1500 meters is all that’s left to complete the Costanera Sur, the coastal highway that was begun in 1962 and that stretches from Puntarenas to Palmar Norte, a distance of 280 kilometers.  It is Costa Rica’s only legitimate coastal highway.  The most troubling spot has been the stretch from Quepos to Baru.  A stretch of 42 kilometers that has remained unpaved for decades….until now.  I can remember the days of having to actually cross “bridgeless” rivers in order to arrive to Dominical.  Back then that short 42 kilometer (or 26 mile) trip could take you two hours or more.  Well, it is almost completed and will be the final missing link to complete the full breadth of the Costanera.  The only thing left is the bridge over the Rio Perla and a little 1500 meter segment that the government is having problems appropriating sufficient land to complete.  That’s because foreigners have been buying up land in the area in anticipation of the road being completed and thus most are absent landowners that the Costa Rican government is having a hard time bargaining with.  However, officials with MOPT (Costa Rica’s Agency for Public Works) assures that this final segment will be completed this year, around April to be exact, missing the previous deadline of December 2009 by four months.  That’s not bad since we all have been waiting 48 years for the Costanera to be a done deal.  Travel in Costa Rica just keeps getting better thanks to Oscar Arias, who by the way will inaugurate eight new bridges, as well as the Costanera itself, this week, in the closing moments of his administration.  Hopefully the solid progress in Costa Rican infrastructure will continue with the next administration.

Link to Article in La Nacion

I can remember hearing about this new “superhighway” from San Jose to Puntarenas from the very first time I set foot on Costa Rican soil.  Well the ticos have been hearing the same thing for the last 32 years.  It is not surprising that in the last few years folks grew a bit skeptical about the whole thing.  Well now all that is history because the road is completed AND, believe it or not, five months ahead of the scheduled June 2010 deadline.  While it may not be quite the caliber of the Florida Turnpike, the new highway will be pretty super compared to most now receiving traffic in Costa Rica.  So super in fact that the government has stuck its neck out and ”guaranteed” 45 minutes savings on the drive time between San Jose and Caldera. It should also cut the drive time to Jaco and beaches further south along the Costanera by an equal amount.  The average speed is estimated to be between 80 and 100 kph…and that is traveling pretty fast when it comes to Costa Rican roads (the old route had an average speed of around 30 kph).  All this comes at a pretty steep cost, about $250,000 million to be exact.  To recoup that there will be five tolls that will cost the typical car (a so-called “vehiculo liviano”) just under $3.50 using today’s exchange rate.  But one thing’s for sure, the drive to Jaco will be a lot safer than the old Monte de Aguacate route with its narrow lanes, hairpin turns and stomach churning precipices.  Probably won’t be nearly as scenic though…of course, gawking at the “scenery” is what almost got me killed several times traversing that old stretch of road.

Link to Article in La Nacion

Link to Diagram of Route

To understand the rich history of Costa Rica, one needs to know a little about the development of the railway system, mainly obsolete today, but in its time ushered in both prosperity and hardship.  A new book entitled El Correo Ferroviario de Costa Rica, by educator and philatelist Alvaro Castro-Harrigan, chronicles the advent of the railway as a means of mail transportation.  In 1857, the only way folks could expect to receive mail to make it from tiny pueblo to others parts of the country was via horse, burro or by foot, a process that could take months, if it ever arrived at all.  But in 1871 Minor Keith decided to change all that by obtaining the contract to build a railway from Alejuela to Limon, which was completed in 1890.  In 1897 work began to extend the railway to the Pacific Ocean and approximately 100 years ago in July of 1910 that work was completed to give Costa Rica a coast to coast railway system.  The advent of the railway as the major mode of commercial transportation ushered in a boom in the banana plantations and imperialist aspirations of the United Fruit Company.  The recent administrations of both Pacheco and Arias have sought to revive some of that old-time magic by restoring sections of the old railway.  Folks can now catch a free train ride from central San Jose to Heredia or Pavas.  There is also a tourist attraction ride that will take you from San Jose to Puntarenas.  But these days the railway is more of a novelty than a central part of Costa Rican life as it once was.  The book by Castro-Harrigan brings a little of that history back to life.

