A.M. Costa Rica: Your English language daily news source

A.M. Costa Rica third newspage
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San José, Costa Rica, Friday, Nov. 14, 2008, Vol. 8, No. 227

Visiting Chinese president won't have to face Tico traffic

By the A.M. Costa Rica staff

Some public employees in the metropolitan area will have Monday off, Casa Presidencial said Thursday.

The idea is to reduce the congestion on the roadways because major routes will be closed for the visit of Hu Jintao, the president of the People's Republic of China.

Word of the decree by President Óscar Arias Sánchez came Thursday afternoon. The Tribunal Supremo de Elecciones quickly announced that it, too, would close. The decree only covers the central cantons of San José and San Pedro/Montes de Oca.

The Arias decree said that workers in certain key offices, in the Banco Central de Costa Rica, and, of course, in the various police agencies, would continue to work. Other agencies, like customs and the public schools will be subject to the decision of their own officials.

The Chinese president arrives Sunday, and the autopistas General Cañas and Bernardo Soto, the Circunvalación, the

Autopista Próspero Fernández and the old road to Escazú from La Sabana will be closed from 3:30 to 5 p.m.

Then on Monday from 8:30 a.m. to 9:30 a.m. the Autopista Próspero Fernández and the entire Circunvalación will be closed to Zapote where Casa Presidencial is located. Then from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Avenida 2 and Paseo Colón will be closed.

Later, from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. the autopistas General Cañas and Bernardo Soto will be closed to traffic to Juan Santamaría airport while the Chinese president travels there to leave.

Janina Del Vecchio, minster of Gobernación, Policía y Seguridad Pública, said that closing the highways were reciprocal for the visit of a head of state. However, there were only limited closing when guests arrived for the inauguration of Óscar Arias in 2006 and four years earlier for Abel Pacheco.

The Chinese closed off some highways and the Forbidden City when Arias visited there.

Liberia is hosting a weekend festival of Guanacaste cultura

By the A.M. Costa Rica staff

The first annual cultural festival in Guanacaste kicked off yesterday and will continue into Saturday.

Organizors hope it will promote local musicians, artists and craftsmen, who have struggled to create a vibrant artistic presence in the region.

Performances are free, and will be showcased in the Gimnasio Municipal de Liberia, the Edificio de la Antigua Gobernación and the Parque Central de Liberia.

Friday's celebration includes a screening of Costa Rican and

Guanacasteca cinema at 4 p.m., at the Parque Central de Liberia, followed by a three-hour performance of folkloric and contemporary dance from Colombia, Nicaragua and Costa Rica.

Saturday will feature highlights such as a poetry recital by the region's literary society at 4 p.m., as well as an evening of performances from dance companies hailing from Quepos and Nicaragua.

Vera Vergas, promotor of regional culture in the zone, said she hopes the event will become an example for other cantones such as Hojancha, Cruz and Abangares, all of which currently lack similar artistic festivals.

A pleasant lunch at the closest place to a sidewalk cafe

My friend Steve sent me a Web site where meditation expert Sharon Salzberg asks the question: "How do we maintain coherence and harmony in a life that is a combination of pleasure and pain, gain and loss, praise and blame and fame and dispute." Minus fame, my life of late has been full of all of those states. It is part of everyone’s life, and really what it adds up to is change.

Lately life has been full of change. Most of the rest of the world expects good changes to come with the election of Barack Obama. It’s a pleasure (at least for the moment) to be a citizen of a country that most of the rest of the world once again admires.

But at the same time there are losses. Just as my retirement income has been painfully reduced, the Costa Rican government has proposed a new law requiring that foreign residents have far greater incomes than before.

For pensionandos, the income verification, which is now $600 a month will be raised to $2,000. Rentistas must be able to declare $5,000 instead of $1,000. $600 was unrealistically low, but many expats have settled here with nowhere near $2,000 a month. But they have contributed to this country in practicing the values Costa Rica claims to hold – supporting biodiversity, starting recycling efforts, planting trees, cleaning up the beaches or volunteering as English teachers, to name a few. It makes me think that the government is not so much interested in the quality of our character as in the quantity of our money.

