After that, we made our way to the national theater to be there on time for "Teatro al Mediodia" - theater at noon. In my opinion, this is a great idea: the performance starts at noon, lasts only for about half an hour, and is extremely cheap (we paid less than 2 Euro for seats in the front row). That's how you get people to go to the theater during lunch break!
Later on, we made our way to the national museum. Rather unexpectedly, the first part of the museum didn't deal with history - but with nature! They had a collection of Costa Rican plants and butterflies, complete with a butterfly rearing section. What a delight wandering along the path and discovering the butterflies that were sitting on many plants and trees. Plus, the plants themselves were also very pretty eye-catchers:
Of course, the museum also had a history section. Indeed, it would have been rather a disappointment if the 'national' museum didn't detail the country's history. The focus was clearly on pre-Columbian culture, explaining the development of indigenous peoples and the differences between them by region. The following picture, for example, shows a grating board that was used to grate tapioca - apparently tapioca is poisonous if not grated and cooked before consumption. The many small, sharp stones were set into a wooden board and fixed using resin as glue. A fascinating, and quite sophisticated, instrument!
Another section dealt with jewelry; mainly jade, and later gold. According to the museum's explanation, jade is only found in eight to ten sources worldwide. The jade used in Costa Rica was at least partly imported from Guatemala - to this day, there is no known jade source in Costa Rica, although there are guesses as to where one could be located. These are three gorgeous jade necklaces - the color is just amazing!
