Costa Rica-Real Estate Condos for sale in Guanacaste

Last night I was watching the news at and I noticed that they either have a serious lack of interesting news or maybe Costa Rica reporters need to rearrange their stories somehow. One of the headlines was a story on how some random billionaire from Russia is vacationing in Costa Rica. At first I thought maybe he was trying to run some business in the area, but by the time the story was over all they talked about was the hummers he rent in Arenal and how he hired an ATV tour company, paid upfront and never showed up for the tour, does anyone really care about that?

In my head I thought it was way more important to see how the new Costa Rica traffic law is going and if there is any change at all after it was implemented, or how the free trade agreement Costa Rica has with the US is settling down on its first week. Even which bands will be playing in Palmares was way more important than some random guy’s vacation. Costa Rica has much more interesting news available, what is happening to the reporters?

It was simply amazing to watch how an entire news hour from Costa Rica says absolutely nothing important and sport news are definitely more serious than the rest of the broadcast. At the end I did get some important news from a local Guanacaste newspaper, which apparently has better professionals working for them and in case you were wondering: Reggueton band Calle 13 is the one playing at Palmares this year, again from the local Guanacaste newspaper not the Costa Rica TV news shows.

A whole list of foods of regular consumption in Costa Rica will experience a significant price decrease during the first three months of 2009. Among these products we can find rice, cookies, pasta and bread, which are in the top ten products in the Costa Rica diet. It is estimated that although bread and pasta have already experience a nice decrease in their prices, they will be at least 10% cheaper in a couple of months.

These are great news for all of us, but mostly for low income families in Costa Rica since these products seem to be the easiest to afford during this financial crisis. Costa Rica is definitely not an expensive country, however salaries are definitely not good enough in most cases these price decreases in regular consumption foods are a great help for the common Costa Rica family.

Last month even the gas prices went down and driving to Guanacaste beaches during the holidays was possible for families that had already lost their hope on any vacation at all. It was not such a good year for big hotels in Puntarenas and Guanacaste since people decided to save money by staying at beach cabins or camp.  

Another good thing happening to the Costa Rica economy are the implementation of the Free trade agreement which will provide work for more Costa Rica professionals and help with the finances of the area in the next few months.

According to recent stats published by the “Latin Business Chronicle” this week, Costa Rica comes in the second place among the most globally developed countries in Latin America, while Panama keeps its number one position.

The director in chief of the newspaper, Joachim Bamrud, stated: “We defined globalization as the link a country has with the rest of the world… in general, Costa Rica has a very big view worldwide and it needs to be taken advantage of”. This is completely true, most foreigners think that Costa Rica is jungle, some even think that it is an island and that couldn’t be further from the truth: every business in Costa Rica: real estate, tourism and exports are huge and technology is way more developed than the rest of Latin America.

Guanacaste real estate for example is becoming as important as the tourism businesses in the area and it is definitely becoming a huge city very fast. Watching a city grow and become nice developed and cultural venue is definitely interesting and I am happy to se that Costa Rica gets recognize in such important matters, in a few years we may certainly get to the first place since Panama is only beating Costa Rica on this list because of the Panama Canal, while tourism here is increasing more and more each year. Economy in Costa Rica is expected to experience a few lows at the beginning of the year but nothing to be scared about, we just need to keep saving money and we should be ok.

With the new Traffic law in Costa Rica made official a couple of days ago one of the worst drunk driving records was broken just hours after it was made public: a middle aged man was found early in the morning with 3.5 scale of alcohol in his blood, the could hardly stand up by himself and even tried to get away in his car after the policemen took his keys. The Costa Rica man was processed and the estate took his car for good, his license was suspended and he has to do community work; another 4 men were stopped and are waiting to be prosecuted in the next hours.

In Costa Rica, drunk driving is now being penalized pretty strong and people can even go to jail if found driving recklessly or drunk, so pretty much this guy was lucky. People are now afraid of the new traffic law in Costa Rica and of course that is exactly what the government was looking to achieve.

