Good morning from San José
It was a strange week on the coasts. Thousands of dead crabs turned up on eight Guanacaste beaches with no explanation yet, the Constitutional Court lost patience with a municipality over Playa Dominical, and the government said it wants to move your connecting flight to a different airport.
We also have humpback whales from two hemispheres, a pension collected for twenty years after its recipient died, and a torn twenty-dollar bill nobody will take.
Here's your week.
The Top Story
Domestic carriers would move from Alajuela to Pavas under the plan. / The Tico Times
If you fly in and connect onward to Drake Bay, Tortuguero, Nosara or Puerto Jiménez, the government wants that second leg to leave from somewhere else.
The plan shifts domestic departures out of Juan Santamaría in Alajuela and over to Tobías Bolaños in Pavas, freeing up space for international traffic that has outgrown the terminal. For you, that means a ground transfer between two airports on arrival day instead of a walk down the concourse.
No transition date has been published, so nothing changes for anything you have booked this season. The government says it will spend close to $30 million modernizing Pavas, which currently handles charter flights, flight schools and small carriers and has never worked as a connection point for arriving international passengers.
Guanacaste and Limón are getting money too — roughly $6.6 million for more private aircraft parking in Liberia, plus a cargo terminal in Liberia's next concession, and an unspecified expansion at Limón.
The pressure behind all of it is real. Arrivals hit 2,001,660 through July, up 6.4% over last year, with Southwest, British Airways, Lufthansa and United all adding service between October and December.
More News
Dead crabs along the tide line in Guanacaste. / The Tico Times
They have turned up at Conchal, Brasilito, Flamingo, Potrero, Playa Negra, Ocotal, Guacamaya and Carrillo — most of the province's northern tourist coast. They appear to be Euphylax dovii, a pelagic swimming crab that lives offshore, which means something carried them in rather than them crawling up the sand.
The likeliest suspect is the ocean. Pacific waters are running about 3°C (5.4°F) above normal in some sectors, and shifting currents during El Niño years have pushed this species toward shore before.
Nothing is proven yet. No health advisory has been issued and no beach has been closed, and municipal crews usually clear this kind of material within a day or two.
Drought now covers the entire Pacific slope. / File photo
The country is running two rainy seasons at once. The National Meteorological Institute has confirmed meteorological drought across the entire Pacific slope, the Central Valley and the western Northern Zone, with the Pacific North potentially finishing August with up to 80% less rain than normal.
The Caribbean has the opposite problem — around 60% above normal in the north and 40% above in the south. El Niño is expected to intensify to "very strong" between September and November, and forecasters expect temperatures 1.5°C to 2°C (2.7°F to 3.6°F) above normal on the Pacific side. Fourteen weather stations set heat records on August 11 alone.
Playa Dominical, one of the country's best-known surf destinations. / The Tico Times
The Constitutional Court has ordered the Municipality of Osa to do more about unapproved businesses and makeshift structures on public beachfront land, after finding the local government had not fully complied with a ruling from November 2025. Judges warned the case could go to prosecutors if officials keep falling short.
A February inspection found roughly 30 commercial stands along a 300-meter (about 985-foot) stretch. Clearance operations in March, May and August each pushed people out, and each time some returned.
The municipality says it is preparing a larger operation involving the Public Force, Immigration Police, environmental prosecutors and the Health Ministry.
Prosecutors estimate $800,000 was withdrawn between 2006 and 2026. / File photo
Costa Rican prosecutors are investigating a man identified only by the last name Abarca, who managed a home for older adults in La Uruca, San José. A North American woman named Collins moved into the home in 1999 and died there in 2005 at age 78.
Investigators believe Abarca submitted false documents to the California State Teachers' Retirement System the following year, making it appear he was authorized to manage her affairs, and used the resulting bank card to keep drawing her pension.
The scheme allegedly surfaced when the retirement system asked the U.S. Embassy in Costa Rica to confirm whether Collins was still alive. A court has ordered Abarca to report regularly to judicial authorities and remain in the country. The accusations have not been proven, and he is presumed innocent unless convicted.
The Feature
Humpbacks from both hemispheres give birth in Golfo Dulce. / The Tico Times
There is one stretch of water on the planet where humpback mothers from the far north and the far south both come to give birth, and it sits at the southern tip of Costa Rica. Mothers arrive in Golfo Dulce from the freezing water off Antarctica and from the Pacific coast of North America. Nowhere else do the two populations overlap. Researchers call it the womb of the Pacific.
Costa Rica, Cradle of Whales premiered Wednesday on Canal 7 and went online free after broadcast. Three years of filming in Golfo Dulce and Bahía Ballena, shot with drones, underwater cameras and hydrophones, with biologists embedded in the production team rather than consulted afterward.
We are in the middle of the southern hemisphere season now — roughly mid-July into November, peaking in August and September — and a second season built around northern whales opens in December.
If you go, book a morning departure and pick an operator with an environmental permit. The permit is not paperwork. Boats that crowd a nursing pair can separate a calf from its mother, and a calf that loses contact in open water is in serious trouble.
The Whale and Dolphin Festival in Osa runs September 4 through 6, with discounted tours for residents typically part of the program.
Also This Week
Corcovado faces a ranger shortage as environmental crime climbs. Illegal gold mining, poaching, logging and fishing inside one of the country's flagship parks, with too few people to cover it.
A Pacific beach 90 minutes from San José is buried in trash. Guacalillo sits at the mouth of the Tárcoles, and whatever the river carries ends up on its sand.
An audit says highway work removed the routes wildlife used to cross. Conavi's own internal auditors flagged the Barranca-Limonal project. Conavi's director disputes the account.
Ceramic and fossil material has delayed piped water for Isla Caballo. Crews clearing vegetation for the aqueduct in the Gulf of Nicoya turned up something that may be archaeological.
Two fishing boats in the Puntarenas estuary have raised questions. A conservation advocate is asking authorities who owns them and why they came in.
Five public institutions have pulled their floats from the Festival de la Luz. The December 12 parade is still on, but the format is now an open question — and giant balloons may be part of the answer.
Spotlight
The bill that a dozen cashiers have refused. / Don Mateo
Don Mateo has a twenty-dollar bill with a quarter-inch tear along the bottom edge. He has tried to spend it at least a dozen times. Every bank teller, supermarket cashier and cantina bartender in this country is an expert in U.S. currency analysis, and the slightest imperfection means rejection — which is especially galling given that a BAC San José ATM is what handed him the bill in the first place.
His column is a short, funny tour through why cash still matters here, why colón notes get away with things dollars never could, and what a defaced 1,000-colón note featuring what appears to be Vladimir Lenin in psychedelic sunglasses says about the difference.
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