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Sep
23
Mountain Bike Event October 16
September 23, 2011 | Tags: Community Calendar, Sports | Comments Off
| October 16, 2011 | ||
| 9:00 am |
PromoBike and CATCAS are sponsoring this year’s mountain biking event in Puerto Viejo on the 16th of October.
The event will include a 74km long route and a 35km short route for riders.
The ride starts at 9 a.m. and the entry fee is 6000 colones. That includes hydration stations, bicycle mechanics available and a raffle. And there’s usually a great party afterwards!
For more information, telephone 8383-8223 or 8389-5289.
Sep
21
Diario Extra is reporting that the Costa Rica government has budgeted funds in their 2012 budget to expand and modernize this route which connects San José and Limon.
Caribbean residents are well aware of the faults of the route given the frequent mudslides which close the route and the resulting delays or hours long detours.
The newspaper states that the funds will primarily come from long term loan from the Chinese government with additional funds coming from the Banco Centroamericano de Integración Económica (Central American Bank for Economic Integration). However the figures quoted by the newspaper don’t make a lot of sense as they give figures in colones and in dollars that are completely different, at one point quoting ¢420,000,000 (which is just $840,000 USD more or less) and at another point quoting $210,000,000 USD. One hopes the latter figure is the correct one as the first one doesn’t seem adequate to accomplish much.
The work will take some three years to complete and is said to include expanding the road to four lanes between Rio Frio and Limon.
More: El Diario Extra: China Prestaría ¢420 Millones Para Arreglar Ruta a Limón
Sep
20
Education by example in the southern Caribbean
September 20, 2011 | Tags: Community Calendar, Community News, Helping Out | 1 Comment
| September 30, 2011 | ||
| 8:00 am |
Local tour company Gecko Trail Adventures is organizing a beach cleanup day on Sept 30 with local school kids.
Lead by example! Keep the beach clean.The company strives to actively participate in community projects that promote a sustainable development of the local area. In this effort, they encourage their employees to look beyond their day-to-day tasks and work on projects benefiting their community. One of these endeavors is the beach clean-up they are organizing with children from the local school along with staff from Gecko Trail Adventures and Hotel Banana Azul for September 30th.
The project was made possible thanks to supplied donations from local businesses and various providers Gecko Trail Adventures works with. The trash collected will be counted with the help of Terra-Nostra. The results will be reported to Ocean Conservancy to be able to have a document that governments, organizations and companies can use to check the Waste World Marine Index.
If you find yourself in the Puerto Viejo area on September 30th you are very welcome to join them. The meeting point will be at the beach in front of Hotel Banana Azul at 8:00am.
 Article by Gecko Trail Adventures. Gecko Trail Adventures started 3 years ago with 2 staff and a tiny tour desk in a local hotel. The main objective was, and still is, to offer good quality and reasonably priced tours to clients that wish to visit the Caribbean as well as all other areas of Costa Rica. Today they employ 14, local Caribeños as well others from around Costa Rica and around the world, who devote themselves to ensuring that everyone has the best possible experience while visiting this beautiful country. Their goal is to provide customized services that fit each client’s needs, and in this way utilize local guides and small companies and hotels to be able to offer an authentic Costa Rica experience. More information at www.gecktrail.com. |
Sep
19
Massive Landslide Blocks Highway 32
September 19, 2011 | Tags: Accidents and Natural Disasters | Comments Off
Rescue workers at the scene. Photo courtesy of La Nación.The heavy rains this weekend caused a large landslide at kilometer 33 on route 32 (between San Jose and Guápiles) and fell onto a car driving through at the time.
The car was pushed off the road and into a ravine, some 90 meters deep. The driver, a 50 year old man, was taken to hospital in San Jose but seems to have miraculously suffered only minor injuries.
The accident happened at 6:32pm last night and the road remains closed today so drivers are advised to take the alternative route.
More: La Nación: Derrumbe bloquea paso por vía hacia Guápiles desde anoche
Sep
12
Seeing Another Talamanca: Volunteering with ANAI
September 12, 2011 | Tags: Environment, Helping Out | Comments Off
Sleeping in an indigenous Bribri house 15 miles from any road, as part of an expedition as insightful and non-touristy as it gets. Listening to our Bribri friends relate the ancient beliefs of their culture, part in Spanish, part in Bribri. Eating lunch out of banana leaves next to a cool mountain stream. Watching a 5-foot eel narrowly escape our seine net. Looking at thousands of freshwater fish daily. These were all relatively normal events during my time volunteering with the Asociacion ANAI, which hopefully sheds some light on how interesting living and volunteering in Talamanca can be.
I spent about half a year living in Hone Creek, a small town 5km inland from Puerto Viejo, as a volunteer with ANAI. The organization’s objectives lie mostly within the realm of river and stream monitoring and environmental education, though in reality it is involved in a multitude of related activities. The field station in Hone Creek takes 25-35 trips a year,between February and May/June, to sites all over Talamanca, for 1-5 days each. The trips take place in many different places, from the border at Sixaola to Limon, from the coast to higher up in the mountains than most people knew existed, even into Panama.
Many of these expeditions take place high up in the watersheds, in places very few people see, where human impact is minimal to none, to get samples of fish near their breeding grounds, where the indicators of stream health are most present and significant. On these expeditions, 3-5 ANAI staff, usually a couple volunteers, and about 4-8 locals, all participate in biomonitoring to improve the health of the water systems in the region.
Everyone, including the volunteers, are directly involved in the work, and aren’t left standing and watching on the side. Fish are collected and identified, along with shrimp, eels and macroinvertebrates (larvaeof flying insects). Visual assessments are taken, water is tested, pictures are taken, and at the end of each day, a delightfully large cache of information has been made to be used in various ways. The information is put into a database and compared to previous years, then given to the local government, the Costa Rican government, the University of Costa Rica (which volunteers sometimes work with as a partnership), UNESCO, and other NGOs working in environmental management. Academic articles are also published from time to time in peer-reviewed journals. The field work can be physically demanding, but then again most rewarding things aren’t easy, right?
These expeditions serve as environmental education courses almost as much as they serve the goal of biomonitoring. The ANAI staff teach as they go, to the local people hired to help carry gear (and participate) as well as to any volunteers with ANAI at the time. These “courses,” at least in my opinion, are infinitely more helpful, practical, and interesting than the majority of courses in a classroom because everyone has the opportunity to ask questions all dht”ay long, see firsthand what the studies look like, and not worry about tests to pass or homework to do. The work is fun, the information is very interesting, and therefore learning becomes an enjoyable and interactive experience that doesn’t feel forced. After all, who could complain with being outside all day, learning about watersheds and tropical ecology?
The website is http://anaicr.wordpress.com and any inquiries can be made to Maribel Mafla, who lives permanently in Talamanca and co-runs the field work, at mmafla@anaicr.org (Spanish only) or to Diego Lynch, the President of ANAI, who lives in San Jose, at diego@anaicr.org (English or Spanish). They are happy to take phone calls at 2756-8120.
 Article by Kevin Wells. Kevin is a 25 year-old Biology/Spanish college graduate currently living in Talamanca. His current work is in the field of forest ecology and wildlife conservation, but is involved in other related projects. He is from Eugene, Oregon, USA, and is therefore well adjusted to the rain. Kevin welcomes any questions or comments, and can be reached via email at kjwells86@gmail.com |
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