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A.M. Costa Rica third newspage
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San José, Costa Rica, Tuesday, Dec. 26, 2006, Vol. 6, No. 255

State of tourism clouded by delays in visitor statistics

By the A.M. Costa Rica staff

The state of Costa Rican tourism is handicapped because exact numbers are not available.

Tourism officials are guessing that fewer tourists have or will come in 2006 than in 2005. They consider 2005 a banner year.

But statistics on tourist arrivals show that the total number of visitors actually went up 3.8 percent during the first six months of 2006.

Some tourism officials claim to have seen figures for July and August 2006, but they have been unable to provide them. Statistics are first gathered by the Dirección General de Migración y Extranjería based on immigration reports at the nation's entry points. There always has been a delay in getting the numbers in shape so that the Instituto Costarricense de Turismo and professional organizations can interpret them. But this year the delay is longer.

Tourism is the nation's biggest industry, and an absence of statistics makes decision-making difficult.

Nevertheless, Carlos Benavides, the Turismo minister, speculated Friday that tourism numbers would be down 2 to 5 percent when final figures are in. He said this even though the tourism institute reported at the same time that 45 more cruise ships visited the country in 2006 than in 2005. Benavides blamed a decrease in commercial flights. The institute said it would not have accurate figures for the whole year until February.

If tourism has declined, this happened in the last half of the year because the figures from January to June say that tourism from North America was off only 1.1 percent. In other words 5,560 fewer North Americans visited during that period than in 2005. Still 501,785 North Americans did visit. Some 55,731 were Canadians, and 420,537 came from the United States. Mexico contributed 25,517.

Tourism arrivals: First six months of 2005 and 2006
	2005	2006	Change	%
From U.S.	427,970	420,537	-7,433	-1.7
From Canada	56,399	55,731	-668	-1.2
From Europe	109,910	113,721	3,811	+3.5

Total tourists	897,028	930,680	+33,652	+3.8

As always, the nation's tourism figures are misleading because persons from many countries are considered tourists even though they may never stay one night in a hotel. In 2006, for example, 146,778 Nicaraguans entered the country as tourists, an increase of 20,827 or 16 percent over 2005.

European tourism was up in the first half of the year. There were 113,721 European visitors, 3,811 or 3.5 percent more than in 2005.

A new immigration law that went into effect in August creates a number of new categories for tourists. Sports team members, for example, will enter the country under that category. Now every visitor without a special visa is considered a tourist.

So, too, are the many resident expats who renew their tourist visas by making trips out of the country every 90 days.

Statistics for 2006 notwithstanding, anecdotal reports suggest that in some areas tourism is down up to 35 percent. The big increase in arrivals at Daniel Oduber airport in Liberia has changed the face of tourism and favors Pacific destinations. The airport hosted 92,326 visitors in the first six months of 2006. All but 3,430 were from North America.

During the same period arrivals to Juan Santamaría in Alajuela were off 3 percent. That airport still handled 577,163 arrivals.

A Costa Rican dicho with a bit of destiny added in

El que nacio para tamal del cielo le caerán las hojas

“If you're born to be a tamale, the leaves will drop from the sky.” It seems to me that this simple dicho has something to say about human destiny. Ergo, even if you’re born to be a lowly tamale, the things you need to become that (in this case, banana leaves) will come to you.

Costa Rican tamales are different from the Mexican or Cuban varieties, and I actually think they have more in common with the Venezuelan version known as hayacas.

In Costa Rica making tamales is a holiday tradition. Custom has it that tamales are to be served with steaming cups of strong, black coffee to friends and family who drop by in the afternoon during the vacation week between Christmas and New Year’s Day.

The preparation of tamales is usually a family or sometimes even a community affair with folks getting together to prepare the ingredients and assemble the tamales for cooking. It’s one of those wonderful old traditions that bring everyone together in congenial fellowship at the holidays.

El que nacio para tamal del cielo le caerán las hojas sounds funny because one gets this mental picture of banana leaves cascading from the heavens. Once, however, back when I spent most of Christmas in the States, we were entertaining a lot of international students who were stuck far from home at the holidays.

After moving to the United States, I had quickly transplanted the holiday tradition of tamale making among my new family. That particular year we decided to include the international students from Indiana University in the festivities. For many years we had relied on an international market in our town for our supply of banana leaves.

But that Christmas, when we needed more leaves than ever, our usual supplier was completely sold out. As one doesn't encounter too many backyard banana trees around Bloomington, Indiana, in mid-December, it looked like there wouldn't be any tamales for us or our international students that year. What a disappointment!

We had all but given up on the idea, when a young Puerto Rican student recalled that there were banana trees all over her old neighborhood in San Juan. Maybe her mother could collect the amount of leaves we needed and fly them up to us via Federal Express. Well, as you’ve undoubtedly guessed, that’s what she did. So, our banana leaves really did fall from the sky that year! A huge box of them arrived from Puerto Rico on Dec. 23, in time for our tamale festival the following day.

