All Posts in Category: About Costa Rica

Hotel owners and landlords in Costa Rica are creating an effort to draft a legislation that would tax vacation rentals such as condominiums, apartments, and other housing/lodgings that currently fall into a legal gray area.

The plan, which is near to being introduced in the Legislative Assembly, would apply a hotel tax on rentals in Costa Rica booked through online platforms such as VRBO, Airbnb, FlipKey, Tripping.com, and HomeAway.

It is more than evident that the local real estate market in Tamarindo and surrounding areas have become steadily more dynamic year after year. We in the business keep on selling more of the usual existent seaside vacation residences: either condominiums or single-family homes. Nevertheless, perhaps within the last 12-24 months, the sales of lots has reactivated coming back after the real estate boom that ended in 2008.

Available lots have been selling and owners that had kept their properties dormant waiting for a better time to sell them, or simply who had invested originally to build homes that they won´t do anymore, are coming around now.

July and August are considered the summer months in North-America and Europe, and are related to school vacations! How about spending part of those holidays beach hopping around the surf town of Tamarindo?

The beach of Tamarindo is known for its great waves, for beginners and expert surfers, so from early morning to sunset you will always find some surf buddies to hang out with! Take the opportunity of a surf class with one of the many surf instructors around. The non-surfing part of the family will not be bored: they can enjoy themselves kayaking to Capitan’s Island, boogie boarding, building sand castles, playing beach volleyball or taking a nature boat tour on the estuary nearby. And around 5:30 pm you can all join together for a cocktail watching the gorgeous sunset over Tamarindo Beach lounging with your feet in the white sand.

Starting September 1, 2017, the tax on corporations (Sociedades Anónimas) will be reinstated. This year the payment will be just for the months between September – December, then starting 2018 the payments will be yearly, and will apply to both active and inactive S.A.’s.

The funds obtained will be distributed as follows; Ministerio de Seguridad (Costa Rican Police) 90%, Ministerio Público 5%, and to the Organismo de Investigación Judicial (OIJ, Costa Rica’s version of the FBI) 5%.

  This year the rainy season has begun with strength. It has only taken a couple of weeks of rain to bring back the mesmerizing green and lush vegetation Costa Rica is known for. The rain doesn’t mean that the sun won’t shine. A normal day in the wet season will be with sunny mornings…

A new coastal aqueduct from the Costa Rican Institute of Aqueducts and Sewers (in Spanish, AyA) will supply 14 rural water boards (in Spanish, ASADA) in Santa Cruz and Carrillo beginning in April 2018, with water from the Nimboyores aquifer.

Although some neighbors are still opposed to the measure, the AyA assures that this aquifer is the only one that has the capacity to supply all of the affected communities and that it will only use 188 liters per second. The well can produce up to 400 liters per second.

Este 9 de mayo la aerolínea suiza Edelweiss, miembro del grupo Lufthansa, inició operaciones en suelo costarricense, lo cual corona un proceso de negociaciones que se iniciaron hace cinco años, en el 2012.

La Nación conversó el jueves pasado con Felipe Bonifatti, gerente general de Lufthansa para Centroamérica y el Caribe, quien fue enfático en que nuestro país era el destino que le faltaba a la compañia, pues Edelweiss, “solo vuela a los destinos más bonitos del mundo”.

People simply say in Costa Rica sunrise and sunset is at 6 o clock. Easy. In reality, the times change slightly throughout the year and it happened to me that I was late for the sunset spectacle at the beach. Here is a helpful note for you, to never miss the sunset or even the sunrise in Costa Rica.

More than half of the Costa Rican territory is covered by forests. This is something to be proud of as it is a result of the country´s ecological conscience. Recovery of forest areas has been going on since the late 1980´s, reverting the deforestation that went on from the 1940´s up to the early 1980´s due to the cattle raising and agricultural boom. As you travel along the country, you get used to seeing all that green. Even in urban areas, along rivers, parks, and even right in the cities between sidewalks and streets, at the houses´ and buildings’ backyards, you can find big trees. They provide shade in hot days, host all sorts of wildlife, like squirrels, howler monkeys, orchids attached to their trunks and the hundreds of varieties of birds that inhabit or visit our country in their migratory cycles. To the untrained eye, the diversity of those trees can go unnoticed. But when it is time for them to bloom, they provide amazing colors and scenes worth of photographing and painting that everybody admires.

Lost in thoughts on my way to work, my drive was halted by a local policeman conducting a routine check along the road between Flamingo and Huacas. After rolling down the window, I was greeted by a friendly, older policeman who had checked on me a few times in the past. After throwing a look at my Costa Rican driver’s license and a short conversation, he waved me away with a genuine and well meant: “Que tengas buen día, mi amor” (Have a nice day, my love). An impromptu smile came to my face, and there was my idea for the newsletter.

This policeman’s spontaneous words and warm nature reminded me of one of the two main reasons why, ever since my first one-year stay in Costa Rica, I made it my life goal to come back and live here – the endless, effortless and genuine kindness of its people.