Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Taking your small dog to Costa Rica

First ask your vet. if he or she is certified Internationale vet? Ask if they have the form APHIS 7001 from the USDA? Also this form can now be done on line too. Make an appointment get the shots and your certificate. Fill out the form 7001 carefully! They will return it unsigned if not correct!
Enclose money order for $36 made out to USDA and Also enclose copy of Vaccination certificate
Mail to:
USDA, APHIS
8100 NW 15th Place
Gainesville, FL 32606

Do not forget to enclose your return prepaid envelope. They said 2 to 3 days to process.

The certificate is good for 30 days and not one day more. I thought they would let me slide once on the 31st day but no they walked me and my little dog out of the airport in Costa Rica and said I was a heath problem and not to return until I had all current paper work so I missed my flight. I had to stay 3 more days in Costa Rica because I needed one day for the vet, one day for the government stamp and returned to the airport the next morning. Well that was more money and more time. Just a reminder no government stamps on weekends or holidays so do your planning.

Saturday, April 23, 2011

Registry Web Site To Be Improved

The national land registry promises a vastly improved Web site by the second quarter of this year, complete with plats, up-to-date data and high resolution maps.

Called BID-Catastro. workers are plowing their way through the 56 cantons on the site with 23 well advanced. The maps will be 1:5000 for all territory and 1:1000 for urban areas.

It will be accessed by Google at Sistema Nacional de Informacion Territorial.

It is hoped eventually that the information will indicate hazardous zones in which to build and aid in zoning, which is currently all but non-existent in some important areas of Costa Rica.

Help with Car Buying in Costa Rica

Great web site read below about this great service!
http://wheelscr.com

Help with Car Buying in Costa Rica
In 2005 we started our first car site at www.fijatevos.com . The objective was to help used car dealers offer their vehicles to the local market. As the site progressed, we began to see that it was difficult for foreigners in Costa Rica to buy a vehicle for a number of reasons. We began offering assistance to people contacting us through the site and the PASS service was born.
The fee for the PASS service is $280, click here: Contact Us (opens new window) to make your reservation now. The PASS service includes the following steps:
Preliminary consultation by email on suitable vehicles, methods for funding the purchase, and answering any questions you may have about the technical inspection or registration process. This step is very important in saving time in the purchase process.
A day or two before your arrival we will call our pool of dealers and importers to locate vehicles matching the agreed upon specifications. Some are dealers listed on the www.fijatevos.com web site, others are reputable dealers that do not advertise there. While some we have encountered through referrals, for the most part we have personally visited their lots and driven their vehicles. Often we have had clients that have purchased a vehicle there. Working within this pool of dealers is vital for your peace of mind, you can be sure that these are reputable business owners who bring in quality vehicles and stand behind their product.
Once you arrive, we pick you up at your residence or hotel in San José.
We visit each dealership and you will test drive the vehicle(s). We will interpret for you with the dealer to answer any questions you may have about the vehicle.
In our years of experience in providing this service, after you have seen 4-6 vehicles one will stand out as a particularly superior purchase. Either for overall condition, a better price, or for features and extras you like. In rare cases you may need to see more in order to come to a decision, and that is no problem.
The next step is to complete the purchase. If you brought cash that’s fine, otherwise we will take you to the bank assist you with getting the money out. Often the lawyer will come to the dealership, otherwise we then go to the lawyer’s office to complete the paperwork. We will help you review the sales contract and translate for you to clear up any questions on the registration process.
Once this is done you will take delivery of the vehicle. Often the same day, but in many cases this is done a day or two after the purchase for varying reasons.
Our clients our very happy with our service, read what they say here — Testimonials. Our customers are normally very happy about not having to drive in San José traffic, or navigate themselves to the dealerships. Having a reliable translator is also a big plus, and they are also reassured by being able to deal with an importer that we consider trustworthy. Altogether, everyone feels that the $280 fee is a very fair price and well worth paying.

Friday, April 22, 2011

Costa Rica is also an ecological hotspot.

Gliding weightlessly through a white tunnel with the view obscured by a soft, billowing mist must surely be what it feels like to die. Except, in the final moments before shuffling off this mortal coil, I shouldn't be seeing monkeys gibbering away metres below me. And that fine spray of mud angling annoyingly onto my face was certainly not a fitting way to enter the afterlife.

A splodge of mud in the eye does wonders to bring you back to reality. Of course I wasn't dying - I was zip wiring, careering high above the Costa Rican cloud forest.

The extreme sport is fast becoming as synonymous with Costa Rica as bungee jumping is with New Zealand.

Costa Rica is also an ecological hotspot. Its position as a land bridge linking two continents, its climate and over-active geology, combine to create one of the world's leading environmental destinations.

Wildlife lovers and more intrepid travellers have known this for years, flocking to the cloud forests, reefs and volcanoes to glimpse its seemingly endless variety of wildlife.

Costa Ricans, or 'Ticos', are fiercely proud not only of their ecological riches but also of their country's stability and prosperity in the unsettled Central American region.


