Nature Riddle...

Today I have a riddle for the blog entry take a look and if you can answer there will be a prize:

The hint I will give is that the answer to these is an animal in Costa Rica?

What has 4 legs, runs fast, and roars?

It also has 4 wheels, run fast, and roars?

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Basilisk, Jesus Christ Lizard

I was trying to think of a blog topic for today and I was thinking of the new national Stadium in Costa Rica which was an $88 million dollar project by the Chinese. I was driving by there yesterday and was informed that the Stadium seats 35,000 and only has 500 parking spots.

"JESUS CHRIST! I'm walking on water!"  

This morning I was thinking about that and told a friend that squeezing all those cars in there will be similar to the way Jesus Christ fed all those people with such little bread. That is when my topic for today came to me. The JESUS CHRIST LIZARD happens to be one of the most interesting animals in Central America and I have nothing about it in this blog so it is long overdue to write about "The Basilisk" (Jesus Christ Lizard). For gosh sakes the thing walks on water!!!

Probably the best name I've heard given to the Basilisk besides Jesus Christ Lizard is "miniature dinosaurs". When you look at them it really does look as if you are looking at a dinosaur. It is the male species that looks the most like the dinosaur with it's large crest on head and back tail. The lizard can reach almost 1 meter long which is just over 3ft.   This is a species that enjoys being in warmer weather at lowlands. You will hardly ever see one above 1000m (3,000ft).

How do they Walk on Water

Now everyone knows that they are called the Jesus Christ Lizard because this is the species that can actually walk on water. The question is are they really holy lizards sent by Jesus Christ or is there some other reason for this. Depending who you talk to most will say there is some other reason and I think I will go with that also.

The secret of walking on water for these lizards is that they have very large hind feet with flaps of skin along each toe. This is different than webbed feet. Along with these flaps of skin they move very quickly. The smaller Basilisk (Juveniles) can walk up to 10 or 20 meters across water while the larger (Adult) Basilisk can still do it but look as if they are struggling a little more than the youngsters. Sort of like a bunch of 55 year olds playing pick up basketball.

There are four different types of Species of Basilisk. The oldest reported Basilisk can live up to 7 years.

Interested in Learning How to Walk on Water?

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Information for this article was taken from: "Costa Rican Natural History" - Daniel H. Janzen

High Season for Tourism

If it has not already started for many then it is just right around the corner. The long awaited high season of Tourism in Costa Rica is from December till August with a few low parts but all in all that is when the industry of tourism is really moving and shaking.

This high Season of 2011 is a high season that tour operators, hotel owners, and travel agencies have been more anxious for than all the high seasons in the past. The reason for this is that it is coming off a very hard 2 years of recessions, an earthquake, and swine-flu which all took their toll on the economy of tourism here in Costa Rica. What I have learned is that with all the struggling we have had in the tourism industry it is important that we find the positive in the struggles that we had with the recession and things of such. If we can not find the positive then we essentially struggled for no-reason.

Lessons to be Learned

It looks to be a great year of growth here in Costa Rica. There seem to be many more families coming for a family vacation as compared to the last 2 years.  Who knows maybe there were even some lessons to be learned because tourism was growing at a very fast rate every year for the last 11 years. Maybe the drop that we experienced last year remind us that it's not always about growth, getting bigger, and working like crazy. It is about doing what we love to do and that is working among the natural beauties of Costa Rica and doing it at a first class level.

Costa Rica still receives less tourist than many other parts of the world.  This is one of the best parts that you can still find personalized service here. We need to remember that the beauty of visiting Costa Rica is not only it's nature but the smiling faces in the people and if we get caught up trying to make things bigger and bigger we will not have time to smile and laugh with the most important part of tourism and that is, our visitors.



If you are interested in visiting Costa Rica or just want some advice send us an email or give us a call we would love to chat. To all in the tourism industry of Costa Rica the CRR Team wishes you a very safe and fun high season!

Costa Rican Resource

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Turrialba Volcano Might Re-Open?

Image by Costa Rican Resource via FlickrI personally declared it volcano week since it seems to be the topic of this blog for the last couple of days it seems the local newspaper is lending itself to help me out. La Nacion the main news paper in Costa Rica which I consider the most formal and proffesional came out with the most unproffesional and informal article I could imagine. It was about the idea of re-opening the Turrialbal Volcano, you can read the article in Spanish here.

If it is time to reopen the Turrialba volcano than fine lets do it but if its not than lets wait. I find it interesting that the only way to get to the crater in the rainy season would be for the US not to send warships down but to send some tanks down. The roads are horrible and with these rains I can imagine not much better. The roads in the article were not so much an issue in the article in arriving but during an emergency evacuation. The article then talks about how the volcano is letting out a lot of gas and that it could be dangerous to the tourist, uh? Does this mean like going to Poas and you should only stay at the crater for 30 minutes because of the gases being released or does this mean dangerous from the moment you arrive.

The suggestion from La Nacion is that you would have to hire a tourism proffesional company to take you to the top of the crater to be safe. I've got news for you I run a tourism proffesional company and I dont have a clue when the Turrialba volcano is safe or when it is not safe I just go by what the experts tell me. Well I hope they dont open the park today but if it is open for the next high season I will be looking forward to it it would be quite the plus to any costa rican family vacation with the activity it is displaying and quite the free back massage with the road to get there.