That year we had people from Mexico, Costa Rica, Puerto Rico, Italy, Korea, Croatia, Venezuela, Germany, and, of course, the United States all making tamales together. The Christmas that banana leaves fell from the sky was a holiday I’ll not soon forget.

Here’s a recipe for Costa Rican Christmas tamales that I thought you might enjoy trying next holiday season:

The
way we say it

By Daniel Soto

The masa:

Melt 1 stick of butter in 1 cup boiling beef broth. Slowly add 2 ½ cups of masa harina, stirring continuously over medium
heat until mixture reaches the consistency of a thick paste. If it’s too thin, add a bit more masa harina. If it becomes too thick to stir, add a little more broth. But it’s important that the masa not become too thin for molding by hand. Remove from heat, cover and set aside.

The fillings:

2 lb pork tenderloin boiled, cut into ½ inch cubes
2 lb boneless, skinless chicken breast boiled,
cut into ½ inch cubes 1 cup defrosted frozen peas
1 cup green stuffed Spanish olives
1 cup raisins
2 medium carrots boiled and sliced
½ cup capers
2 bell peppers cleaned, seeded, and cut into thin strips
1 cup canned garbanzos
4 hard-boiled eggs sliced.

The leaves:

The banana leaves should be “cured” by placing them in boiling water with two tablespoons of olive oil for about 5 to 7 minutes. After the leaves have cooled, cut them into 4x6 inch rectangles

Assembling the tamales:

Place 4 or 5 tablespoons of the reserved masa in the middle of one of the banana leaf sections. Form the masa into a rectangular brick. Into the masa press 1 cube of pork tenderloin, 1 cube of chicken breast, 3 4 peas, 1 olive, 3-4 raisins, 1 carrot slice, and 2-3 garbanzos. Garnish with a strip or two of bell pepper, a few of the capers, and a slice of boiled egg.

Wrap the tamale in two banana leaf sections, the one that’s already on the bottom and another placed on the top and secure the package with string from left to right and top to bottom tied in the middle. Drop the assembled tamales into a pot of boiling water and cook over medium high heat for one hour. Remove from the boiling water. Allow tamales to cool 10 to 15 minutes before serving. Yields approximately 10 - 12 tamales. ¡Disfrute!

You need to see Costa Rican tourism information HERE!

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San José, Costa Rica, Tuesday, Dec. 26, 2006, Vol. 6, No. 255

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Assembly president will try to pass trade pact with 29 votes

By the A.M. Costa Rica staff

The Arias administration will try to pass the free trade treaty with the United States with only 29 votes.

This was confirmed over the weekend by Francisco A. Pacheco, the president of the Asamblea Legislativa in an interview published in La Nación.

A majority vote of 29 of the 57 deputies will give final say on the treaty to Sala IV constitutional court magistrates who certainly will be asked to rule on the legitimacy of such a vote.

Lawmakers last tried to do this with President Abel Pacheco's proposed tax plan. That was in the legislature that left office May 1. The Sala IV rejected the law, in part, because of the way it was railroaded through the legislature.

Pacheco's statement seems to be in opposition to Article 121(4) of the Costa Rican Constitution that says in part:
"Public treaties and international conventions which confer or transfer certain powers to a community legal order for the purpose of achieving common regional objectives shall require the approval of the Legislative Assembly by a vote of not less than two-thirds of its entire membership."

Two-thirds would be 38 votes.

The ruling coalition in the legislature can count on 36

votes. The Partido Liberación Nacional has 25 deputies. The Movimiento Libertario has six, and the Partido Social Cristiana has five. In addition, José Manuel Echandi of the Partido Unión Nacional has said he favors the treaty with reservations. He is the former defensor de los habitantes.

The Partido Acción Ciudadana has 17 members in the legislature. The party is uniformly against the treaty. So that leaves the fate of the treaty in the hands of three lawmakers, each from different parties.

One is José Merino del Río of Frente Amplio. He has made no secret of his opposition.

The vote comes down to Guyón Holt Massey Mora of Restauración Nacional and Oscar López of the Partido Accesibilidad Sin Exclusión.

Lawmakers are alloted seats based on the percentage of votes their party gets in the legislative election.

Pacheco said he would prefer a greater number of yes votes, but he did not explain clearly how the ruling parties would justify the action that seems to go against the Constitution.

The legislature reconvenes Jan. 8, and the controversial free trade treaty is the main order of business. A vote is expected sometime next month, although the Partido Acción Cuidadana is certain to raise judicial appeals.

Investigators say someone faked the signature of a judge to cancel mortgage

By the A.M. Costa Rica staff

Investigators raided the civil courts of San José Friday in search of evidence in a fraud case.

The case involves the misuse of special paper used by judges to publish their decisions. In the case Friday someone used this special paper to lift a mortgage on a piece of property by saying that the mortgage had been eliminated through a court decision.

The judges involved say they did not write the document which was delivered to the Registro Pública. The registry followed the supposed orders of the judge and canceled the mortgage, officials said. More than one such case may be involved. The cases also involve the falsification of a signature of a judge.

Investigators did not have far to go. The building containing the civil courts is a scant 200 feet from the Judicial Investigating Organization building.


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