So today, finally, was the day when my mum came to visit. It had taken me several months to finally convince her to come - her first response to my proposition had been something along the lines of "no way!"
Her flight got in at five in the morning - which meant I had to get up at 4:30... not my favorite time of day for activities of any kind! After we got settled in at the hostel, I lugged her around the city in an attempt to avoid her getting jet-lagged by going to sleep during the day. (In retrospect: the attempt worked, no jet lag noticeable! :-))
Our first stop was the Mercado Central, a huge indoor market where just about everything is sold: food, souvenirs, household items, pets, flowers, spices, etc. One of the more impressive booths - both visually and olfactory - was this herb booth:
A few city blocks further, we went into the national theater to find out if there were any performances during our stay in San Jose. As it turned out, there were, and we bought tickets for the next day. Regardless of the performance itself, we just wanted to get inside the theater. The foyer alone looked spectacular!
After lunch, our last stop for the day was the gold museum. Although lesser known than the Maya or Aztec, there were pre-Columbian cultures in Costa Rica. When it comes to gold working, their level of development was similar to the cultures in Colombia. Their motives were slightly different though, probably due to a slightly different fauna and therefore a slightly different mythology. For example, many of the golden exhibits were frogs - of which Costa Rica allegedly has quite a few species. In contrast, I don't remember any frogs in the gold museum in Bogotá.
Another group of exhibits were marine animals, such as these lobsters:
The amount of detail and the accuracy of the representations was really fascinating. Interestingly enough, the techniques used by the goldsmiths in Costa Rica and Colombia were exactly the same. I wonder - did they discover these techniques independently from each other, or was there some kind of communication and exchange of knowledge?
Finally, the museum also had some exhibits representing bats, something I hadn't seen before either.
A temporary exhibition in the gold museum looked at the role of feline figures in Costa Rican archaeology. Among the exhibits were some very fine pieces of pottery; for example, this one with a pretty detailed and lifelike ocelot sitting on the container:
Judging from the pottery and the pictures of ocelots they had in the exhibition, I want one as a pet! They look so very cute and cuddly - you could almost forget the kind of teeth they have ;-)
After lunch, our last stop for the day was the gold museum. Although lesser known than the Maya or Aztec, there were pre-Columbian cultures in Costa Rica. When it comes to gold working, their level of development was similar to the cultures in Colombia. Their motives were slightly different though, probably due to a slightly different fauna and therefore a slightly different mythology. For example, many of the golden exhibits were frogs - of which Costa Rica allegedly has quite a few species. In contrast, I don't remember any frogs in the gold museum in Bogotá.
Another group of exhibits were marine animals, such as these lobsters:
The amount of detail and the accuracy of the representations was really fascinating. Interestingly enough, the techniques used by the goldsmiths in Costa Rica and Colombia were exactly the same. I wonder - did they discover these techniques independently from each other, or was there some kind of communication and exchange of knowledge?
Finally, the museum also had some exhibits representing bats, something I hadn't seen before either.
A temporary exhibition in the gold museum looked at the role of feline figures in Costa Rican archaeology. Among the exhibits were some very fine pieces of pottery; for example, this one with a pretty detailed and lifelike ocelot sitting on the container:
Judging from the pottery and the pictures of ocelots they had in the exhibition, I want one as a pet! They look so very cute and cuddly - you could almost forget the kind of teeth they have ;-)
