For Ticos, Semana Santa, or Holy Week – Costa Rica’s most important Catholic celebration – means vacation from work, and most government offices and banks are closed, transportation services are reduced, and non-tourism-related commerce comes to a halt during Holy Thursday and Good Friday (April 5 and 6).

According to a Labor Ministry decision last week, most public institutions will be closed the entire week. Others will work as usual but only from Monday through Wednesday.

As for a dry law – which prohibits the sale of alcohol from midnight Wednesday to midnight Saturday – lawmakers approved earlier this year a reform that allows each municipality to decide if whether or not to implement it.

The following is a list of what’s open and what’s closed during Semana Santa:

Government offices: Following an order from Casa Presidencial and the Labor Ministry, all ministries, the Legislative Assembly and Supreme Elections Tribunal will be closed April 2-6. Public institutions such as Costa Rican Electricity Institute (ICE), Water and Sewer Institute (AyA) and National Power and Light Company (CNFL) will be open until Wednesday.

The Judicial Investigation Police (OIJ) and courts from the Judicial Branch will be closed, except for domestic violence court.

Hospitals and pharmacies: Caja hospitals will be open Monday through Wednesday only, but emergency rooms will remain open 24 hours a day all week. The Red Cross (1028 or 911) and National Insurance Institute (INS, 800-800-8000) also will attend to emergencies at all hours.

The emergency rooms and pharmacies at private hospitals Clínica Bíblica (2522-1000), in downtown San José, Clínica Católica (2283-6616), in the northeastern suburb of Guadalupe, and CIMA (2208-1000), in the western suburb of Escazú, also will be open 24 hours a day.

Banks: Most BAC San José (2295-9797), Scotiabank (2210-4000), Banco Nacional (2211-2000), Banco de Costa Rica (2287-9000) and Banco Popular (2211-7000) branches will operate as usual Monday through Wednesday and will close Thursday and be back in operation on Monday, April 9. HSBC branches will be closed from 3 p.m. Wednesday until Monday. Citibank branches will be closed Thursday through Saturday; its shopping-mall branches in Multiplaza del Este, Multiplaza Escazú, Paseo de las Flores and Terramall will be open as usual on Sunday, April 9. Call Banco Promérica (2505-7000) and Bancrédito (2551-3011) for their schedules.

Shopping Malls/Cinemas: Multiplaza (East and West) will be closed on Thursday and Friday. The food courts will be open from 12 noon to 8 pm and cinemas will be open as normal. Paseo de las Flores and Terramall open these days but many of their shops will not.

Supermarkets: All places where the dry law will be in effect, bars will be sealed shut and restaurants and supermarkets will be prohibited from selling liquor, including wine and beer, from Wednesday at midnight through Saturday.

Auto Mercado stores (2257-4242) in the Central Valley will be open 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. on Thursday, except for the Multiplaza and Los Yoses stores, which will close at 9 p.m., and the downtown San José store, which will be open 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. that day. On Friday, all stores will be open 9 a.m. to 7 p.m., except the downtown San José and Los Yoses stores, which will be closed.

Muñoz y Nanne (2253-4646), in the eastern suburb of San Pedro, will operate as usual except on Friday, when it will be open 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saretto (2228-6703), in Escazú, will be closed Thursday and Friday.

Most Más x Menos (2243-7100) stores will be open 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. Thursday and Friday, except for the store in Jacó, on the central Pacific coast, which will be open until 10 p.m. Thursday and until 9 p.m. Friday. Stores in Cuesta de Moras in San José and in Alajuela, northwest of the capital, will be closed Thursday and Friday. Walmart (2286-0033) stores will be open 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. Thursday and Friday. Most Palí stores (2243-7100) will close Thursday and Friday.

Call the Megasuper supermarket chain (2246-0400) for its schedules. PriceSmart (2283-4494) stores will be closed on Friday only.

Mail and shipping: Correos de Costa Rica (2202-2900), Aerocasillas (2208-4848), DHL (2209-6000) and FedEx (800-463-3339) will be closed from Thursday until Monday.