People walk past a cow sculpture on display in front of the National Theater during a Cow Parade art festival in San Jose
REUTERS
A telling boast is that Costa Rica employs more teachers than police. And, even more remarkably, it has no army.

These factors make Costa Rica, or the 'rich coast' as its Spanish translation testifies, a unique tourist spot and now the larger travel companies are cottoning on to its vast potential.

Packages by tour operator First Choice are centred on the magical Guanacaste region, straddling Costa Rica's north west Pacific coast.

One of the first surprises about Guanacaste (it's named after a tree whose seeds look like a human ear) is that it is cowboy country. Despite the profusion of jeeps, the horse is king. We got into the saddle at the Hacienda Guachipelin, a working farm in the foothills of the Rincon de la Vieja national park.

The ecological richness of the country doesn't take long to surprise and delight. We took a horseback ride through butterfly-strewn meadows, the tropical giants littering the grassland like cobalt and crimson confetti.

Costa Rica is actively volcanic and Rincon boats devilish-looking mud pools, that blister and spit at temperatures hot enough to strip flesh from the bone.

We retreated from the sulphurous stink into a jungle that quickly began to reveal its secrets.

Capuchin monkeys screamed indignantly from high in the canopy. An agouti - a sort of giant, swollen hamster - crashed in the undergrowth metres from our feet.

Following our exertions on horseback, an afternoon by the river had been promised. Relaxing it was not. The Hacienda, like much of Costa Rica, specialises in terrifying outdoor activities. We were to 'tube' down the Rio Colorado.

Tubing, like zip wiring, requires the temporary abandonment of one's sanity. Arriving alongside the raging torrent, we were presented with crash helmets, life vests and a large rubber ring.

The ring, it transpires, is a giant inner-tube, hence the term “tubing”. We were instructed to sit upon it and abandon our fate to the current.

Despite the ever-present and deeply alarming sensation of terror, tubing down the river was utterly exhilarating.

You plunge down the steeply descending, boulder-strewn river, the ferocious, frothing flow often twisting and turning you backwards, the impending roar of the water and screams of your companions the only clue that you are once again about to plunge down the next set of rapids.

Respite came the next day in the guise of cocktails, coatis and lava. We were heading inland towards Costa Rica's volcanic spine.

Dramatic bursts of rainforest bulged from the roadside as we rose higher. The journey was momentarily curtailed by a group of badger-like coatis commandeering the road.

An inquisitive male, furious at being denied entry to our van, lifted his metre-long tail imperiously into the air at us before haughtily stomping off.

The brooding Arenal Volcano dominates this part of the country and provides a patchwork of volcanic pools, some of them cool enough to enjoy without needing immediate first aid.

From one such oasis, the Ecotermales Hot Springs, we supped sundowners made from the local fire spirit - guaro.

Steam rising up from the pools added to the Jurassic feel of the place as the vapour mingled with the dripping muddle of tropical vegetation before twisting off into the darkness.

The Monteverde Cloud Forest, high in the mist-wreathed mountains, is a haven for both scientists and tourists. The former attracted by the mind-boggling variety of species, the latter by the numerous ways of terrifying themselves.

But before we went zip wiring like latter-day Tarzans, we met some of the forest's more spectacular inhabitants.

Costa Rica is a hummingbird hotspot, boasting more than 40 species, with evocative names such as mangoes, emeralds and sabrewings.

A small clearing of Selvatura Forest Park was set aside and decorated with small bird feeders luring in what on first glance seemed to be a squadron of flying jewels.

The hummers, resplendent in emerald and turquoise plumage, buzzed in to gorge on the sugary solution laid out for them. Despite being wild, they came close enough for you to feel their wing beats on your face.

But it was no good trying to put it off any longer, it was time for zip wiring. We were to shoot down 10 different wires, some two kilometres in length, with only a thick leather-gloved hand as a brake.

We traipsed like condemned men up the iron scaffold start point, high above the treetops.

Being a cloud forest the view was, well, pretty cloudy. The wire in front of me disappeared into the impenetrable mist.

As you sit in your harness, there is a sudden jarring contact of metal on metal, gravity takes you and, slowly, you edge out of the platform and into the abyss.

Then you're transplanted into a wildlife documentary as the forest presents itself from a totally unexpected angle.

Below my feet, tops of jungle giants loomed momentarily as I sped by, their branches gloved in slime-green lichen and decorated with luxuriant bromeliad plants, nestling in crevices like elaborate, leafy nests.

All too soon the final zip wire was completed. I realised I couldn't stop smiling. I wanted to do it again.

But Costa Rica is not just about adrenalin hits in the great outdoors. A catamaran voyage out from the black sands of Potrero Beach into the inky Pacific had started our trip in style.

And it was back to the coast for recuperation at our final destination, the jumbo-sized RIU hotel on the butter-coloured crescent of Playa Matapalo beach.

I sat in the surf supping guaro as a damson sunset bleached into the sea. Thirty metres away, pelicans dived into a bait ball of fish hiding below the surface, the giant birds joined in the inky water by the occasional flippers of dolphin joining the feast.

