Costa Rica - The City (San Jose) to the Rainforest

Costa Rica  - WOW, what an experience!!!
The country itself is incredible - and the program offered an exceptional insight into the various aspects and environments of Costa Rica let alone both pre-Columbian and modern history.
It was a lot to cover in that limited period of time.

I've divided the Trip into three BLOG Posting and this - The City to the Rainforest is the first.

 We went from the city (San Jose) with a plaza filled with magnificent sculptures by Jimenez Deredia, a native Costa Rican.

To the National Theater

And the Gold Museum that became one of my favourite places. It contains 1600 artifacts dating back to AD 500  that show the cultural and ceremonial use of gold in the PreColumbian indigenous cultures. 

A local specialist guide navigated us through the various strata representing the world vision of Costa Rica’s indigenous peoples. There was so much more to see and digest, but time was limited.

 The conical house is a symbolic representation of the universe: the highest is SIBOKMO where Sibo’s (the creator of the earth) father lives- next is

a place of silence; there is a separate level where supposedly non-indigenous white people were created ( OKMA); (IRIRIA)  the place created for the clans to dwell. SULA KASKA that supports the whole cone is where noble souls go.

The Bribri social structure is organized in clans. Each clan is composed of an extended family. The clan system is matrilineal; that is, a child's clan is determined by the clan his or her mother belongs to. 

Next onto a roadside market

And after a lunch hosted at a local home – we travelled on to the Sarapiqui Rainforest Lodge built on the design of a 15th century PreColumbian village with palm thatched roofs with Hispanic Colonial and Indigenous influences that became our base for three jam-packed days.

Nature walks through the Rain Forest: identifying medicinal vegetation

PreColumbian Stone Sculptures, replicas, petroglyphs, traditional lodge structure 

And replica of a PreColumbian Burial Field 

Next posting will highlight some of the tours we took, like the local plantations we visited.