Embassies: The British Embassy (2258-2025), the Canadian Embassy (2242-4400), U.S. Embassy (2220-3939) and French Embassy (2234-4167) will be closed from Thursday until Monday.

Veterinarians: The National University (UNA) veterinary hospital in Barreal de Heredia (2260-9234) is open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Dr. Bitter’s clinics in San José and Escazú (2227-5017) will be closed Thursday and Friday. Dr. Adrián Molina (2228-1909) in Escazú will be closed Thursday through Saturday.

From Tico Times

By Steve DelBianco

There’s a peaceful feeling in the air at ICANN’s meeting this week, and I think it has something to do with being here in Costa Rica.Speaking at today’s opening ceremony, Costa Rican President Laura Chinchilla described how, back in 1948, her country became the first to willingly go without any kind of armed forces for national defense. In that respect, Costa Rica is a lot like ICANN: alone in a hostile world with only its constituents and allies for protection.Costa Rica has proven that this nonviolent approach can work, but only if you keep your own house in order. If ICANN takes nothing else away from this week’s meeting, we can at least hope it takes a page from its host nation’s playbook.

Everyone here at ICANN 43 has heard the mounting calls by governments and the United Nations to assert more power over the Internet, and by extension, ICANN itself.

Since ICANN doesn’t have a standing army (or maybe THAT’S what all the new gTLD fees are for?) to repel these challenges to its authority, it needs to be creative about protecting itself from growing threats.

Part of ICANN’s defensive strategy seems to have been “the best defense is a good offense.” Its aggressive new gTLD program promises to dramatically increase the global reach of the Internet, thereby growing the community of stakeholders committed to the ICANN model.

It’s a bold strategy that carries some big risks. Even as ICANN increases its global footprint with new gTLDs, it increases its exposure to external threats. ICANN has never been more in the public eye, and that increased scrutiny means increased pressure to get things right.

ICANN’s growing global audience now expects the organization to meet the promises made for its ambitious TLD expansion plan. And a powerful army of detractors is poised to pounce on the slightest slip as evidence of ICANN’s inadequacy.

Meanwhile, governments that have always been uneasy about ICANN’s bottom-up, multi-stakeholder model are anxious about fraud, abuse, and challenges to law enforcement that could be exacerbated in new gTLDs. Still, many of the issues important to governments remain unresolved.

It’s against that backdrop that I’ve been thinking about the U.S. Commerce Department’s declaration that ICANN isn’t quite ready for a renewal of the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) contract. Maybe Commerce was showing its “tough love” for ICANN, signaling the need for more safeguards against controversial new TLDs that could alienate the governments now defending ICANN.

ICANN can either heed that message, or else start assembling that army…

“The money I’m paying in annual property tax and insurance on my Florida home…plus my medical insurance fees…would cover my living expenses for a whole year in Costa Rica”. Steve Linder

It’s a bold claim and one that grabs the attention of his listeners every time.

Steve Linder’s a charismatic guy. Steve plans to spend his retirement years in Costa Rica’s Southern Zone. He’s spent years exploring Latin America – and chose the Southern Zone as his retirement spot. It’s beautiful, unspoiled and tranquil. But right now Steve’s still busy working, and he’s living in the U.S.

And he can’t help but calculate how much he’d save if he moved to Costa Rica in the morning.

It starts with property taxes. Steve lives in Key West, Florida. Steve pays almost $7,000 a year in property taxes in Florida.

In Costa Rica, on the home he plans to build, Steve would pay around $875 a year. That’s a savings of more than $6,000 a year on his Florida property taxes.

Next up is house insurance. Steve lives in Key West, so he needs three separate policies. His hurricane insurance this year: $7300. His flood insurance: $2300. Add in an additional $950 for a general liability and homeowner’s insurance, and Steve’s house insurance totals $10,550.

In Costa Rica’s Southern Zone, there’s no hurricane risk. Steve’s house insurance here would average only $400 a year.