Heaven seemed very close at hand.

If You Go...

Liam Creedon was a guest of First Choice and flew on Thomson Airways' weekly flight ex-Gatwick to Liberia, Costa Rica

eco-tourism and peaceful, tropical living, is proving to the world...

The Central American country of Costa Rica, well-known as a haven for eco-tourism and peaceful, tropical living, is proving to the world that being a small nation in the developing world is no barrier to sustainability, happiness and ecological consciousness.
As host to the recent II International Planted, People, Peace Conference, which was held for three days in November with a focus on sustainable ecotourism both nationally and internationally, Costa Rica has been recognized as a leader in ecological travel and sustainability.
Despite being one of the smallest countries on the planet, the country has been announced as the highest-ranking nation in the Happy Planet Index, showing the rest of the world what it really means to live sustainably and happily.
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Costa Rica: Living sustainably and happily
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All That Glitters Is Not Gold
The Happy Planet Index 2.0 released earlier this year ranks countries according to the triple goals of long life, high well-being and a sustainable ecological footprint. Costa Rica, long known for being a peaceful haven in a troubled region, tops the index for producing over 99 percent of its electricity from renewable resources as well as maintaining great living standards for its population, which reports the highest life-satisfaction in the world and the second-longest life-expectancy in North America.
According to the New Economic Foundation, Costa Rica’s impressive achievement of 99.2 percent renewable energy is made up of around 50 percent sustainable energy, compared with many other nations in the region who use primarily hydroelectric dams or wood-burning as a source of energy that is, while renewable, not sustainable.
The sustainable energy matrix in Costa Rica is made up largely by geothermal energy, sugarcane waste and biomass generation.
Costa Rica also comes closest to achieving the “holy grail” of sustainability – a concept popularly known as One-Planet Living: the tiny nation has an ecological footprint of only 2.3 hectares per person, which is only slightly above the goal of 2.1 hectares per person worldwide in order to live with the Earth sustainably.
Geothermal energy
A significant portion of electricity in Costa Rica is generated by geothermal energy, with the country currently investigating plans to increase its current capacity of 152 megawatts in four geothermal plants. A new volcano-power generation plant is due to come on line in early 2011, with two more planned for the near future.
Despite requiring a significant investment, geothermal electricity generation plants are generally considered to be one of the most sustainable sources of energy and can provide a reliable, long-term power source without doing significant damage to the region’s ecosystem.
The Costa Rican government is also aiming to be the first nation to be completely carbon neutral, with recently-announced plans to reduce the country’s net greenhouse gas emissions and offset all carbon by the year 2030.
This is in sharp contrast to other leading countries such as Norway, which plans to become carbon neutral by 2050. According to Costa Rican Environment Minister Roberto Dobles, the plans include not only reducing emissions by cleaning up fossil fuel power plants and switching to more sustainable energy, but also by promoting hybrid vehicles and tree-planting to offset emissions.
The program, which is being funded by a 3.5 percent tax on gasoline, which is hoped to provide an extra benefit of discouraging gasoline use though extra costs, is so successful that the U.N. has called for other countries to follow Costa Rica’s example.
Biodiversity
Costa Rica is also well-known for its lush forests and beautiful topical landscapes which happen to be some of the most important wildlife areas in the world in terms of biodiversity. It is estimated that the small nation, which accounts for only 51,000 square kilometers is also host to around five percent of the world’s biodiversity.
Home to a vast array of endangered, protected and rare animal and plant species including exotic birds and frogs, the Costa Rican government works closely with conservation groups to ensure a sustainable future for the flora and fauna found in the country. Around one quarter of the nation is National Park reserve land where animals and plants are protected.
A strong emphasis has been placed in recent years on the benefits of ecological protection, which include ecotourism – a substantial part of Costa Rica’s economy; fishing, medicinal plants and environmental service payments. The government supports a comprehensive legal framework for biodiversity conservation which includes protocols for sustainable use and practices regarding biodiversity.
Eleven conservation areas have been defined by the Ministry of the Environment and Energy and is administered by a department of the ministry called the National System of Conservation Areas.
One recent win for animal conservationists was the move by President Oscar Arias to protect endangered leatherback sea turtles which nest in the beaches in a small area of the Pacific coast in the north-western region of the country. According to one turtle protection group, the move is a great step towards restoring the population of leatherback turtles that has been decreasing rapidly in recent years, mostly due to human activities such as fishing and egg-poaching.
Mr. Arias also made significant progress in the reforestation of degraded areas in recent years, having created programs for the planting of many millions of trees. Mr. Arias himself planted the five millionth tree in 2007, and around seven million trees were planted in Costa Rica in 2008 alone.
Largely as a result of the tree planting programs, forest cover in Costa Rica has grown from around one quarter of the country to over fifty percent. This is hugely inspiring as an example for other nations, and even for individuals all over the world. Through abundant tree-planting, Costa Rica has managed to significantly offset its carbon emissions and take a step in averting the predicted climate crisis.

Sunday, April 3, 2011