There is a certain irony in this move by the government. An article in la Nación, the daily paper, recently reported that 4 percent of the poor families in this country have been receiving money from a relative working in foreign countries (mainly the U.S.A.) Maybe it’s not ironic. The crash in the building industries has put many of these away-from-home breadwinners out of work, and so the money has dried up. Perhaps the government hopes to recover some of the buying power that these families have lost.

Fortunately, I had to leave my computer for a doctor’s appointment downtown. It was a beautiful sunshiny morning. so I walked from Calderón Guardia Hospital to downtown, passing through my three favorite parks (especially the Parque España). Then I stopped at the Flor Restaurant on Avenida 1. It is a soda-style restaurant with better than average Tico dishes and reasonable prices.

As I was looking at the freshly cooked food available in

Living in Costa Rica

. . .Where the living is good

By Jo Stuart
jostuart@amcostarica.com

the display, Flor, the waitress, explained to me what each dish was and how much. After I sat down at a small table next to the large window that gives a view of the street (about the closest thing we have to a sidewalk café), she explained that a natural juice drink came with the lunch, along with a salad and dessert. Available were three drinks I had never heard of. No problem, she said. She would bring me a taste of each so I could decide.

She brought three glasses, each with more than enough liquid for a taste test. The chocolate milk looking one was pino lillo, made from maiz, she said. The milky strawberry looking drink was cenara, and my choice, a pink drink, mozote. This, Flor said, was good for the stomach.

After the salad Flor brought a large plate of steaming
food: a chicken breast a la plancha (sautéed), beans, a huge pile of rice, mashed potatoes and plantains. Everything was hot, the chicken tender and moist, and the potatoes delicious.

I must remember to say "No rice, please."

Lunch was such a pleasant experience I was reminded of my first years in San José. As I was complimenting Flor, she told me the owner was a Gringo and a little later brought a tall nice looking man to my table. Bill MacDonald, who comes from California, is actually co-owner. He said he is trying to keep serving good food at reasonable prices.

Obviously, he is succeeding. I had arrived before noon when there were just a few people. By 12:15 the restaurant was full, mainly with Costa Ricans but with a sprinkling of Gringos. My lunch was 2,000 colons ($3.63).

I left the Flor in a happy mood, thinking, yes, that is the answer, as usual, I’ll live in the present and find these happy experiences. Just then it began to rain. Shortly it was pouring. I had left my umbrella home because it was such a beautiful morning. By the time I got home the cough I had been ignoring had turned really mean.

So, greetings from my bedroom. As I said, change happens.

You need to see Costa Rican tourism information HERE!

A.M. Costa Rica fourth news page
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San José, Costa Rica, Friday, Nov. 14, 2008, Vol. 8, No. 227

Readers unhappy with immigration reform and gas prices

They will have to sell
if immigration law passes

Dear A.M. Costa Rica:

If this new requirement for pensionado income becomes law we will be forced to sell and move out of the country. Perhaps the government thinks the free trade treaty will bring enough money into the country to offset the people not moving to or moving out of the country, the tourist business is already in big trouble.

With the current international economy situation I don’t see enough new trade coming to Costa Rica, even with TLC. Those international countries will stop buying Costa Rica products for lack of extra money. New companies won’t move to Costa Rica because of this type of treatment will overflow to new foreign owned businesses when money becomes tighter.

The stock market in the States is showing just what they think of the new tax levels they expect is coming to the States so they are going to take their money elsewhere. Besides. Obama and the TLC agreement don’t seem to be compatible, as I understand it he is not in favor of this agreement.

With all the international upset where will Costa Rica get the money/trade they need? From China? I think not, China is having their own problems as they are loosing foreign business and trade.

Perhaps Costa Rica should rethink what they are doing. I have already begun to look at other places to move to as I fear we expats are not looked upon in a good light by Costa Rica’s government no matter whether the new laws are passed or not. I will want to sell while there is still enough economic money to get some return on my investment.

Art Edwards
San Ramón

They are rethinking
retirement in Costa Rica

Dear A.M. Costa Rica:

My wife and I just finished placing our deposits for car rental and hotels for our February trip to Costa Rica. We have committed several thousand dollars to this trip, and it will be our third visit. On our first visit we fell in love with the country and the second and third trips have been dedicated to locating an area in which we would purchase a home and retire. As we are still several years away from retirement, we were planning to visit at least several more times spending several more thousand dollars in Costa Rica before moving.

