Visiting the Past in Class & At Guayabo

We spent most of our time on Tuesday working on past tenses, the most difficult in the language, I think.  Talking about the past is a natural thing to do here because Costa Ricans (Ticans) are very interested in people and they ask a lot of questions that need answers in the past tense, ie "Where did you learn Spanish?"  Very useful class session!


I grabbed a quick lunch at a small restaurant near the house and close to several schools.  Most of the diners were students--lots of uniforms.


Then Lili, Alphonso and I took off in the Rav 4 for Guayabo National Monument, one of the least-visited parks in the country.  It's a heritage archaeological site and way off the beaten track.  Views along the way were spectacular.







Lili and Alphonso wanted to walk on the road so they didn't go in with me; they have been to the park many times with other students.  I hired a guide for $15, admission was only $6.  My guide, Rosita, was well worth the money.  She didn't speak much English (most of the visitors to the park, I learned, are Costa Rican) and that was great because I was able to practice my Spanish by listening to her and asking a few questions.


The park is named after the Guyabo tree that bears the delicious guayaba fruit.  It's peak activity was around 800 AD.  Those studying the area think it's life span was 1000 BC to 1400 AD.  No one knows for sure why it died out but best guess is neighboring tribes killed or captured all the residents.  Here are a couple of "then and now" pictures.  The former is from a diorama and the latter is from the tour yesterday.

I read that this site is largely unexplored--researchers have barely scratched the surface (ha!).  My guide, Rosita, told me that there are probably 3,000 sites similar to this in the country that are undiscovered.  

The trails look like something out of Jurassic Park.  But Rosita assured me that only tiny lizards remain as relatives of the dinosaurs.  The hike around the site took a bit more than an hour.  Streams provided great feng shui background music during much of the tour.

We returned to town in time to buy a couple of postcards and get them in the mail.  Wednesday is a regular lesson and after Spanish class we have a class in Tican cooking.