Tucurrique and Guayabo

On Monday February 18, Eric, Michele and I headed out for Tucurrique, Turrialba and the Guayabo National Monument.  The drive was beautiful.  The landscape starts looking different close to Tucurrique and is warmer.  It was a wider, flatter plain and we saw a lot more palm trees. 

We went over several beautiful streams.  This one that ran close to the road had a new footbridge that I would have been a little leery of trying. 

Somewhere along the road between Tucurrique and Turialba, we ran across the beautiful Lake Angostura.  It was built to generate hydroelectric power.   

We stopped at Hotel Casa Turire on its shore for a look around.  We think the hotel must have originally been a colonial plantation.  The interior was lovely with beautiful old tile everywhere.  We drove through miles and miles of sugar cane and coffee fields around the hotel. 

The grounds were beautifully landscaped.  I just loved this bloom.

After leaving the hotel, we drove on to the bustling city of Turrialba down below Volcan Turrialba that we can see from Ray and Michele's farm.  We quickly passed on through the city and headed up the mountain towards Guayabo National Monument.  We stopped for lunch at a roadside soda.  The food was excellent and we got to enjoy it under the shade of some fruit trees - maybe guayabos, we weren't sure.  So far we have found that in Costa Rica, the food in these roadside sodas is hard to beat. 

Guayabo National Monument was, of course, located at the end of a twisty, turny, bumpy dirt road high on the southern slope of the volcano.  We took a nice walk through the rain forest to get to the site.  This was our first glimpse of the archeological site.

The site was said to have been inhabited from 1500 BC to 1400 AD. 

The site was remarkable in that it had a system of stone aqueducts that brought water into the city to be stored in stone-lined cisterns.

Water is still running into the cisterns.

The circular stone areas were foundations of conical wooden structures.

The entire site, which is only partially excavated, is thought to have supported a population of 10,000 at one time.  The causeway is believed to have extended between 2.5 and 7.5 miles from the main town. 

Here is a diorama that shows what this portion of the town may have looked like.

Gauyabo was a amazing site.

Cachi Land and Ricardo's Art

On Saturday February 16, we went back to Cachi to look over some land we are considering trying to buy.  It is a beautiful piece of land just outside of town with a river running through it.  This would run right through the lower part of our front yard.  The house would be built on a rise above the river.  We asked the municipal engineer about seeing a flood plan of the area (ha ha) and he told us they don't have one, just don't build down close by the river.  He looked at us  like we were stupid to ask such a question.  I guess people in the US building close to water should have such common sense.

The sound of the river running over the rocks is so soothing and peaceful.  

We are looking at purchasing just a piece of land at one end where we can build a small house and the realtors want the current house and the rest of the land for a bed and breakfast.  The grounds have already been landscaped and have a lot of walking trails through them.  We would be able to share all of the landscaped grounds and the pool.  Of course, it is complicated and the current owners won't subdivide.

view in front of house to be used as a B&B

  

On our way back, we stopped in Penas Blancas to look at some of the rock sculptures that Ricardo who works for our hosts makes.

 He carves spheres free-hand from all different kinds of stones and in all different sizes.  

Ricardo, Alonso (Ricardo's son), and Eric

He is a very good stone carver and his stone La Negritas are very popular. We saw one of his first La Negrita carvings displayed above the holy water at the Cartago cathedral. 

He told us that if we buy some property here we needed a La Negrita, since she is the patron saint of Costa Rica. We thought she would fit perfectly in a niche on our property. 

Lankester Gardens and Pizza Adventure

On Friday, February 15 we took off early in the day to see the Lankester Gardens between Paraiso and Cartago.  The drive over was very pretty.  We stopped along the way at a scenic overlook - the Mirador Ujarras.

The Lankester Gardens are famous for their orchids.  They had huge greenhouses of orchids.

The posts in the greenhouses were covered with baby orchids.

Some of our favorite orchids.

This orchid smells like chocolate

Eric and I named these the "Space Alien" orchid

They had a few orchids in trees.  

We also saw the variety of orchid at the garden that I had seen along the road the other day and stopped to pick a couple of blooms.  So yes, we have seen orchids in the wild. 

The gardens also had several outdoor garden areas with a nice trail through them.  We really enjoyed all the bromiliads.

I did not however, enjoy the bee garden.  As we were going through the cactus garden area, I saw a cluster of bugs and called Eric over to look at them.  About the time I said "do they look like bees?" one of them stung me.  He said he was pretty sure they were bees as he laughed and ran away. 

After a stop at Wal-mart in Cartago, we headed to Orosi for some coffee.  We stopped at a different coffee shop and enjoyed an expresso.  The shop owner had several varieties of Costa Rican coffees to sample.  We, of course, had to buy some with a bit of a chocolate note to bring home to share.  We found the cutest sugar dish there that we hope will be fortuitous as we look for a new home.  

