While doing my daily research yesterday, I came across a blog very similar to this one where a woman who has apparently traveled the world her whole life writes about Costa Rica. I often read those articles since the blog shows up every time I look for news about Costa Rica in Google but yesterday I was beyond surprised with her article.
This woman, who claims to have lived here in Costa Rica for over 16 years claims that Ticos do not have artistic talent and that probably it is not part of theCosta Rica education to be artistic. I was talking to a Tica friend of mine and she felt insulted for the article, given the fact that she is a photographer and painter herself. Also, I may have only been living here for a few months but I have to admit: Costa Rica arts are quite impressive. Almost half the people I meet play at least one instrument, I have also read 2 books that were simply wonderful, written by Costa Rica writers and I have bought paintings made by locals as well.
There are a least 6 concerts advertised every week for local bands that play anything from Cumbia to Heavy Metal, all with original material, not to mention Maria Jose Castillo who got 2nd place in the Latin American Idol competition just last week. So I wonder how is it that someone who has lived here for so long hasn’t been able to check how creative people are in Costa Rica. Tourism itself is also embraced on culture: ocarinas, glass figurines, accessories paintings and all sorts of hand made sculptures are displayed and on sale everywhere.
Actually every time I go to San Jose, I always notice a small fair with local artists on some park, where they paint; right on the street, circus shows are presented as well and musicians are always part of those little celebrations. I think this woman is definitely seeing a different side of Costa Rica; arts are everywhere, so I wonder where exactly she hasn’t seen creativity in the people for 16 years.
If you are planning on visiting the lovely Costa Rica during the holidays you better hurry up, there isn’t so much room and reservations are running out.
Costa Rica experiences its best weather from December through April and people (locals and visitors) do take advantage of this at its maximum. If you wish to spend a quality vacation in Costa Rica during December you will need to begin making your reservations now, otherwise it is going to be very difficult to find a place later, especially if you are planning on visiting Guanacaste. Costa Rica has many different choices: luxury villas, regular rental homes and hotels that vary from small cabins up to celebrity status accommodations.
Since I lived here for a while now, my recommendation is to get a rental villa, Guanacaste has too many beaches and they are all pretty close from each other so a villa in Guanacaste, no matter the location will give you different choices and you can use your time to its maximum: visiting natural reservoirs, volcanoes, beaches and getting into fun activities such as ATV, Canopy and snorkeling; also costs are lower, therefore you can also save some money to buy souvenirs and rent a car a for example.
Tourism in Costa Rica is one of the biggest products, sort of speak, it is one of the few countries in the world that haven’t compromise their natural resources to include technology and nowadays development. Vacation packages in Costa Rica are also not expensive at all and once you come here, you definitely fall in love with the place, I can’t begin to tell you how many people I have met that came here for a short vacation and decided to stay for good.
Another good thing about renting a Villa during you Costa Rica vacation is that you can get an actual taste of what living here is like and trust me, you cannot regret it. The peaceful ambience, the liberty of going wherever you want and the easy access to services, grocery stores and fun activities makes a huge difference, while staying at a hotel may not be so suitable for exploration of the area.
You might wonder what the main difference is between living an entire life in the big city where technology is everywhere and development is part of the day of everybody and what is like to leave all that behind and relocate to a completely different country, such as Costa Rica, the main difference is that actually there are a whole bunch of differences.
At the beginning all my friends thought I went senile: Relocating to Costa Rica? Moving the whole family? Yes, but not because I was senile, I just got tired of the stress and the insanity of the big city. Costa Rica offered me everything I secretly desired: peace, a normal life, less dependency to a whole bunch of gadgets that became expensive and unnecessary and most importantly: PEACE.
Finding my home in Costa Rica was not easy of course, but finding a home anywhere is hard nowadays. The first thing was learning about Costa Rica: people for example are very different than US people: They are happier, the care less about the stupid mundane things, yet they are proud and well educated. Women are the ones that impress me the most. Costa Rica women are very liberal, they don’t put up with anything at all and they don’t really need a man in their lives, they just happened to liked being married, but in many cases they even work harder or make more money than the husbands.
In the US people are not so close to their roots, properties in Costa Rica are not only investments but treasures: Soil is rich, the views are stunning and the entire ambiance is filled with a very peaceful feeling. Land in Costa Rica Is very well taken care of and it has many uses: cultivating and constructions are not the only two choices. If you take a chance to do some research in real estate, make sure you try and find everything there is about the place where you are moving in Costa Rica: mountain side, rain forest, beach side or event down town.