The proposed changes in the immigration law have caused us to rethink Costa Rica as a retirement choice. In fact, had we learned about these proposed changes we might not have chosen to make this trip. If passed, the financial requirements for retirement in Costa Rica will actually exceed our monthly budget in the U.S.

If we were to choose Costa Rica and purchase a home and car for cash why would we need $4,000 a month to live in a country where the average family lives on $1,000?

The legislature should rethink its proposal and consider the impact such legislation would have not only on retirees but tourism as well.

Ed Goldfluss
Birmingham, Alabama

Tico trying to get U.S. visa
faces difficult, uphill battle

Dear A.M. Costa Rica:

To all these people complaining about the proposed changes to the immigration laws — have you seen what its like for a Tico to get a visa just to make a connecting flight in a US airport let alone move there? My Tica girlfriend has twice been denied a U.S. transit visa for some unknown reason causing us to travel well out of our way and increase our travel costs dramatically. It seems the visa officer just didn't like her enough to permit her two hours in your country inside the security zone at the airport.

Americans seem to think they should just be able to walk into other countries and make a life there because they have a little bit of money yet denying those people access to their country. Maybe it´s time you started writing letters to American newspapers and lobbying your own government to make travel for Ticos to your country a little more fair? Of course, that will never happen.

Just for the record, these proposed immigration laws will also make life for me much more difficult but at least I stand a chance at being able to stay here unlike so many Ticos wanting to go to the States.

Mich War
Limón

Where are lower prices
for petroleum-based goods?

Dear AM Costa Rica:

Now let's see. Gas prices have been falling rapidly everywhere (e.g. U.S. nearing $2 a gallon) and, in Costa Rica, it remains well above $5. The answer that Alvaro Barrantes of Aresep, the price-setting outfit, gives is that it is looked at monthly and changes can occur only on the second Friday.

Oil has gone down from a $140/barrel high to now under $60 and all we've seen is pennies in price reductions on gasoline. Requested now is a whopping one colon reduction on super, three colons per liter on regular, which they are "considering." Anybody thinking what i'm thinking? Somebody(ies) making a great deal of money on the backs of working Ticos? Naw, not here. That stuff never happens.

Barry E Schwartz
Escazú

Xenophobic residents
only like Gringo money

Dear A.M. Costa Rica:

I read with interest the letters lamenting Costa Rica's tightening of the immigration laws. I lived in country as a tourist for seven years and recently left for good.

One of the many reasons I had to leave was because I could no longer be in denial of a few basic facts about the culture of the country. One fact is that Ticos are generally xenophobic. The cultural belief system is that anyone who is not exactly the same as me is not acceptable. The culture does not allow for confrontations of any kind, other than robbery, spousal and child abuse, so you have to be on the inside to know and understand them.

If you have the opportunity to experience this phenomena, you will learn that a Tico hates all foreigners, except of course you. A Tico from the valley hates a Tico from Guanacaste. A Tico from the southern region hates a Tico from Limón, etc.

Forget about acceptance of anyone with a different shade of skin color, let alone a different color entirely. The best example I know of their xenophobia is the public hatred for Nicas and Colombians. In the heart and soul of nearly all Ticos is the core belief that all crime and shortcomings of their country are the fault of foreigners. Ticos at the highest levels also maintain the same beliefs albeit in secret.

I know them well. They do not want us in their country. Their dilemma is that they want our money and cannot figure a way to get it while keeping us out. These are facts and difficult to accept at first, but eventually denial melts away under the glaring light of the truth. After that it is simply a matter of how long you can live in a society that does not want you there.

Mark Vallancourt
Orlando, Florida

Immigration changes
are good for country

Dear A.M. Costa Rica:

These changes are very good for Costa Rica. But the way many people talk is in fact micro-economical (about your and my situation).

If we think long-term-macro-economical (and sociological) we have to realize that, with the current possibilities to get a visa, tens of thousands pensionados can come to Costa Rica. Tens of thousands is a lot on this small population.

