Photo by Sabadomasoquismo

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.

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.

The second annual Walter Ferguson Festival will take place in Cahuita from the 4th to the 10th of July.

The festival honors calypso legend and Cahuita native son Walter Ferguson with Live music, painting, theater, dance, calypso, literature, poetry, and many more Afro-Caribbean and Indigenous Cultural Events.

Sponsored by the DInamica Empresarial, Caribe Communication, and the Development Association of Cahuita.
For more information call 8892 2895 or email caribecomunicacion2@gmail.com

Thanks to ATEC for the heads up on this.

There is broad community support for getting a proper water treatment facility operating in Puerto Viejo but the community still has many questions about the location, the methods used and how it will affect its neighbors if it is built in the proposed Cocles location.

The next community meeting with AyA and MINAE is the place to bring your questions and get more informed about the project. It is set for July 7 at 3pm at the Cocles School.

You can see more information on the event and sign up for updates on the event’s facebook page. You can also subscribe to the facebook group for more discussion on the project.

Jordan Hernandez, Winner of the 2009 Puerto Viejo Open & Airshow, Photo by Beto courtesy of www.CRSurf.com

Puerto Viejo Open Pro has announced another surf tournament at Cocles Beach.

The competition will be held on Feb 5, 2011. 

There will be $3000 US in cash and prizes available.

More details will be posted soon at www.PuertoViejoOpenPro.com/ or contact Beto at telephone (506)8885-9688 or email betolocks@hotmail.com.

On Jan 15, a unique event will be happening. Starting in Puerto Viejo runners can choose from 10km, 21km and 42km courses.

The Jungle Run will take participants on a route through nature from its starting point in Puerto Viejo to Punta Cocles (turnaround point for the 10km route), Punta Uva (turnaround for the half marathon) or Punta Mona (turnaround for the full marathon).

The course is at sea level with mostly flat sections. The difficulties runners will face are soft sand, roots, muddy trails, and tropical conditions of sun and/or rain depending on the weather that particular day. Not an easy run, but exotic and demanding.

There are aid stations along the way where runners can get cold water, electrolyte drinks and carbohydrates. The aid stations will be located at 5km, 11km, 21km, 31km, and 36km. Parts of the run are in protected rain forest. Racers must carry CamelBaks or water bottles, we will leave no trace, except footsteps!

More information and registration is available on their website www.jungleruncr.com

Several Christmas Concerts have been announced, each with distinct programs:

On Friday from 4pm – 6pm, Director Silvia Cabrelles and the soloists and chorus of “Puerto Viejo Canta”
will perform at the Tree House Lodge in Playa Chiquita. Cost is 500 colones.

On Sunday morning the 12th of December at 11:00am, There will be a performance of Händel’s Messiah at the Catholic Church by Martiza’s in downtown Puerto Viejo. The performance will be by the soloists and chorus of the Iglesia Adventista de Limón under director Malvern Ordain P. along with a chorus from Puerto Viejo. Donations welcome.

The X-Tri Caribe, an “extreme” mountain triathlon will take place on Sept 18 starting from Punta Uva.

The competition will offer two different distances.  The X-Tri Caribe will include a 1.2 km swim, 28 km mountain bike and 9k run. The X-Tri Sprint course has a 600 m swim, 28 km mountain bike and a 5 km run.

The entry cost is ¢22.000 with discounts available for pairs and groups and members of the organizing clubs. Pre-registration is required.

They will be offering a variety of trophies in different categories by age and sex.

More information can be found on the event webpage.

On the same day at Punta Uva there will be an open water swimming competition offered with 2.4km and 1.2km distances.  Information on the swimming competition can be found here.

Photo by Sabadomasoquismo

PromoBike and Maxi’s Restaurant will again be sponsoring a mountain biking event in Puerto Viejo on the 17th of October.

The event will include a 74km long route and a 38km short route for riders. There will be lots of hydration stations as well as a party planned afterward.

Last years event included a route which went through the Talamanca Mountains and included a total elevation gain of 792m. While this year’s route has not yet been published, riders can expect again to be challenged!

More information is available on the event web page.

The Recycling Alliance has expanded the types of solid waste that it is collecting on the Caribbean Coast. Nearly everything can now be recycled. Recycle for a safer community and environment!

The following clean and separated items are now accepted:

• Glass bottles (topless)
• Aluminum and clean metal cans
• Plastic Bottles Pet (#1)
• and all other plastics; separated and CLEAN: jugs,gallons, food containers, bags from the super markets,
• Tetrapak! AKA Wine boxes or juice boxes and that metal-plastic bags examples: bags from coffee, powered milk, cookie and potato chip wrappers if they are that shiny metal!
• Cardboard, dry, separated, and broken down
• Office paper, dry separated packed in plastic bags, remove staples please
• Newspaper and magazines! Dry and separated
• Car batteries
• Used cooking oil

Collection Schedule:

Mondays: From Cahuita to Hone Creek

Tuesdays: From Manzanillo to Rockin’ Jay’s on the edge of Puerto Viejo

Wednesdays: Puerto Viejo to Black Beach

Thursdays: Collections from Banana Farms

Fridays: 1^st and 3^rd of the month: BriBri, 2^nd of the month: Gandoca, 4^th of the month: to the Indigenous Territory including Volio, Rancho Grande, Shiroles, Suretka, Bambu, Chase

Businesses and individuals can bring their recyclable materials to the Solid Waste Transfer Center in Patiño any time. The Center is open during normal business hours.

The Recycling Alliance is sponsoring an event on Saturday, the 31^st of July at the Super Hone Creek starting at 9AM. The event is the first of several called “Talamanca Reciclando por la Vida” Or “Talamanca Recycling for Life”. It’s a grand opening of a community recycling deposit at the Super in Hone Creek. There will be music and information. Bring in your clean, separated recyclables and learn more about what’s going in with recycling in Talamanca.

Due to the new Integrated Waste Management Bill passed in Costa Rica in May, 2010, separation of solid waste is required for households as well as businesses (see article below…) The Recycling Alliance encourages other communities and community members to create their own community recycling points or “Puntos Verdes.”

More information is available on all these initiatives at www.greencoast.com.