This past weekend the production of Latin American Idol allowed her to visit her family and friends and make a small video of her life in Costa Rica as part of the final shows before the real Latin American Idol is chosen. This past Friday the JuanSantamariaAirport was a filled with fans since the early hours of the day who wanted to take greet and meet the Costa Rica singer. People collapse the streets between the airport and her house in Heredia, they held banners and gave her flowers and even a Cimarrona (group of local musicians that play typical songs) awaited her arrival in Barva de Heredia. The young Maria Jose Castillo did small performances for her fans and spent time with her family, friends and boyfriend and although she did not have much time to rest, she said that her batteries were charged and she was really to leave the name of Costa Rica up high.
The support given to the performer has shown that Costa Rica is proud of their contestant and even small activities took place to collect money for messages to vote this next Wednesday, when the Latin American Idol semifinals will take place in Argentina. Even big companies such as Neutrogena and TCBY ice creams have worked on promotions to make people vote: Neutrogena paid for huge banners place in big bus routes and TCBY has been giving away ice creams in exchange for votes.
The hopes are high and the faith is big, the Costa Rica people have been supporting Maria Jose very strong and proving that a small country can have idol material and that the power of pride can join countries, since a lot of the Central American people have supported her with the same power Costa Rica has. The next performance for the top for will be held this next Wednesday, voting will be enabled right after the show ends and to support Costa Rica’s performer all you need to do is sent a text message: Maria at 43657. I honestly wish the best of luck to her and Costa Rica.
Recently the Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad (ICE) has submitted a request to increase the electricity rate for residential customers by 30% to the ARESEP, if this request is approved a regular family in Costa Rica, that usually pays a bill of 10.000 colones (a little less than $20 ) a month will have to pay over 3.000 colones more each month. The ICE is actually pushing an increase of 46% and the 455 mil users of the Compañia Nacional de Fuerza y Luz (CNFL) will come to experience and increase of almost a 56%.
There have been several increases in utilities bills during the past few months, Costa Rica is experiencing one of the fastest increases in years and a recent study confirmed that regular consumption products like rice, beans, meat, toilet paper and cleaning products are over three times more expensive now than 3 or 4 years ago. Unfortunately in Costa Rica, cost of living is increasing unparallel to salaries and families are the ones getting more and more affected by this discrepancy.
As I have published before, Costa Rica is indeed a paradise for foreigners, where the dollar became king and Costa Rica citizens are hardly able to afford a middle class life. The very sad part of all these is that in Costa Rica most of the people have college education and all the hard work is not paying off enough. A College graduate minimum salary hardly covers rent rates in middle to low class neighborhoods and loans are hard to get with those salaries.
Oscar Arias, Costa Rica president second time around has claimed he feels “tired” of trying to please the people which has become frustrating to all the hard working Costa Ricans that can’t see any progress at all. While properties in Guanacaste are on the most wanted list for young professionals due to the fast development of the area, prices are high and it seems property owners rather inflate their pocket with US investment.
While everyone I know is getting ready for the daylight savings time change I sit here on a hammock and rejoice on my routine: there is no daylight savings in Costa Rica!
Usually by this time of the year I begin working on the schedule changes required on everyday life, in Costa Rica we don’t need to do that at all. Modern Daylight Savingstime was proposed in 1907 by the English builder William Willett and many countries have used it since then; details vary by location and change occasionally, for example in Great Britain it is just called summer time. There are different views on this practice: Adding daylight to afternoons benefits retailing, sports, and other activities that exploit sunlight after working hours yet it causes problems for farming, entertainment and other occupations tied to the sun, therefore studies are still going on about how beneficial this change is for everyone.
Daylight savings time is practiced mostly in countries where that have the four seasons throughout the year, in Costa Rica there is only two seasons: dry and rainy therefore there are no really visible changes in the daylight, the main difference may be that it does gets darker about 20 minutes earlier than usual, but it is actually hardly noticeable.
Also, during the past few days Costa Rica weather has changed a lot and there are no more hurricane or storm threats, it has actually been very sunny and peaceful, usually September and October are the wettest months of the year so we should expect some more rain. Guanacaste beaches are receiving little more visitors than in the past three weeks and for what I experience last year the Costa Rica tourism rate drops after December for foreigners, but locals know that January and February are the best months to visit Guanacaste.
After an entire week of storming rains and flood, Guanacaste is finally feeling a little bit of peace this morning when the sun finally shone over us. Tropical storm Hannah did not go through Costa Rica with all its strength, yet the little that crossed by put 1039 people in shelters after their homes were flooded and rivers overflowed over 1.30 meters above ground these past days.
Some families may have lost most of their valuables, however there were no human loses or even hurt people through out the storm. Most of the properties that suffer damage were small wooden homes, old constructions that were located in areas in Guanacaste that were known to be dangerous in case of bad weather. Costa Rica is now clear and the sunny weather is back, meaning that all that is left to do is start with damage control.
Some kids seemed to have fun with the water after all…
Some development projects had to be put aside during the past week due to the weather but everything appears to be good to continue for now. Although Costa Rica did not expect to go through any emergencies or damage caused by Tropical Storm Hannah, it is impressive how quickly they all reacted to the problem.
