Thursday, February 12th, 2009
Firefighters worked to extinguish flames Wednesday engulfing forest and pastures of the Los Santos Forest Reserve near San Marco de Terrazú, south of San José.
The fire started Tuesday and by Wednesday morning had burned through some 35 hectares. Officials were ready to issue an alert for the canton of Santa María de Dota should the fire spread, the Environment Ministry said.
The hilly terrain and high winds made it difficult to contain the blaze despite efforts by area residents, volunteers and National Forest Fire Commission workers, the ministry said in a press release Wednesday.
National Police were set to fly over the area Wednesday afternoon to assess the damage and begin to investigate what caused the fire.
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Thursday, February 12th, 2009
Action movie star Steven Seagal told Costa Rican President Oscar Arias on Wednesday he wants to help the Central American country build a filmmaking industry to put its dramatic landscapes to use.
Seagal, known for his martial arts roles of the 1980s and ’90s, met Arias in San Jose and offered to use his Hollywood connections to help Costa Rica get started in movie-making.
“Costa Rica has everything — both rain forest and dry climate. What it lacks is an infrastructure to make movies,” Seagal told a news conference. (more…)
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Thursday, February 12th, 2009
The practice of extreme sports in Costa Rica attracts thousands of tourists every year who seek an additional dose of adrenaline.
Thanks to the country’s topography and its variety of landscapes, the opportunities for extreme sports are many: including bungee dumping, rafting, canopy riding, rappelling, windsurfing, diving, mountain biking, kayaking and many more. Whether on land, in the ocean or in the air, visitors can enjoy these outdoor activities all throughout Costa Rica.
According to Costa Rican Tourism Institute Statistics (ICT), while North American tourists are more interested in visiting Pacific coast beaches, Europeans have a preference for extreme sports.
“This is a destination where nature can be enjoyed in comfort, that is, we as a country have kept a balance between the comfort that tourists demand and the ruggedness of ecological and adventure tourism — and that is our strength, which visitors from North America, Europe and the rest of the world want to come and see,” said Tourism Minister Carlos Ricardo Benavides.
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