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| The jaguar/monkey monolith |
1/29/26 Thursday
Today we went to see the Guayabo National Monument Prehistoric site. Our guide was Cesar. First we had a short history lesson in the Costa Rican indigenous culture so that we’ll have a better understanding of what we are about to see.
Then we began our tour. The site is very large. It was a city, thousands of years ago, with roads, buildings, and an aqueduct that still functions.
The first thing we saw were several large monoliths carved out of stone with symbols and drawings on them. The one in the picture is a jaguar with a monkey face. The monoliths are up on a hillside away from the actual city.
Then we climbed to overlook of the city.
This site is a bit of a mystory. The site was abandoned and noone knows why. People have speculated that it might have been due to a volcano, or maybe a drought, but nobody really knows.
Then we walked down to site. The aqueduct was very interesting. It is fed from 2 different springs up in the mountains. There is an underground channel that leads to a sediment tank and then to a catchment tank and then on underneath the road.
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| sediment pond |
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| Catchment Pond |
These people didn't have wheels so they’re not sure why they built that road. The road goes to all the way to Turiralba. They didn’t have any way to carry the stone s either so the whole thing is just another mystery.
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| View of the Road |
Where the road leaves the city and heads off into the forest there is a market square where an echo effect can be demonstrated. A very clever way to amplified voices in the market area! We tried it out!
The stone foundations in the actual city are round, but here at the entrance to the city the foundations are rectangular. They believe the rectangular buildings were some kind of checkpoint or guard house.
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| Rectangular Foundations at the Entrance to the City |
As we were leaving the site, one of our member scame running and told us to come back. There was a 3 toed sloth in a tree! it was kind of far away but we could see it, very cool.
We drove to a local restaurant for lunch, called Chani. Everyone really liked their meal but mine was meh. It was just luck of the draw I guess. Then we returned to the lodge.
1/30/26 Friday.
In the morning we checked out of the lodge and starting heading to Sarapique Provence in the Caribbean Lowlands. Along the way we stopped to go white water rafting. We drove about an hour, and then took a wagon pulled by a tractor down the hill to the river.
I didn't write down the name of the river but it's one of the pre-eminent places to go white water rafting, or that's what our guides said anyway! Our guides were Manfred and Diego. They were great! We went on Class II and III rapids, which is certainly more than I have ever done before.
We went through the safety check, got our life vests, helmets, paddles, basic instruction sand off we go. At first I was scared, actually terrified, but then it was fun. Really fun! Lee was in the front cause he's good at that sort of thing and I was in the back close to our guide, cause that's where the chickens sit! The pictures were great so we bought them. We did get wet but Rebeca warned us. I was glad I had my new water shoes!
At the end we climbed a hill up to a lodge overlooking the river . We were given rooms where we could rinse off and change clothes and then we were served a very good lunch with rice, beans, salad, and Caribbean style chicken. There was fresh juice, sangria, and coffee to drink, and dessert too.
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| Lunch View |
Then we piled back in the tractor wagon to go back up hill to the bus and on to our next location.
On the way back I start sneezing and my nose started running. Like really running. Ugh! I’ve felt it coming on for a few days. I hoped it was just allergies but I can’t ignore it anymore. I don't feel sick but I'm pretty juicy.
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