If there's one defining symbol of Costa Rican culture, it has to be the oxcart (ok, apart from football jerseys, coffee and cerveza Imperial, that is).
The importance of the oxcart, or carreta, dates back to the mid-nineteenth century. The elaborate, hand-painted carts were first used as a means to transport coffee beans.
While coffee is now Costa Rica's sixth largest export to the tune of $362 million annually, the crop is actually not native to the country; the Arabica coffee plant was introduced in the 1700s. The fertile soil, high altitude and cool climate of Costa Rica's Central Valley, made it the ideal environment for the crop to flourish.
In 1829 coffee became one of Costa Rica's top exports, surpassing tobacco, sugar and cacao. The capital city of San Jose boomed as wealthy coffee barons and traders made the city their base in the Central Valley.
With no railroad built until 1890, coffee producers were faced with the challenge of transporting beans from the Central Valley over steep and winding mountains to the port of Puntarenas on the Pacific Coast. Ticos solved this challenge with the use of oxcarts.
Church bells clang, railroad tracks rattle and laughter leaps down the street. On a Sunday morning, the sounds of San Jose, Costa Rica waft through the gated window in my room at Hotel Colonial, landing on my bed along with
I walk through the doors of the Museo de Arte Costarricense, the national art museum in San José, and enter the first exhibit to the left. Before I even have a chance to read what the exhibit is about, a
It seems that San José, Costa Rica gets painted in the same negative light in every guidebook I read. “San José is congested, bustling and noisy,” says the Moon Handbook on Costa Rica. “San José is not a pretty city. It’s studded with unremarkable
Last week I had the opportunity to celebrate the start of the holiday season in one of my favorite ways –with a performance of The Nutcracker. The Nutcracker at the National Theatre of Costa Rica I attended the ballet at the
Get out of San José as fast as you can. This unfortunate piece of advice was given to me time and time again when I told acquaintances I was moving to Costa Rica and would be living near the capital city. For