Starting in Jan, 2012 the monthly fishing license will be discontinued and fees will go up.
In the past, tourist and nonresident anglers could pick whether or not they wanted a monthly ($13 USD) and/or yearly fishing license ($25 USD). Considering that most anglers come to fish once a year (about 98%) they’d pick the cheaper. Fishermen who don’t know this in advance have been known to get a little upset at having to shell out cash at the dock to get one before they set forth on a $1200/day sport fisher charter. Fishing licenses are not usually included on a charter and have to be paid for when on the docks.
But soon that will change – affective Jan 1, 2011 sport fishing licenses will go up in price. And [most importantly] Costa Rica will no longer provide the low-cost monthly fishing license, instead, they will force anglers to buy the more expensive yearly license at $30 USD.
Costa Rican Fisheries Institute (Incopesca) claims the price hikes and single yearly license are necessary due to the rising cost of administrating the fishing license system. Read more...(713 words, 2 images, estimated 2:51 mins reading time)
A few weeks ago at the Auto Mercado in Jaco, it was very evident that even if Thanksgiving is not a Costa Rican holiday, is sure is one of the most celebrated American holidays in Costa Rica.
Signs were up for the holiday and products were already being displayed. Frozen turkeys, stuffing mix (including popular brands like Stove Top), salad fixing, sweet potatoes, green bean casseroles, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce as well as apple, pecan, mince, pumpkin pie and all of the other gastronomical goodies.
And there is something about Costa Rica potatoes (which are a bit sweeter) that makes unreal mash potatoes!
Unfortunately, turkeys are either imported frozen from the U.S. or purchased locally from Pipasa (a meat and poultry company) and is not cheap for a fresh bird: at least $3.50 per pound. So a 20lb bird could cost you around $70USD, compared to one in the US, where specials for birds can be as low as $7USD for a 13lb turkey.
Most will go ahead and buy frozen. PriceSmart and Auto Mercando have 15-18lbs turkeys for over $40. Auto Mercado is probably the most Americanize superstore in all of Costa Rica and imports many American goods along with Thanksgiving products, including stuffing mix, canned pumpkin, frozen pie crusts, canned onion rings and cranberries. Read more...(506 words, 2 images, estimated 2:01 mins reading time)
For the last four years I have been drawn like a magnet to San Jose, Costa Rica for Halloween. A few years prior I read a blog where the Blogger wrote how Halloween in Costa Rica is considered nothing but a “Gringo’s” pagan holiday, that was designed to seduce small children with candy and “not” an acceptable celebration among Ticos. Then it went on about this haunting, peasant folklore of El Cadejos – a young man (Joaquin) from Cartago who loved to party. After Joaquin got blindly drunk for a week straight, his father cursed and transformed him into El Cadejos, a terrifyingly huge black dog with fiery-red eyes destined to haunt Costa Rica forever, scaring those who don’t know when to stop their drunkenness.
I have heard that El Cadejos is slang for massive hangover. Read more...(768 words, 10 images, estimated 3:04 mins reading time)
Up until quite recently in Costa Rica, the proposition of saving both money and the Earth with photovoltaic solar systems has stood on some pretty shaky ground. But that is changing. Nowadays, more and more Costa Ricans and expats are installing stand-alone or autonomous photovoltaic systems in the country’s remotest regions and have made it possible for people to live well where ordinarily they could not. Also, although stand-alone solar systems are worth their investment versus a generator, with their large battery banks they do constitute a hefty initial outlay – but it is worth it? Yes it is!
Imagine investing in a product that builds the most home equity, requires no maintenance, comes with a factory warranty of 25 years, begins paying for itself the month after it’s installed and diminishes your home or business’ carbon footprint. A photovoltaic grid-tie system reduces or eliminates electricity bills through solar panels that generate energy for the grid, which is obliged to deduct the energy’s cost from the owner’s monthly bills. In other words, the electricity bill is either reduced substantially or eliminated. The system is essentially solar panels and an inverter. Read more...(740 words, 2 images, estimated 2:58 mins reading time)
One of the bad things about growing up in a beach community and fishing since you can remember, you know what fresh fish is. So when a friend invited me to this new trendy sushi place in San Diego that boasted it had the freshest fish in town, I balked. She continued saying, “The Ahi (or Yellowfin) is flown in daily, and the sashimi is out of this world!”
FRESH! – I chuckled. She and the restaurant probably had no clue of what fresh is all about.
Like making ceviche, one of the keys to buy “as-fresh-as-possible-fish” from the market is to look for bright, clear and glassy eyes. The eyes are the window to a truly fresh fish, for they fade quickly into gray dullness. If the eyes are clouded over, that fish has been dead for a while and a big NO NO for sashimi.
But getting back, and to set the record right, the moment the fish dies it starts to decay - with decay, the fishy smell starts. Fresh fish does not smell fishy. Packing a fish in ice as soon as it lands on board a boat just delays the decay. The time it gets to a dinner plate … well I rest my case on this issue of how fresh is that fish. Read more...(564 words, 1 image, estimated 2:15 mins reading time)
Loading ...