How much is $ 600? How much is $1,200? Enough at this moment (± 660,000 colons) to survive. But on the long term? With an official inflation of 10 percent — unofficially much more — in let's say seven to eight years those $600 (or $1,200) will not be very much anymore.

What is Costa Rica going to do if so many (excuse the word) "poor-pensionados" come to live here ? If the pensions don't go up with 10 percent a year, the pensionados will become really poor.

What do "older" people contribute to an economy other than spending their money ? What do they produce? What is the effect on the health-system? I think they just enjoy the sun in their gated communities, in small sub-cultures.

Now you can pay the $ 1 an hour for the maid, the gardener etc. But will you be able to pay a full-time maid 10-15 years from now when you really need 24/7 help ? Probably not.

Option is: go to an old people's home, home for the elderly. How many with a reasonable good quality (and cheap for the "poor-pensionados") can you find here in Costa Rica ? Another positive effect of this law is that everybody has to contribute to the CCSS (caja).

Aging of the population is a problem for every nation. Let's hope Costa Rica will not become the “Poor-Pensionados-Paradise”.

Ed Van Grootel

Wife is not thrilled
by crime accounts

Dear A.M. Costa Rica:

First I would like to thank you for publishing such an informative free web site. My wife and I have been thinking about retiring in Costa Rica for some time now and have been reading the articles on your site for several weeks.

We have also accessed the advertiser sites and feel confident that there is plenty of help available to make a smooth transition to residency in Costa Rica when the time comes. We both have excellent retirement packages and are looking for a safe, tropical environment. My wife loves Hawaii, but friends who have retired there already tell us they feel a little isolated.

Back in February we booked a cruise on the "Coral Princess" through the Panama Canal which departs in just five weeks and has a scheduled stop in Costa Rica (we'll see), and another vacation for "language immersion" for four weeks this next June/July.

Unfortunately, Costa Rica is looking less and less welcoming. Daily articles on crime, the inability of the authorities to provide a safe environment for citizens and a refusal on the part of the courts to enforce (or perhaps selectively enforce) laws designed to maintain a safe environment for the citizens has caused me and, in particular, my wife to have second thoughts about our long-term plans. Perhaps it is my fault for telling my wife about your site in the first place. So far, we are still intent on keeping our vacation plans for this next summer, and there is no way we would ever cancel our cruise through the canal, but beyond that things get a bit sketchy.

I really don't mean this as a criticism and I'm not asking you to change your reporting, but perhaps focusing on the safe and fun activities that will be available to us as retirees might help.

Michael Carr
Lakewood California

Immigration bill is seen as
a clear signal to leave

Dear A.M. Costa Rica:

It's amazing to me that the Costa Rican government is considering raising the amount required for rentista status from $1,000 per person/mo. to $5,000/mo. This is after having doubled the amount required already a very short time ago.

I have already purchased a house in Costa Rica, and had planned on retiring there, having fought hard to acquire the funds now necessary to achieve this status ($120K for myself and wife), only to find out that this amount will now be increased by a factor of five. How this could be considered in view of the worldwide economic meltdown is beyond me, and will only result in a huge decrease in people considering retirement in Costa Rica, with Panama and other Central American countries reaping the rewards of this foolishness.

It is as if the Costa Rican government is sending a clear signal that it does not value or appreciate the economic impact of expat spending, and is forcing people without the
required ($10,000/mo per couple) to utilize the perpetual tourist alternative, until they give up and go elsewhere.

This amount of money would afford a very affluent lifestyle anywhere in the United States (and the world) and it is unrealistic to think that any but an extremely small percentage of people could afford this amount. The repercussions of this will become apparent very quickly after passage of the new immigration requirements, and even if repealed in the future will leave a very bad taste in the mouths of perspective retirees.

This will prove to be a very shortsighted and foolish decision by the Costa Rican government.

Chet Ohrt
Vero Beach, Florida

He's going to sell house
and other property here

Dear A.M. Costa Rica:

The proposed new income levels for pensionados or rentistas are so extraordinary that very few people in the world can properly qualify. Maybe 200,000 in all of America. Even with over $1.0 million in property already owned in Costa Rica it is unlikely that I will have another $5,000 after tax income (Pre-tax $130,000) coming in to qualify to reside here.