We ran across a barber shop and Eric stopped for a haircut from Ken, the barber.  He got an old-school haircut and loved it. 

After leaving, Orosi we stopped to look at the Rio Macho on our way out of town.  Eric thinks maybe he should live in Rio Macho. 

We stopped in La Alegria and went over the suspension bridge that connects the village of La Alegria with Orosi. 

We had planned on sharing a pizza for dinner with Michele, so on our way back through Cachi we stopped and called her to tell her we would piddle around for about 30 minutes and pick up the pizza she was to call in and have ready about 5:00.  We looked in the general store to compare prices.  You can get everything from a motorcycle to large and small appliances in there.  We didn't kill quite enough time so we stopped in the El Conquistador to check out the local watering hole.  It was very nice.  While we were there, a dog wandered in dragging his chain behind him.  At five, we headed over to the pizza place.  The barred gate was closed, but not locked, so we went on in.  We told the owner, who spoke no English that we were there to pick up a pizza.  He told us something in Spanish that ended with 5:30.  We assumed he said our pizza would be ready at 5:30.  We left and checked out the fruit stand, the butcher shop and the grocery store.  At the grocery store, the lady clerk told us "hace calor".  I translated for Eric "it's hot,"  he insisted that I had heard incorrectly and she really said "He was hot."  Finally at 5:30, we went back to the pizza place.  As we walked in, the owner handed us a menu and his phone rang.  He answered it and then handed it to us saying it was for us.  It was Michele saying that he had never answered his phone all this time and that we needed to order the pizza.  After another 10 minutes and a story in Spanish about someone going to Italy (we think), we got our pizza and headed home.  I am happy to report that the pizza was worth the wait and we really enjoyed getting to know more about the town of Cachi. 

We've got wheels!

On Feb 13, we got up very early to go with Ray and Michele to the airport.  Ray was leaving for a few days in the states and we were picking up a rental car.  After driving through San Jose, we were glad to arrive back at the slower-paced Orosi valley. 

Our Dihatsu Terios 4x4

After a long nap, the car-sick medicine makes me very sleepy, Eric and I drove down the mountain and over to Orosi.  Our first stop was the town square and the Iglesia de San Jose de Orosi.

  

This church is the oldest functioning church in Costa Rica.  It was built by Franciscans from 1743 to 1766. 

The church is filled with many beautiful works of art from the 1600's and 1700's.

This church had a lot of life-sized statues of Jesus, saints and Franciscan brothers.  In my opinion, they detracted from the historic beauty and richness of all the artwork and altar pieces.  The life-sized statues may be important to the Costa Ricans, as we see them in most of the churches. 

                                     

The church yard was filled with beautiful hydrangeas.

After touring the church, we went into the downtown area of Orosi to buy a few groceries at the Super Anita (the local grocery store). 

Orosi mural

We also stopped at a coffee shop to enjoy a cup of locally grown coffee.  It was outstanding!  It has really been interesting to see how the coffee is grown, harvested and processed in Costa Rica.

                                                                                                                       

Toucans and Rainforest Walk

Feb 4 through 8

Toucans and rainforest walk

We've been getting up and walking to the edge of the farm by the rainforest almost every morning to see the toucans in the trees.  It is amazing that as big and colorful as they are, we are unable to spot them until they move or fly to another tree.  We are always able to hear their "croak" before we see them.  We have seen two kinds of toucans here.  The first day we looked, we saw the chestnut-mandibled toucan  with a yellow and dark-brown bill. 

Every day since, we have seen the keel-billed toucans - the colorful "Toucan Sam" type.

A couple of different times, we have taken walks through the rainforest that borders the farm.  The tree canopy is so dense that it is really dark in the forest. There are lots of huge ferns in the rainforest.  After struggling to grow nice ferns in pots on my porch, it is amazing to see them grow so big in the wild.

Eric even found this unusual "bottom tree". 

We stumbled upon some huge ant dens in the coffee plants on another farm bordering the rainforest.  At first we wondered why someone had dumped a truckload of sand and then we started seeing the leaf-cutter ants.  The ants had stripped off so many leaves from the coffee plants and were scouting for more leaves.

We also came across the tracks of some kind of raccoon and a big cat in the mud in the rainforest.  While it would sure be cool to say we saw a jungle cat in the wild, in reality it would probably be a bit scary to see those eyes watching you.  I'm sure we won't have to worry about that since all the jungle cats hide so well.

Vulcan Turrialba was smoking like crazy one day and I got some great photos from our perch on the mountain.