Costa Rica Day 3 - Guayabo, Feria de Chayotes

For the first time all week, I am relaxed, showered, and have ample time to kill, so I'm going to sit here at the bar in Hotel Wagelia, sip my jugo de mango, and write an entry. I've written a sentence and erased it three times trying to sound more eloquent, but if I keep this up, I won't ever finish this post, so in the interest of forward progress, I'm just going to have to settle for my Twilight-level writing skills.

Today was awesome. I was feeling really drained after the last two days because they were so academically oriented, and all of the 'school talk' was really starting to wear me down. Today was spent almost entirely outside, and it did wonders to refresh my attitude, because seriously, who comes to Costa Rica and gets more anxiety??

We started off the morning with a 45 minute drive to Guayabo National Monument--the most important archeological site in Costa Rica (Micheal, I hope you are reading this). Best guesses put the civilization between 1000 B. C. and 1400 D. C. and approximately 2000 people of either Mesoamerican or South American cultures. The drive there was so much fun! I wish I had an altimeter with me because we probably had several feet of elevation change. The landscape of of Costa Rica reminds me a lot of Jamaica in that the mountains are really green and lush--but unlike Jamaica, which was pretty much exclusively covered in trees--Costa Rica has lots of open grassland/farmland that looks a lot like what I would imagine the Irish countryside to look like.

 (I was actually trying to take a picture of the Guayabo welcome sign, but this guy showed up instead)

Guayabo wasn't a particularly large historic site, but it was very scenic and provided a good context for Costa Rican culture. We visited some of the raised mounds that once held 8-9 story buildings of shamans and high ranking officials--now, several thousand years later, it kind of looks like a place where hobbits would live.

After Guayabo, we stopped off at the most incredible overlook where there were a bunch of people getting ready to paraglide. Conveniently, I learned how to use my camera's panoramic settings while we were on top of the hill, so I'll let the pictures speak for themselves. I don't really know how to describe how being on top of the hill made me feel other than to say it'll probably be my favorite experience in the whole trip. I kept expecting Julie Andrews to appear and bust out in the Spanish version of "El sonido de la música".

 After chilling on the hill, we ate lunch at Bocadito del Cielo--an open air restaurant nestled right in the middle of a mountainside. It pretty much solidified me wanting to move here.

We were very fortunate in that the Feria Nacional de Chayotes was going on in Paraiso this afternoon. Joanna, the program coordinator, explained to me that each town has a festival of sorts once a year. This particular town celebrates the chayote, a vegetable that is farmed in Costa Rica.
 
There were artisans, food stands, live dance performances, music, etc.



Very, very cool demonstration of Costa Rican culture. The coolest part of the festival was the chayote bagging competition. They had 5 heats of 5 women each (25 total) go head to head in a chayote bagging competition. Think about the folks that bag your groceries at the supermarket. Now put that on hyper fastforward and that was this competition. One chayote per bag, as fast as you can. It was pretty impressive. I think the winner took home like 50,000 colones.

We spent a considerable amount of time on the bus today--enough to allow me to finish one of the books I brought. I brought 3 hardcopy books, one kindle book on my phone, and one book on tape on my iPod. Goal is to finish all of them before I get home--pretty ambitious!