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| Road to somewhere: Construction has begun northwest of San José in Siquiares, Alajuela, on the long-fabled Caldera highway, meant to cut driving time between the Costa Rican capital and central-Pacific port of Caldera down to less than an hour. President Oscar Arias showed up yesterday to man the bulldozer and give the fledgling roadwork his official thumbs up. |
| Ronald Reyes | Tico Times. |
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| Costa Rica's San José-Caldera highway en route |
| What for 30 years has been a punch line to jokes about Costa Rican government inefficiency finally got moving yesterday, as President Oscar Arias and other government officials inaugurated the construction of the San José-Caldera highway. |
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| Nicaraguan coffee exports
percolate in first two months of harvest |
| Nicaraguan coffee exports are up 46.6% during the first two months of the 2007-08 harvest in relation to the same period last year, according to the government's Export Processing Center (Cetrex). |
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| Pacific cruising launches to a good start |
| The Queen Victory is an enormous boat. Sprawling the length of three football fields and weighing in at 90,000 tons, the ship sits 12 stories above the water and can accommodate 2,000 passengers. |
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| Private bank debt will be paid,
says Nicaraguan Central Bank pres |
| Central Bank President Antenor Rosales said the government still plans on paying the $48 million debt it accrued in a controversial 2001 private bank bailout and plans to reach an agreement by April. |
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| January 18 |
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Classes commence at XII Universidad Nacional
Last chance to sign up for the more than 150 classes on offer for children, adults, and elderly, including crafts, arts, theater, dance, decoration, computer, jewelry, martial arts, to be held Jan. 22-Feb. 3. Information 277-3119, www.fundauna.org
Family theater: “Gata en Vacaciones, Fiesta de Ratones”
To benefit the Children's Cancer Association, 7 p.m., National Auditorium, Children's Museum.
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| January 19 |
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National Mule Festival
Including bullfights, traditional games, concerts, food, cultural events, sports, through Feb.3, Parrita, Puntarenas.
Golf Tournaments
Organized by ANAGOLF, Men's Ranking, through Jan. 20, Double Tree Cariari Hotel
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| January 20 |
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XXVIII National Sports Games 2008
Including 18 official sports and three exhibition sports, through Jan.27, Heredia.
Culture Week
Including Concerts, storytelling shows, plays, folklore, through Jan. 27, starts 1 p.m., main parks in Heredia cantons.
Bouldering Festival
Providencia will be hosting a Bouldering Festival, 10 a.m., featuring bouldering circuits, slacklining, juggling and more, $2. For more information, call 893-3744 or 352-0597.
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Edited By Alex Leff
Tico Times Staff | aleff@ticotimes.net |
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| Costa Rica's San José-Caldera highway en route |
By Peter Krupa
Tico Times Staff | pkrupa@ticotimes.net
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What for 30 years has been a punch line to jokes about Costa Rican government inefficiency finally got moving yesterday, as President Oscar Arias and other government officials inaugurated the construction of the San José-Caldera highway.
When completed, the 77-km stretch of road will cut driving time by almost a third from the capital to the Pacific coast down to less than an hour.
Ministry of Public Works and Transport head Karla González said concessionaire Autopistas del Sol – a consortium made up of a Spanish, a Portuguese and a Costa Rican company – has 30 months to complete the highway. |
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Nicaraguan coffee exports
percolate in first two months of harvest |
Nicaraguan coffee exports are up 46.6% during the first two months of the 2007-08 harvest in relation to the same period last year, according to the government's Export Processing Center (Cetrex).
Coffee exports from last October and November, the first two months of this year's harvest, totaled $23.4 million, compared to $15.9 million from October and November of the 2006-07 harvest, Cetrex reported.
The increase is being attributed to a rise in international coffee prices as well as greater productivity.
The price of a quintal of coffee gathered during the first two months of this year's harvest reached an average price of $121.30, compared to an average $99 last year. A quintal equals 100 pounds.
The volume of coffee exports is also up to 192,833 quintales in October and November, compared to 161,034 during the same period the year before.
Based on the early statistics, the government predicts that the 2007-08 coffee harvest will bring in $212 million from 1.5 million quintales.
Coffee is Nicaragua's principal agricultural export product.
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-Nica Times
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| Pacific cruising launches to a good start |
By Peter Krupa
Tico Times Staff | pkrupa@ticotimes.net
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The Queen Victory is an enormous boat. Sprawling the length of three football fields and weighing in at 90,000 tons, the ship sits 12 stories above the water and can accommodate 2,000 passengers.
It's a brand new ship. And it's stopping in Costa Rica on its maiden voyage. The Queen Victory is one of 98 ships from five companies that will be stopping at the Pacific ports of Caldera and Puntarenas this cruise season.
Begun in August of last year, the season has so far seen almost 50,000 passengers disembarking for 12 hours of tourism on land at the port of Puntarenas.
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Private bank debt will be paid,
says Nicaraguan Central Bank pres |
By Blake Schmidt
Nica Times Staff | bschmidt@ticotimes.net
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Central Bank President Antenor Rosales said the government still plans on paying the $48 million debt it accrued in a controversial 2001 private bank bailout and plans to reach an agreement by April.
“How are we not going to pay?” he told The Nica Times.
Rosales' remarks come after President Daniel Ortega said in his State of the Nation speech earlier this month that the government may not pay what was expected to be paid this year.
Accusing holders of “delay tactics,” Ortega threatened to “withdraw from those banks the billions of dollars that the Nicaraguan state has invested in them” if his opponents continue trying to politicize what he called a “criminal act.”
The Nicaraguan government issued controversial bond-like Negotiable Investment Certificates, or CENIs, to cover the collapse of the private banks at the end of President Arnoldo Alemán's administration (NT, Aug. 11, 2006).
Read next Friday's print edition of The Nica Times, an eight-page publication of The Tico Times, for more on this story.
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