This week, the affected locations in Guanacaste will go through extensive check ups to see exactly what needs to be fixed first so most of the families living in shelters can go back to their homes. In Costa Rica, beaches and riverside residencies are built to endure any issues that overflowing rivers o bad weather can cause, yet some constructions are a little bit old and low budget houses are sometimes located in alert zones. Most of the luxury villas are located in high level properties in Guanacaste, yet if you are planning on purchasing land, make sure to verify if there are any alerts at all in the area.
Today I am afraid I have bad news: yesterday Tropical Storm Hannah left over 45 homes flooded in Guanacaste. Costa Rica has in fact been suffering a little with the rains and strong winds caused by Hannah passing by the near islands in the pacific. So far it there were only storming rains during the afternoon hours and a yellow alert, but yesterday, Hannah pulled her strongest pours on the north side of Costa Rica.
Apparently the storming rains will continue during today and tomorrow and the road between Malpais and Montezuma has been closed, so plan ahead if you were thinking of riding through that area. Costa Rica was not supposed to be so affected by the Tropical Storm Hannah so much, actually Gustav and Ike don’t seem to be close to the Costa Rica area at all yet, and yellow and green alerts have been set to prevent further problems.
Emergency in Guanacaste (picture by Periódico Al Día)
The main problem that caused the flood was that several rivers of the Guanacaste area, especially in Santa Cruz where locals experienced drastic overflowing of the nearby rivers which caused gutters to rise above the streets. The Comision Nacional de Emergencias is currently taken care of the damage situation and helping the affected families, thankfully, no human loses are reported so far. Costa Rica is so aware if natural disasters, their emergency teams are clear on how to proceed and the entire situation should be handled in the next 24 hours. Guanacaste beaches will continue experiencing rains and strong winds during the weekend.
I am trying to find out is any of the local help associations is receiving canned good for the affected families or clothing since they are located in temporary shelters right now. Although Costa Rica is always prepared for these types of issues, a little extra help is always needed. I will make sure I post any updates that may come.
While reading newspaper and random articles online I can see how people have different ideas and preconceptions about Costa Rica. Articles in some blogs are mostly written by temporary visitors and their views are completely subjected to the experiences they had on their trip, mostly I must say; news are always in search for stuff to amaze and get people’s attention meaning that they are focused on causing an impression whether it is good or bad. Costa Rica lifestyle is rather calmed and although some crime does happen or problems appear it is just like any other country, actually better than some.
Although I reside in a peaceful rural area, I have access to all the facilities and services I was accustomed to in the United States; I am not going to say that all rural areas in Costa Rica are this advanced, but at least the choice to have a peaceful home is available in a lot of areas. Real estate listings in Costa Ricadon’t really specify what type of area a property located in, yet all the realtors have good knowledge of the benefits or lack of benefits of each location.
In my neighborhood things are calmed, sometimes maybe a little too calmed, but I believe it is because Costa Rica is a calmed place, not too mention that the coasts lifestyle seems slow and detailed. The most dangerous thing I have seen here since I moved was when some tourist got mugged at the beach in Tamarindo, they didn’t really got mugged, they just went into the ocean for a swim and left all their stuff unattended so it was bound to happen; overall Guanacaste is a nice place to call home.
Since last week another great advance in the film industry for Costa Rica has hit the movie theatres: El Camino is another film that depicts the struggle two young immigrants go through trying to find their parents who migrated to Costa Ricain search of a better life.
The lead actress herself, 14-year-old Sherling Velásquez strongly identified the plight of her character: She never got to know the mother who left her and her younger brother with their grandmothers more than a decade ago to come to Costa Rica in search of a better life for herself and her children.
Every year, hundreds of Nicaraguans trespass the Northern border of Costa Rica due to the high level of poverty they have to live with in their country: once they arrive they get low paid jobs as security guards, construction workers and house maids in the best case scenario; some end up selling goods on the streets illegally. Although in Costa Rica education is free, these immigrants cannot complete their studies since the low salary they receive is hardly enough to get by and send back to their relatives in Nicaragua, so very few of them find better jobs than those, not to mention some might be staying illegally in the country.
In Guanacaste, Costa Rica has the biggest immigration rate of Nicaraguans, being the proximity to that country. Just like in the United States immigrants not always get to taste that so called better life they searched for and end up hanging out with the wrong crowd in some cases; you could say that the issues created are very similar to the ones we North Americans are used to living with Mexican immigrants in our country: some are real honest hard workers, some may be blinded by frustration and end up being a burden to society.
It is not good to assume that all immigrants will create problems or become criminals, the way Costa Rica handles the immigration problem is actually helping those who care staying here legally granting them the same benefits a regular Costa Rica citizen has so they can succeed, of course not everyone is willing to go through all that paper work and working illegally in any country is of course a problem.