I have stated before that Costa Rica is indeed a wonderful place to live, on of the reasons are the people themselves: In Costa Rica people are joyful ad funny, they like to celebrate a lot, they even have a hymn to alcohol (or guaro as they call it) so they definitely needed this type of laws implemented as soon as possible. Here in Guanacaste people are having fun and enjoying the wonderful weather and so far I haven’t heard of any big issue during the holidays. It makes me happy that people are learning to have fun responsibly.

In my case, I will take my family sightseeing through Guanacaste beaches today and tomorrow but I will try to take a chance and keep you posted on any important information, especially if I find any nice real estate bargain.

The very famous travel website Fodor’s Travel which is a division of Random House, Inc has announced their Costa Rica photography contest. The official theme of the contest is “Show Us Your Costa Rica.” The main idea of the contest is to have everyone: tourists and Costa Rica citizens share their most memorable Costa Rica pictures and the best ones will be selected to be featured in Fodor’s Costa Rica 2010 guidebook– on sale in October 2009.

Since the website is specialized in traveling, the pictures are expected to be show beautiful Costa Rica sceneries, culture and traditions and anyone interested can participate, the deadline to send the pictures is January 5^th, 2009. Among prizes, Fodor’s will be giving the winning photographer a suite of Fodor’s new full-color guidebooks and the 10 runners-up will receive two Fodor’s guidebooks of their choice, the selected pictures will also be featured in the Costa Rica guide at www.fodors.com as well.

Costa Rica has really incredible locations to take unbelievable pictures so; basically anyone who is in Costa Rica and has a camera can participate. I think the most trouble will be for the judges since I am sure the material for Costa Rica will be a lot even though the deadline is only two weeks away. Also since there are some many people coming to Costa Rica for vacations material will be plenty for sure.

For those interesting in sending their Costa Rica picture to the contest visit Fodor’s website and upload your picture as soon as possible, who knows, maybe your picture will appear in their Costa Rica travel guide.

As I advertised a few weeks ago, Costa Rica will be receiving their lucky 2 000 000 visitor this week and the ICT (Instituto Costarricense de Turismo) has arranged a warm welcome to the tourist that walks in and hits the mark.

The lucky Costa Rica vacation will be sponsored by several tourism companies and what they want is to celebrate the record set by giving the visitor the best Costa Rica experience possible: tours, free hotels, transportation, meals at well known restaurants and much more freebies to make this experience the best one for the lucky 2 000 000 Costa Rica visitor.

According to some statistics, the lucky 2 000 000 Costa Rica tourist is schedule to arrive tomorrow December 17^th at the Juan Santamaria Airport where personnel from ICT will be expecting him or her since early in the morning, so if you have and schedule flight to Costa Rica for tomorrow you might be the expected winner and will be able to enjoy the best Costa Rica vacation one can experience, all for free!

Another good thing is that if you are flying to Costa Rica, the weather could not be better meaning that you will be able to actually enjoy every tour and trip available in the area, not to mention the great holiday traditional activities in Costa Rica: El tope, the carnival, Zapote and all the cultural activities Costa Rica usually plans for these days. 

Last week a guy came out of the bank in San Jose and got followed by two robbers, when they tried to attack him, the guy shot both of them and killed them. The crime rate in Costa Rica has sky rocketed in the past couple of years, it has become so bad that the Security Minister elected for this current Costa Rica government resigned stating that she had no idea of what she was doing; the good thing is that the person that occupied her job did know what she was doing and has managed to pick up the pieces quite well.

Costa Rica is a peaceful place, don’t get me wrong, but after some “Maras” started gaining territory through Guanacaste, criminals did go on the loose and now it has become a bit of an issue. There are certain areas in Costa Rica where crime rate is higher and when you came here you should definitely avoid them, it is also recommended that if you came to Costa Rica on vacation you use the safety choice of you hotel room to keep your passport and most of your money.

