Archive for April 27th, 2009
Monday, April 27th, 2009
Costa Rica’s Monteverde Cloud Forest is a treasure trove of botanical wonders.
It’s also a major pain to get there.
Five miles of new paving on the Monteverde Road was finished in December, adding to the seven miles already paved.
But the last 13-mile stretch is still an infamous 1-½- to 2-hour trip along a potholed, take-your-life-in-your-hands uphill road better suited for donkeys. Crawling along at barely 5 mph, vehicles weave up the mountainside, stones flying from the tires over the no-rail precipice.
Purists always have been against paving the whole route. They worry that tourists will overwhelm the fragile spot that is home to a rich ecosystem that includes 400 species of birds, 600 of butterflies, 300 of orchids and 200 of ferns.
But with tourism faltering due to the worldwide recession (visitor numbers to Monteverde hover between 100,000 and 250,000 people a year), sentiment is building for paving the entire route — with caveats. (more…)
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Monday, April 27th, 2009
The percentage of births of quadruplets and quintuplets recently in Costa Rica far exceeds the world average, a phenomenon that specialists say is due to fertility treatments that couples often undergo in this Central American country.
Over the past six years, Costa Rica has registered a record number – in proportion to the country’s relatively small population – of these two types of multiple births.
According to figures published Sunday by the local daily La Nacion, worldwide the average is for there to be 1 set of quadruplets for every 512,000 births (or 1.95 sets per million births), but in Costa Rica over the period 2003-2008, there were 416,831 births and 11 sets of four babies delivered (or 26.4 sets per million births). (more…)
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Monday, April 27th, 2009
The New Mexico National Guard transported several Costa Rican dignitaries, including the vice minister of public security and the U.S. ambassador to Costa Rica, via UH-60A Black Hawk helicopter yesterday so they could observe the progress of exercise Fuerzas Aliadas Humanitarias 2009.
The exercise is designed to test and improve regional and national disaster response capabilities within Central America and the Caribbean Basin.
New Mexico National Guardsmen are heavily involved in the exercise, performing search-and-rescue rehearsal missions, exchanging disaster response techniques and procedures with Costa Rican emergency officials, performing remote-location medical treatment and interacting with residents all over the country. (more…)
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