Travel, La Negrita, Beaches

My daughter has come to visit before leaving soon for her Peace Corps duty in Kenya! We arranged for a rental car to be picked up in San Isidro late in the day on Saturday, in order to meet her at the airport in San Jose on Sunday. At the pulperia early Saturday morning, Pecos mentioned our plans to Juan, the proprietor, who promptly informed him that the bus schedule has just changed. There is now only one bus to the city from our village on Saturdays, and it had already left at dawn. No problem, The Kid’s vehicle, after three weeks, was finally repaired and ready. A complete engine re-build had been necessary. He was taking my grandkids along with his friend and her son who were visiting to the beach where B and her son would catch a small plane to San Jose. They would give us a ride to San Isidro.

At the appointed hour all seven of us piled in the four-seater vehicle, and we were off. About seven kilometers from the village, The Kid’s vehicle simply stopped running and would not restart. We weren’t near anything and it was blazing hot. While the rest of us huddled under a few banana trees, The Kid and Pecos worked on the engine, to no avail. The Kid used his cell phone to call the mechanic, who said he would come right up the mountain and take a look.

An hour later a very aged van appeared over the hill, preceded by noisy chugs and spits and halts. It stopped near us and three mechanics jumped out, carrying their tools in plastic bags. Another hour passed as they patiently tried various fixes. Finally, all 10 of us piled in the van. At the repair shop the mechanics jumped out and insisted that The Kid take the van for a few days while they re-repair the engine. An old man with a rusty, aged tractor with no fenders and the engine hood held on by pieces of barbed wire, overheard the conversation and said that for a few colones he would take the tractor and tow the vehicle down the mountain to the repair shop. Done, said The Kid.

Thus, we were dropped off in San Isidro and obtained the rental car with no problem. This was a great relief as the agent had refused to take our name or credit card info over the phone, saying just to come in at the appointed hour and he would open up and have a vehicle for us.

On to San Jose! Again we traveled on the rugged Inter-American Highway over the Mountain of Death, marveling at how in three months there had been no repairs at all to the places where an entire lane had crumbled down the mountain side. The road was as treacherous as before, with the added charm of Pecos now driving on this mountain like a Tico instead of a terrified U.S. citizen.

We had a few hours to spare, so turned off just east of San Jose to see Cartago, the oldest city in Costa Rica, founded in 1563 by Coronado, and the famed Basilica de Nuestra Senora de los Angeles (Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels). The magnificent cathedral anchors a large central square and is impressive with its soaring ceilings, columns, tall glass windows, ornate gilded altar, and various shrines. A spring with reputed healing powers emanates from under one corner of the basilica.

The cathedral is home to Costa Rica’s patron saint, La Negrita. According to legend, in 1635 near a large rock a mulatto girl found a small stone statue of the Virgin Mary holding the Christ child. Twice the girl brought the statue home and put it in a wooden box, and twice it mysteriously reappeared at the spot where it had been discovered. A cathedral was then built where the statue was found. Today’s cathedral replaces an earlier one that had been destroyed by an earthquake in 1926.

The cathedral was humbling, and Mass was being conducted at the altar and throughout the cathedral via loudspeakers, while many tourists moved up and down the side aisles with cameras and camcorders. The eight-inch stone statue itself is embedded in a gold and jewel-encrusted shrine above the main altar. Even from the back of the cathedral, light seems to emanate from this glass shrine. Going closer, one can clearly see this black stone carving, now dressed in a white and gold gown and an elaborate gold crown.

Those who entered the wide center aisle at the main entrance at the rear of the cathedral quickly fell to their knees and began a leg-wrenching, slow knee-crawl to the front of the church. Old persons holding rosaries or bibles or canes, adults from all walks of life, well dressed or in rags; older and younger children, and persons of all ages carrying babies and small children, edged forward on their knees, slowly, step by step and inch by inch, with heads bowed, going toward the front to receive Communion and oblivious to their pain or the chaos around them.

We were stunned. Even more surprising was to read later that every August 2nd hundreds of pilgrims walk on their knees from throughout Costa Rica and other Central American countries to Cartago to pay homage to La Negrita. At that time others walk hundreds of miles carrying large wooden crosses. The devout crawl down the aisle every day.

One day in San Jose with its crowded streets and diesel fumes was enough. We visited the maze-like Central Market and walked in the downtown area, taking a peek into the National Theater and enjoying the restaurant courtyard of the Gran Hotel. We stopped to watch street musicians and various vendors.

Taking a shortcut west from San Jose to the coast, we became hopelessly lost in the country as paved roads gave way to gravel and the many villages we passed were not on the map. We stopped at a soda for lunch and enjoyed the good company of the proprietors who gave us directions to the main road and jokingly insisted they would come with us to the beach.

Finally, the Pacific! It would soon be dark. We followed the coastal road past the touristy town of Jaco and turned in at a remote location where there was a sign for Playa Esterillos. This white sand beach was beautiful, edged by tall trees and a small cluster of sodas and open-air bars with thatched roofs. A life-sized sculpture of a mermaid looking out to sea was perched on a rock outcrop at one end of the beach, not too far from shore.

As we waded, a loud squawking broke out above the trees along the shore. We looked up and there were eight or ten scarlet macaws flying in pairs and coming in for a landing. These 3-ft. red parrots with blue and yellow wings danced along the branches and played in the trees the entire time we were there.

The next morning we continued south to a secluded beach near Uvita, where we swam for a few hours while watching for riptides in the pounding surf. Strings of pelicans flew past us over the turquoise water. Later, already sunburned, we met up with The Kid and my grandkids at the beach at Dominical and enjoyed this touristy town before heading up the mountain toward home. It should be noted here that burying one’s car keys in the sand under a blanket to prevent any possible theft, is not a good idea, especially if that blanket gets moved, thus requiring much digging before departure! 