Steve’s last big chunk of savings comes from medical insurance. He pays $900 a month in Florida (including cover for his wife Kristina). That’s $10,800 a year.

In Costa Rica, as a resident, Steve would join the public healthcare system. He’d pay as little as $37 a month through the local residents’ association for that. Many expats also carry private medical insurance to get a better level of service. Steve would too. Private cover would cost him around $1200 a year. His private and public insurance combined come to $1644. That saves him just over $9000 a year on his Florida bills.

Just for property tax, house insurance and medical insurance, Steve’s annual bills in Florida run to $28,350. The same bills in Costa Rica would run around $2919.

That’s a massive savings of $25,431.

Steve figures he could easily live a comfortable lifestyle on that kind of money in Costa Rica’s Southern Zone. And it’s a place that he loves spending time in. The Southern Zone is an outdoor playground, with two-thirds of the land in national parks. You can swim, surf, sea kayak, sail, and sport fish year round. You can trek through truly wild rainforests…take a dip in a tumbling waterfall…or zip your way through the canopy line.

There’s a good selection of restaurants, a coffee shop, a pizzeria and a delicatessen. The little rustic restaurants serve organic food, French food, and even Indonesian food, at prices that won’t break the bank.

And there’s one other bonus that draws Steve to the Southern Zone. He says that he feels much healthier when he’s there. That’s partly down to the outdoor lifestyle. But it’s also down to the food.

Fast food in this neck of the woods isn’t a greasy burger. Instead it’s ceviche (fresh seafood marinated in lime juice), smokehouse chicken or juicy mango. The meat’s free range, the seafood freshly-caught, and the produce locally-grown.

Steve’s got some years left before he’ll retire to the Southern Zone. He can’t wait. And the thought of how much money he’ll save makes paying his Florida bills a little less painful in the meantime.

This article was republished in Pathfinder.

The Public Services Regulatory Authority (ARESEP) approved on Tuesday new fuel rates by applying automatic adjustments for January and February plus tax-based variations.

The measure increases per-liter prices by ₡724 ($1.40) for “super” gasoline, ₡706 ($1.37) for “plus” gasoline and ₡645 ($1.25) for diesel.

January automatic-adjustment calculations are based on international price variations from Dec. 29 to Jan. 12 at an exchange rate of ₡507.45 to $1. The estimate for February is from Jan. 26 to Feb. 9 at an exchange rate of ₡512.19 to $1.

ARESEP’s decision to raise fuel prices will be sent on Wednesday to the Government Printer for publication in the official newspaper La Gaceta. New rates will be published on March 21.

In a news article aired by the National Radio Chamber of Costa Rica (CANARA in Spanish), renowned agricultural and ecosystems expertAlexander Bonilla Duran gave some interesting insight behind Kolbi, ICE’s amphibian choice for branding of its popular wireless communications and data services. The powerful government-sponsored ICE consortium currently enjoys the lion’s share of the lucrative Tico wireless market.

The Kolbi logo resembles a highly-stylized interpretation of an agalychnis callidryas (red-eyed tree frog), a colorful species that is abundant in many of our forests. The attractive anatomy of the red-eyed tree frog has made it an unofficial symbol of Costa Rica, like the toucan and the sloth, although it is important to note that our sole patriotic animal symbol is the turdus grayi (yiguirro).

Here’s what Don Alexander Bonilla Duran said about Kolbi:

“Not too many people know about what Kolbi really means. First of all, I have to let you know that Kolbi means ‘tree frog’ in the Cabecar dialect. Thus, we can’t really say that Kolbi is a frog in particular, since there are many tree frogs.

One wonders whether ICE asked for permission from the Cabecar indigenous people to register the name as a commercial brand. One wonders if ICE paid the Cabecar anything for the right to use the word?

Let’s talk about what’s really important about frogs. Many species -including some humans- eat frogs, but they are far more important than just nourishment. Frogs are an important indicator of the health of the habitats they live in and the ecosystems they form a part of. If you see frogs suddenly disappearing from your neighborhood, this means something is definitely wrong.”

