Costa Rican Ox Cart

Finely detailed, hand-painted ox carts are a traditional craft in Costa Rica.

Historically, the ox carts were used by small family farmers to take their products to market. For coffee farmers, that could mean a journey of a week or more out of the mountains and down to the port where their coffee beans would be shipped for export.

Can you imagine the parade of ox carts through the towns and villages along the route from farm to sea? The paint on the ox carts would be a source of pride in a way that is similar to the pride that some people today find in having fancy cars and trucks.

Today's photo concludes my series on Hacienda Guachipelin. Our one day visit had so many activities (zip lines, tarzan swing, rappelling, rock climbing, lunch, horseback riding, and river tubing) that it yielded 3 weeks worth of varied photos for my Daily Photo blog. (And, of course, I have many more photos that I did not show.) Tomorrow, we will return to photos of Tamarindo and the beach. For the website of Hacienda Guachipelin and more information, please click here.

Tomorrow I have a post planned about some important news about Costa Rica. You would not be correct if you guessed that the news is about Costa Rican President Oscar Arias, who is serving as a mediator for the political crisis in Honduras. That is a familiar role for him, as he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his role during his previous term as President in the 1980's, when he mediated a peaceful resolution of the conflicts in Nicaragua. There is some other news about Costa Rica, which I will reveal tomorrow.