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New National Stadium Smoke Free

During the Asian Games in China people are fined $7's for smoking. They are also fined for smoking in public places such as elevators, office buildings, and other non-smoking areas. The least we do is not smoke in the stadium they built for us (although we did buy $120 million dollars worth of Chinese traffic STUFF for our cars when this project began). Can you imgine trying to charge "La Ultra" and "La Doce" Dos Rojos y Medio (these are two soccer team groups that rarely have the money to enter games and often smoking and drinking outside the stadium) for each cigarrete they smoked.

 This has been quite the week to celebrate no smoking. I have a close friend that said he was got into a fender bender in my car and he did not have the funds to pay for it because he licensed had expired the day before. I really felt bad for him but told him if he quit smoking (after 30 years) I would clear his debt with me. It has been two weeks and he is going great. Its obviously hard as hell but this is a close friend that has overcome everyother addiction there is so he has all the tools he needs to do this so I told him to just do it.

I just read in the front page of the Nacional Newspaper that the new National Stadium dontaed by China will be smoke free. I think this is funny considering the day before the Costa Rica national football team just signed a very large contract with a Mexican coach that smokes during games. I thought to myself what is this guy going to do. It wont work the bribe trick that I am doing with my friend because they already signed the contract and the money is on its way. It will be interesting to see.

But anyways I think its a great gesture to a beautiful new place Costa Ricans can call home to there national events seating over 35,000 in a smoke free environment. It's an excellent move for the younger generations also to see this. The construction is 90% complete and almost ready for a "rumble in the jungle" although  I dont think Ali is.

SHOULD COSTA RICA LABOR HAVE BEEN USED TO BUILD THE STADIUM?

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A Tourism Specialist

Anne Ledezma has a number of years working in the Tourism Industry in Costa Rica designing family vacations and student travels. Tourism has boomed in the last decade in Costa Rica due to its natural beauties and inviting people. One of the reasons for success is the education and knowledge the people who work in tourism in Costa Rica bring to the industry. You will find many Costa Ricans who speak two, three, or even four languages. They are naturally very respectful people but they are educated in areas of how to profesionally treat tourist.

A perfect example in Anne Ledezma who has 15 years of making family vacations and student travel packets. Her experience comes from working with companies large and small. She is very well traveled in and around Costa Rica. Very often she invest hours in to clients just to send them off with advice even if no trip comes of it for the company she does it for the love of her country.

Using Anne as an example it is great to see the love most employees share for their country. Working in tourism is a blessing that most Costa Ricans take much pride in their natural beauties and taking advantage of this to show off just how "Pura Vida" the Costa Ricans are.

Social Media and Costa Rican Tourism

If you are reading this blog you probably have some sort of idea what Social Media is and how it is affecting the business world in the last few years. Running a small business I have fallen into the trend of wanting to have my company branded on social media sites. To be honest ever since Ive started social media I really have not seen sales change. I started social media thinking I could advertise my business and become a large company, make lots of money, sit on a raft all day, and enjoy the beauties of Costa Rica. After I did a quick evaluation of my life I noticed I have a small company, I dont make a lot of money and I still find myself sitting on a raft all day, and ejoying the beauties of Costa Rica. So having already accomplished the last latter two I feel content with my business.

So why do I continue to use social media if it is not bringing sales? With our company we are in direct contact with our clients for one week and then maybe never again. The model of our company is personalized attention from start to finish. Social Media allows me to develop relationships with our groups before and after the trip. It allows us to see their comments on the trip and for us to comment back. It truly develops a relationship with the guides of the company and everyone who took part in their trip. I feel that has benefited our business more than getting 100 more trips for Social Media. Although Social Media is huge business we are happy with being small and allowing social media to help us stay connected with our previous clients in a way that would never be possible before.

One interesting part is that I have not seen the statistics but I can bet Costa Rica has more people using Social Media than other Central American countries. This is due to the very educated tech-savvy people of Costa Rica. For this same reason larger companies such as Intel and Hewlett Packard have some of their largest plants here.

Tourism drops 8% in 2009

According to an article written in La Nacion. The tourism sector of Costa Rica took a drop of 8% in the year of 2009. For obvious reasons everyone expected a drop with the world wide recession and even the Swine Flew playing a roll in less tourist. In my personal opinion it could have been a lot worse and I think many people in the tourism industry that was not in extremely deep going into this year probably survived and is ready for this next year.

The number of tourist that entered the country were down 167,000 from 2008. In 2009 1.9million foreigners entered the country as compared to over 2 million in 2008.

I happen to think this was great for the country. I have been working in tourism down here for 9 years and there are plenty of people who have many more years than I working in tourism. The changes I have seen in the last 9 years are amazing and at such a fast speed that I can only imagine what this country looked like 20 years ago. The point that Im trying to make is that the people and natural beauties is what made this place the tourist destination it is. If you take the economic growth of the tourist section really fast it affects both the people and the natural beauties. When people find out they can make money in tourism and big money they tend to do it. Anyone knows that making big money fast can change some of your dailing habits and how you live your life. Im not saying the Costa Rican has turned into a country full of greedy snobs. All Im saying is that this is an excellent situation for the people here and extremely fast growth would not benefit anyone.

The second is the obvious that has been talked about for years and that is the more tourist, the more foreigners developing land, the more the natural beauties take a risk of being affected. Yes, 25% of Costa Rica is protected but every piece of bio-diversity on this planet is connected and just marking off your boundries does not make you a protecter of the environment. It is important that this developement be built very conscience of how their project will affect the nearby areas and its surroundings (air, soil, where materials come from, ect.)

So with this said, I feel the 8% drop in tourism is a chance for the industry to keep its feet on the ground and recieve this excellent blessing of opportunity of economic and natural wealth with a solid plan and mindset for the best future possible for everyone.