Safety in Costa Rica is however taken very seriously, people have come together to create organizations to end the insecurity issues, and there are now harder punishments for even petty theft, criminals are not getting away that easily. Visiting Costa Rica is definitely the dream of many, and you will certainly enjoy your stay a lot more if you are careful if you are coming to any beach in Guanacaste or Puntarenas, do not leave your stuff unattended; if you are going to stay in San Jose avoid walking at night by yourself and do not carry all your items with you.

Today I am in San Jose doing my Christmas shopping. I decide to come here because I wanted to get an idea of how Christmas in Costa Rica is prepared and enjoy a few of the events taking place this week: the Costa Rica book fair, the Avenidazo and the Festival de la Luz.

I thought it was going to be a lot more hectic than it is and talking to some people I noticed that it is because of the financial crisis, apparently in Guanacaste you can’t really see how this has affected Costa Rica. Some friends were telling me that a lot of people have lost their jobs, so they have had to cut off some expenses and people are not going crazy in the stores as they usually do.

On the other hand the traditional activities in Costa Rica have not let me down at all: the concert I saw last night at la Antigua Aduana were quite impressive and at the book fair I bought most of my Christmas gifts which was great and one learned about the Avenidazo which I didn’t really understood and scared the hell out of me.

The greatest thing about living in Costa Rica and staying for the holidays is for sure the excessive amount of tamales one can consume, so far I have eaten 5 different types and bought a few piñitas to share with the family back in Guanacaste. Costa Rica is a very different than what a gringo like me is used to, but I have to admit I do like and enjoy these differences.

Economic Airline JetBlue will begin operations to fly to Costa Rica next March, 2009; this route will be the first one the airline opens for Central America. The airline will set 100-seat Embraer E190 jets to provide a daily route between San Jose, Costa Rica and Orlando Florida, this route will be JetBlue’s 22nd nonstop route from Orlando, while it continues opening their Latin American market which by the way will begin operations in January 29^th from Bogota, Colombia in South America to Orlando, Florida.

People who interested in experiencing this new JetBlue route to Costa Rica can start making reservations although flights are set to start in March, the company has some nice introduction offers with tickets priced below $100 in some cases, meaning that a Costa Rica vacation is now even closer than ever.

Another good thing about this new flights to Costa Rica is that by the time JetBlue begins operations summer time in Costa Rica is at its best, so you can now sit an enjoy in a lovely Guanacaste Beach for way less than you would right now, also the prices in hotels a way cheaper during these days because of the green season in Costa Rica.

These cheap flights to Costa Rica are also a good opportunity for those foreigners investing in real estate since it would cost less to come and check on properties in Costa Rica or keep an eye on any development project you may have.

Apparently Central America leaders are undergoing negotiations to create a union very similar to the European Union in matters of economic and migratory laws and regulations.

What they are thriving to achieve is have a common currency among the Central American countries as well as a common passport for citizens and with this create a better and bigger community. Although Costa Rica has always been very apart from any type of attempt unify Central America they are apparently very close to this proposal given the fact is one of the main choices to avoid being so affected by the global economic financial crisis.

As a Costa Rica citizen I have to admit this worries me a bit: Costa Rica does not have an army while most of the other Central America countries do, also the migration laws have done an incredible job regulating the massive increase of foreigners coming to live in Costa Rica avoiding criminals and law breakers to move in as much as possible and some countries such as Guatemala and El Salvador are to known to have terrible issues with gangs (which they call “Maras”) and you just can’t see those types of criminals in Costa Rica, if a common passport is issued I am afraid that Costa Rica will now see types of violence people here are just not used to live with.  

Also, I live in Guanacaste, Costa Rica is closer to the rest of the Central America countries through this province so most people will be entering the country through here increasing traffic and well in a positive way, the development of the area, although besides that possibility I don’t see much positive changes for Costa Rica if they decide to join this Central America Union.