is 3 a.m., we have been walking on the beach for four hours, we are not allowed to use flashlights or insect repellent, it has been raining hard for the last two hours, all our clothes are soaked, and we have not seen a turtle. How does that sound for a school excursion? This is what happened to some of the students of Liberty Christian Academy during a trip to Matapalo Beach, on the central Pacific coast.
All 11th-grade students in Costa Rica are required to do volunteer work to graduate. Our school decided to participate in a project that protects endangered sea turtles. We coordinated a trip with ASVO ( Asociación de Voluntarios para el Servicio en las Areas Protegidas ), a volunteer association in Costa Rica. ASVO was founded in 1989 and since then has helped place volunteers in protected and non-protected areas of Costa Rica to make up for the lack of personnel. ASVO has developed projects in Matapalo, Buenavista, Punta Mala, and Playa Hermosa, among others.
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During our trip we were assigned two jobs. One was to patrol the beach at night to find turtles laying eggs. This involved a 10-kilometer walk in the dark without a flashlight on a beach littered with driftwood. Hopefully our efforts would be rewarded and we would spot a turtle crawling up the beach. Flashlights, strong odors like insect repellent, light-colored clothing and noise could all scare the turtle, causing it to leave the beach without laying its eggs. Once the female turtle laid its eggs and returned to the sea, we would take the eggs to the hatchery.
The second job was to take part in the 24-hour watch at the hatchery to protect the eggs from poachers, who would sell them on the black market. After the eggs are collected by volunteers patrolling the beach, they are taken to a closed-off section of the beach and put in a manmade nest. All nests have to be checked every 15 minutes for hatchlings. If we found any hatchlings, we would protect them as they crawled to the sea, hoping that they would reach adulthood. It is amazing to know that only one out of a thousand will survive the harsh journey to adulthood.
I would like to tell you about my personal experience on this trip. My trip began at 6 a.m. as we left San José for a four-hour bus ride to Quepos on the Pacific coast. There we transferred to a second bus, which took us for an hour and a half through African palm plantations to Matapalo. The last leg of the trip was a 20-minute walk on a dirt road to the volunteer station. We were then assigned to our cabins, which exceeded my expectations, as they were very clean and comfortable. Following that, we received a training session provided by the ASVO staff, which consisted of a video detailing our responsibilities.
My first assignment started at 9 p.m. My team was composed of members of my school and other volunteers from Germany and Sweden. Our task was to patrol five kilometers of beach looking for sea turtles. As I was not accustomed to walking on a beach with no lights or even moonlight, I found it very difficult to distinguish between sand, driftwood, water, rocks, etc. As I stumbled across the beach, I tried to keep up with the other, more experienced volunteers and tried to be on the lookout for turtle tracks. After three hours of strenuous walking and heavy rainfall, we managed to see a turtle, which unfortunately turned back to sea before laying its eggs. At midnight we arrived back at our cabin, soaking wet and ready for a warm shower. The next morning at breakfast I found out that I had been very lucky because my team was the only one to see a turtle.
That morning I was notified that my next task would be from 6 to 8 a.m. the next day. During that day, we were assigned some short, enjoyable jobs. For example, we had to cut bamboo for a new fence at the volunteer station. The next task was to dig a small trench in front of the hatchery to prevent high-tide waves from disturbing the nests. This work was a bit boring, because even though we checked 30 nests every 15 minutes for an hour and a half, we did not see a turtle hatching.
But finally, about 10 minutes before my shift was up, one of my friends found a baby. I was so happy I finally had the chance to see one! After taking dozens of pictures of the poor turtle, we freed it into the ocean. Even though the hatchery job was monotonous, this was the most gratifying experience of the whole trip. To free the baby into the water was all the reward I needed for the hours of long work I had done the days before. I hope that some day this same turtle will come back to the beach and lay some more eggs to help its species multiply and not be endangered any more.
If you would like to go through a similar experience and help the sea turtles of Costa Rica, you can call our school, Liberty Christian Academy, at 2236-3886, or call ASVO at 2258-4430 to sign up for this extremely rewarding experience. You can check out the ASVO Web site at www.asvocr.org.
Tico Benjamin Worsfold, 16, is in his fifth year of high school at Liberty Christian Academy in the northeastern San José suburb of Moravia. He lives in San Francisco de Dos Ríos.
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