Guayabo National Monument

Christmas Day was a “quiet-around-the-house day” for us (unlike Christmas Eve – we were at home, but there were loud fireworks being set off in the next house up our mountain road), but the following day, the third day after Soraya had been born, we set off for our first touristic experience – a visit to the Guayabo National Monument.  We drove up the hill to Santa Cruz, then turned right for a trip over the hills to our destination.  This was a distance of only 13 kilometers, but what with paved but potholed  roads, combined with dirt roads that were even rougher, the trip took us a solid hour.  (We learned on our way back that there was a fully-paved approach route that was several miles longer but took much less time to drive)
Guayabo National Monument is an archeological site for a pre-Columbian settlement that was first occupied around 1000 BC.  From about 800 AD to about 1400 AD, the leadership of a group of people numbering about 20,000 at its height.  We followed two different paths and looked at the ruins.  What remains to be seen at the site are several stone structures.  All of the artifacts that have been found through excavations beginning in the 1960's are exhibited at various Costa Rican museums. There were a number of interpretive signs, but the place might have been more meaningful with an English-language guide – but she was on vacation that day, and it was not clear that a Spanish-language guide (Sam could have translated) was available either.

The first thing we could see along the path was this petroglyph featuring an alligator on one side and a jaguar on the other.

We continued to a viewpoint from which we could see the much of the site with the distant mountains in the background.

Here we are at ground level, looking at the “central mound,” an elevated platform on which it is believed that conical wooden structure was located, housing the leader of the community,

and then the main square in front of that mound, built in around 1000 AD

From there we walked beside the Calzada Caragra, the walkway which, when the community flourished, led from the entrance of the area to the leader’s residence.

The square mounds are believed to have formed the base of guard stations protecting the entrance to the Calzada.

These steps led from the entrance up to the Calzada Caragra

These round mounds are in pairs, like figure eights.  The interpretive signs indicated that such formations of this sort are unseen elsewhere

On the way home from the monument, we stopped off at Restaurante El Cruce, a very simple place that Sam and Nafisa had visited previously.  They enjoyed the tilapia sandwich platter that they had eaten on their earlier visit, while I had the fajitas (the meat was bit tough).