Cartago and the Jardin Botanico Lankester

So yesterday, instead of going to work in the library, Amanda and I went to Cartago, which is a city about 30 minutes outside San Jose. Cartago was the capital at one point, but being 20 km from an active volcano is not so great - they occasionally get massive ash cloud-plume-things (like that one in Iceland), and more regularly, earthquakes. A while back, there was a massive one that pretty much leveled the city, and then another one. And another one. At which point, the ticans decided to move the capital. Now the Cartago's claim to fame is the Basilica, which is not so interesting from the outside, but really, really beautiful on the inside. The Basilica de la Virgen de los Angeles (the patron virgin of Costa Rica) is home to La Negrita, or The Black Virgin.
 

Story-time:A young indigenous girl was gathering firewood and found a black, rock statue of the virgin sitting on a rock. She took it home with her, and put it in a box with her other keep-sakes. The next day, she happened by the rock again, and saw another statue sitting on it. She thought it would be fun to have two dolls, so she brought it home with her. But when she opened up her box, the first doll was gone. Assuming someone had stolen it, she put the second doll in the box, and locked it up. When she opened it in the morning, the doll was gone, and once again, could be found on the rock. The same thing happened to the Priest, when the girl showed the doll to him. So, they built a chapel there. The Virgin, if moved, would always reappear there, until too many earthquakes had come (she survived them all), and she decided it wouldn't be the end of the world to be encased in gold and jewels and sit in a Basilica instead. The END.

So. Amanda and I arrived in Cartago, and walked to the Basilica. On the way there, we passed Las Ruinas, which are the ruins of some big church. They are really lovely, and the inner part is planted with a nice garden.
 We continued walking to the Basilica, and slipped inside, where we saw La Negrita, and the Holy Water that's there, as well as the ofertas made in honor and thanksgiving to La Negrita. The Basilica is the Catholic pilgrimage site in Costa Rica, and I am hoping to go back for the Feast Day, on August 2nd. People crawl for kilometers on their way to the Basilica. When it isn't August 2nd, people enter the church, and get down on their knees to crawl to the altar. It is amazing, and completely different from anything I am familiar with in the church.

The ofertas are all gifts made to La Negrita, and they run the gamut from small milagros (silver/pewter charms) to trophies to what looks like heirloom jewlery. Some of the more spectacular ofertas are on display underneath the Basilica - there were a number of replica airplanes, several really beautiful rings, a large clay vase, a medal of honor from the US Airforce. . . and most of them are accompanied by small notes explaining why the offering was made.

From the Basilica, we walked to a bus stop, and got on a bus to Paraiso, which took us to the Lankester Botanical Gardens. We had been told by Ruth (an American professor at the UBL) that we should go, and though skeptical, we decided we might as well make the trip. The gardens were amazing. They have one of the largest orchid collections in the country, and while orchids are not currently in bloom, there were a few that were blooming.

There is a Japanese Garden, which was donated by the Japanese Government to the Universidad de Costa Rica, and it was incredible.

There were also examples of the different types of Costa Rican plants, and forests. In one of them, we saw a butterfly with wings as big as my palms, if not bigger. We also saw a nest with a baby bird inside. We wished we had packed a picnic lunch, but hunger drove us back to Cartago, where we ate, and then hopped on a bus back to San Jose.

Once we arrived back in down town, we trekked to the Coca-cola bus terminal where we bought tickets for our trip this weekend to Manuel Antonio, a national park on the Pacific. It was a bit longer of a walk than expected, but we did manage to buy our tickets. By the time we got home, we were dead on our feet, but it was a great day. Tomorrow morning we leave at about 7:15 to take a bus to downtown to catch our next bus, which will take us to Manuel Antonio. I'm pretty pumped about the trip!

Hasta la proxima vez, ciao!