Sunday, September 8, 2013

Pre-Columbian Jaguar Metate

This is a side view of the 1,500 year old jaguar metate from the Nicoya Peninsula in Costa Rica's Guanacaste province, where Tamarindo is located.

Although this is from the Bowers Museum in Orange County, California, I will in the future show some photos form the pre-Columbian Museum in San Jose, Costa Rica.

Speaking of San Jose, the big news in Costa Rica this weekend is that at the main soccer stadium in San Jose, built just a couple of years ago as a gift of the Chinese, the Costa Rican national team beat the USA to overtake the USA to be in first place for qualifying for the World Cup next year in Brazil.

This was a revenge match because the USA beat Costa Rica earlier this year in a match played in Denver during a blizzard.  Costa Rica protested, unsuccessfully, that the game should have been postponed due to the weather.  Most of the Costa Ricans had probably never seen snow before, and certainly would have been unfamiliar with how to play soccer in snow.  Three teams from North America, Central America and the Caribbean will qualify for the World Cup, and a fourth team could qualify if it wins a playoff with New Zealand.  Surprisingly, the favored Mexican team is in danger of not qualifying.

Today is Sunday, so we have new photos posted on our Viva la Voyage travel photo site.  This week we are showing photos from Gibraltar, a very unusual place.

6 comments:

Unknown said...

I brought a metate in the form of a Jaguar from San Jose, very similar to this one except it's not pre-Columbian! :-)

Sharon said...

That metate is an amazing piece of craftsmanship. A fun story about the soccer team. Playing soccer in snow does seem a bit extreme to me.

Hilda said...

I'm not exactly sure what a metate is (it looks like a lounge chair to me), but I like this jaguar one!

Judy said...

I am glad you gave us this view of the metate. It is just beautiful.

glenda said...

Artistic piece to work with.

Bob Crowe said...

I'm interested in the museum photos. We've never gone into San Jose itself.

Soccer is not a sport I know a lot about, but CR playing the US in snow should be balanced by a return match played in a burner-off sugar care field after a tropical storm.

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