Link to Article in La Nacion

Much is written about Costa Rica’s biodiversity of plants and animals.  One of the primary examples is the variety of orchid species one can find in the county.  The orchid is the largest family of flowering plants with as many as 25,000 different species.  In Costa Rica 1,500 of those can be found.  Well that list continues to increase as botanists from the University of Costa Rica have recently discovered three new species in Parque Nacional Tapanti located in Paraiso de Cartago.  The species were found at high altitudes (2,500 meters or more) and are of the family Lepanthes, which contain miniature orchid varieties.  The first is the Lepanthes graciosa with translucent yellowish petals.  The second is the Lepanthes machogaffensis, which has a reddish flower that blooms throughout the year, but only for periods lasting three day.  The third is the Lepanthes pelvis, which has the largest flower of the three and which the scientists described as having no similar apparent relative except in the high Andes mountains of South America.

Link to Article in La Nacion

Since the 1800’s the Costa Rican boyero has come to represent the hard work, patience and love of nature that exemplifies the tico life.  While originally used to bring coffee down from steep mountain roads to the port for shipment to North America and Europe, these days the old-fashioned boyero with his ornamentaly painted “carreta” and prized “bueyes” is more of a Costa Rican novelty of history than a real functional part of everyday life.  Well, actually that’s not the case for everyone.  There are still a few real life boyeros (around 5,000 according to La Nacion estimate) out there and they are determined to keep the tradition alive, a tradition that for them has stood the test of time and technology and has been declared since 2005 as “Patrimonio de la Humanidad” according to Unesco (United Nations Organization for Education, Science and Culture).  The oldest active factory that still produces and paints the carretas (or, oxcarts) is the Chaverri Oxcart Factory located in Sarchi.  Founded in 1903 this factory has become a main tourist attraction for day trips from San Jose and is a place where you can buy a little piece of Costa Rican culture and history in the form of a miniature painted oxcart (however, the real ones are crafted there as well).  Just in case you wanted to know a little more about this time honored tradition, click on the link below to find a full colored graphic that explains in detail (and in Spanish), everything you ever would like to know about the Costa Rican Boyero.

Link to Recent Article in Proa Section of La Nacion (click ELEMENTOS RELACIONADOS for Boyero Graphic .pdf)

I have written many times in the past year or more about how the Turrialba volcano has been acting up, belching out tons of sulfuric gases and turning the usually deep green vegetation on its slopes to a ghastly yellow hue.  Well, Turrialba stepped it up a notch recently by showering the inhabitants of its slopes with a curtain of ash.  It seems a new pattern of natural disaster occurrence to begin every new year is emerging (as you may remember, on January 8th of 2009, we had the horrible earthquake that virtually destroyed the community of Cinchona).  The inhabitants of the farming villages along the slopes of the volcano have been evacuated, along with most of the livestock.  All that remains are a patch of domestic animals left behind and those are being rounded up as well.  Will Turrialba really “blow its lid?”  That is the question on the mind of the experts who are hard at work studying its every move of late, and lately there has been a lot of movement, both above and below ground.  There is no doubt that the magma is rising, just how far will it rise is the burning (pardon the pun) question.  New fissures and fumaroles seem to be opening up every passing day.  One of the biggest threats is that the volcano may erupt “laterally” as opposed to vertically and thus pose a much larger threat to nearby communities.  So far there has been little in the way of human physical injury (I did read that one man was overcome with an attack of asthma brought on by the ash) and analysis has shown that the ash, while irritating, poses no immediate physical threat.  But all that could change if things heat up a notch or two above what is already occurring.  Government officials have warned the curious not to try to get close to the colossal for a view, but it sure is tempting.  At just over 11,000 feet in altitude, Turrialba is Costa Rica’s second highest volcano, behind its twin big brother, Irazu.  I have always been intrigued by the enormity and beauty of it.  It used to be one of my favorite weekend getaway places (much like Cinchona used to be).  I also ran tours where I lead tourists down into the crater (Turrialba was the only volcano where you could actually descend into the crater).  I can remember having a friend take me and my bike to the top and the exhilarating feeling of breezing to the bottom with the cool wind in my face and views that seemed to encompass the entire country.  I hope that I will get to enjoy those experiences once again.