Guayabo National Monument

Last weekend we ventured two and a half hours from our house to see the largest and only archaeological site in the country, Guayabo National Monument. We traveled through San Jose, over several mountains, through the city of Turrialba and continued another 19 km over roads with steep hills, hair pin turns, one lane bridges, shoulders that ended in cliff like drop offs without guard rails, landslide damage (the sign read “calle esta mal”) and finally gravel, until we arrived at our destination.

One thing that we have discovered driving these back roads is that no town is complete unless it has a futbol field. Even if the town is on the side of a hill, there will be a flat rectangular piece of grass with two goals.

The first excavation of Guayabo ruins was in 1968 and it was deemed a National Monument in 1973. It has remained for the most part unexplored since…probably because all of the interesting gold, pottery and stone sphere artifacts were moved to the National Museum. We read that the place was inhabited between 1000 BC and 1400 AD, with the height of the civilization coming around 800 AD, when the population approached 20,000. We’re not so sure about these statistics – we doubt there are 20,000 people living between Guayabo and Turrialba even today, although the road there was probably better in the 9th century. Other sources estimate a peak population of 500.

The excavations reveal many rocks and stones arranged to form a calzada (a road that is in pretty good shape by Costa Rican standards), monticulos (mounds), acueductos y tanques (for water distribution and collection), tumbas de cajon (tombs) and the monolito del lagarto (a stone carving of a lizard).

We enjoyed a couple of short hikes through the rain forest and by the ancient ruins and came to the realization that given the relatively remote location and the ability of the rainforest to grow rapidly on any surface, whomever discovered Guayabo was lucky to do so.
On the way back we enjoyed a lunch at a restaurant (Bocaditos del Cielo) with fantastic views of the patchwork farms on the slopes of Irazu and other volcanic formations beyond the valley below.