Costa Rica does not offer any real bargains for those with $60,000 a year in after tax income to retire. Crime is now high everywhere, even Escazú. Every product in super markets is more than in WalMarts in Alabama. Medical care is complex if one has Medicare or U.S. private insurance. Traffic is chaotic. Property insurance is among the worst deals in the Americas. Rivers and streams are polluted. Electric is unreasonably expensive, etc. So Why bother?

I spend $50,000 a year brought down from the U.S., or more, now. I am finished with this place. President Arias has guided decisions that make no sense for investors like luxury home taxes while most owners (Ticos) cheat all the time on their realty taxes.

My lovely house in Escazú is now on the market along with all my other properties in the country.

Fools in governments like those in San José can do a lot of damage by extraordinary short sighted "policy" measures. Besides the Caja is fiscally broke. Buying in is a suckers game.

Gordon Wolf
Escazú

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San José, Costa Rica, Friday, Nov. 14, 2008, Vol. 8, No. 227

A.M. Costa Rica
users guide

This is a brief users guide to A.M. Costa Rica.

Old pages

Each day someone complains via e-mail that the newspages are from yesterday or the day before. A.M. Costa Rica staffers check every page and every link when the newspaper is made available at 2 a.m. each week day.

So the problem is with the browser in each reader's computer. Particularly when the connection with the server is slow, a computer will look to the latest page in its internal memory and serve up that page.

Readers should refresh the page and, if necessary, dump the cache of their computer, if this problem persists. Readers in Costa Rica have this problem frequently because the local Internet provider has continual problems.

Searching

The A.M. Costa Rica search page has a list of all previous editions by date and a space to search for specific words and phrases. The search will return links to archived pages.

Newspages

A typical edition will consist of a front page and four other newspages. Each of these pages can be reached by links near the top and bottom of the pages.

Classifieds

Five classified pages are updated daily. Employment listings are free, as are listings for accommodations wanted, articles for sale and articles wanted. The tourism page and the real estate sales and real estate rentals are updated daily.

Advertising information

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Statistics

A.M. Costa Rica makes its monthly statistics available to advertisers and readers. It is HERE!

Contacting us

Both the main telephone number and the editor's e-mail address are listed on the front page near the date.

Visiting us

Directions to our office and other data, like bank account numbers are on the about us page.

Mexican reporter dies
in shooting at his home

By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
and wire service reports.

A top crime reporter for a Ciudad Juárez, México,

newspaper died Thursday morning the victim of assassins.

The reporter, Armando Rodriguez, was outside his home seated in his company car getting ready to drive his oldest daughter to school when the gunmen shot him. He worked for Diario de Juárez and was known as the man who kept close tabs on the waves of murders that are sweeping the city.

Ciudad Juárez is just south of El Paso, Texas.

Armando Rodriguez

The reporter, known as "El Choco" to his colleagues worked 14 years for the newspaper covering police news.

The Interamerican Press Association said that Rodríguez was one of eight newspeople who received threats at the beginning of the year. Rodríguez moved for two months to El Paso for safety.

The press organization condemned the crime.

The reporter has written some 800 stories this year about crime in the city. A colleague said that he was the only reporter who kept track of the number of deaths.

Ciudad Juárez is a center for drug trafficking and also has seen a wave of murders of young women. More than 1,000 persons have died in Ciudad Juárez this year, according to a colleague, and more than 4,000 people have died this year in violence connected to criminal gangs in all of Mexico.

Development bank gets new chief

By the A.M. Costa Rica staff

Nick Rischbieth Glöe of Honduras has been named to a five-year term as executive president of the Banco Centroamericano de Integración Económica. He is from Honduras and holds a doctorate in finance from a German university.

The appointment by the board of directors of the development bank came after a competition involving candidates from five countries, including Costa Rica, the bank said. The board is made up of the ministers of finance of the member countries.

Rischbieth has worked with the bank since 1995 and is credited with raising the organization's credit rating.

He received his doctorate at the University of Hamburg, Germany, and also was awarded degrees at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, and at Rice University in Houston, Texas.

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San José, Costa Rica, Friday, Nov. 14, 2008, Vol. 8, No. 227