Other Amphibians in Costa Rica

For all the ecological conservation efforts in Costa Rica, some of our frogs and toads are disappearing and letting us know that something is wrong. Don Alexander Bonilla Duran continued his radio address by explaining that:

“Climatological changes could make swamp areas disappear. Just this event may have caused repercussions in the disappearance of our Golden Toad from Monteverde, a species that has not been sighted in many years. This means that global warming is already having an impact on Costa Rica’s ecology.”

Here Don Alexander is referring to bufo periglenes, a pretty, shiny golden amphibian that was declared extinct in 1989 by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). Our golden toad lived in the Monteverde Cloud Forest, and hypotheses attributing to its extinction and confirmed by the IUCN allude to the El Ninoweather phenomenon, chytridiomycosis, and unintended loss of habitat due to airborne pollution and global warming. These days, the golden toad can be seen in old travel posters promoting ecotourism.

When researching the golden toad in 1987, American researcher Martha Crump observed that the shallow breeding pools of golden toads dried up in just a few days during her period of observation. Warmer temperatures and reduced humidity in Monteverde destroyed the brood, eggs and nesting sites of the golden toads.

The Killer Fungus

The pleasant temperatures of the golden toad’s habitat had a lot more to do with its extinctions than global warming. When large populations of frogs and toads are found floating belly up in their ponds, a killer fungus tends to emerge as one of the usual suspects.

For amphibians, chytridiomycosis is a fatal disease caused by a chytrid fungus that thrives in mountainous regions with significant cloud cover, just like Monteverde. This fungus flourishes in temperatures between 10 and 28 degrees (Celsius). The unfortunate amphibians that come in contact with this chytrid fungus suffer ulcers, hemorrhage, convulsions, and become lethargic to the point of being completely exposed to predators.

Chytridiomycosis is now threatening other amphibians in Costa Rica. Rana vibicaria -the green-eyed frog- has been classified as critically endangered by the IUCN, due to deadly outbreaks of chytridiomycosis in the mountain forests of Tilaran all the way south to Talamanca.

The BBC recently reported on efforts taken by herpetologists from the Chester Zoo in England to save our green-eyed frog. These scientists built special amphibian pods that essentially replicate the frogs’ rainforest habitat so they can be transported to Cheshire. Once in England, the researchers will attempt to get the frogs to breed, while Tico researchers will attempt to do the same here. The goal is to avoid extinction while investigating the causes for the increase in chytridiomycosis, and whether ecotourists may unknowingly be carriers of the spores.

Threats to our Frogs are Threats to Us

In a recent comment from one of our dear readers, who is also a popular radio personality in Costa Rica, the concept of Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) was challenged. In terms of the golden toad and the green-eyed frog, AGW may not necessarily be to blame for their endangerment, as the killer fungus and El Nino are clear culprits. We should not, however, adopt an anthropocentric stance whereupon we are resigned to consider climate change and fungal outbreaks simply as Nature doing her job. We should do something about it, just like the herpetologists from the Chester Zoo are attempting to do.

Don Alexander concluded his observation on the Kolbi-ICE affair with a sensible warning:

“Pesticides may also be implicated in the endangerment of frogs. In California, the use of pesticides has been linked to the breakdown of amphibian nervous systems, something that caused a sharp reduction in frog populations.

So now we know that frogs are like a barometer of Nature. They are very sensitive, and thus easily affected by changes to ecosystems. The day that all frogs become extinct, mankind will follow. We should really pay attention to what frogs have to tell us.

We hope that the popularity of the Kolbi brand serves as a good economic indicator for ICE. If our Kolbi frogs disappear, so will ICE and the rest of us.”

In the end, it’s more a matter of sustainability than anything else. We need our amphibians as reliable barometers of healthy habitats. Therefore, we should think of them as a natural resource. Brazilian philosopher Leonardo Boff explains it very elegantly: