Since Costa Rican president, Oscar Arias came into power, the war on drugs has been upped, and a historic record of nearly 27 metric tonnes of Cocaine were seized in the last 12 months. Costa Rica itself is not producing the drugs, but is being used by the traffickers as a strategic route from South American countries, such as Columbia, up to the US.

With Costa Rica's waters being 11 times the size of its land, the US coast guards, who have been helping Costa Rica for the past 8 years, have played a huge part in the crack down on narcotics traffic through Costa Rica, and the president said that he is very grateful for the great job they are doing. He also stated that he would like to give the US authorities more leeway, and bring more of them in on the war against drugs in the hope that they can catch yet more of the drugs as they pass through. He wants to give them longer permits to patrol the coastlines of Costa Rica, and bring in US national guard troops to help in narcotics surveillance, and to train more troops in Costa Rica.

With all the great work that has been carried out in the past 12 months, it is hoped that whatever further measures are taken, more and more of these drug traffickers can be caught, and stopped, which will then in turn send out the message to others that Costa Rica is not the place for these substances, and that they will no longer use it in their journey to the US.

It has been reported that Costa Rica is fast becoming an international surfing hotspot, with record numbers visiting the country for its great surf in 2006, and another increase predicted for 2007!

In the first 6 months of 2006, its is estimated that 100,000 people traveled to Costa Rica, purely as a surf destination, which can only be great news for such surfing areas as Jaco and Playa Hermosa, according to Costa Rica's Tourism Institute. Lets hope this growth continues!!