Costa Rica Scavenger Hunt....: # 22 Guayabo de Turrialba

# 22 On our Scavenger Hunt....The Guayabo archeological site is locoated in the town of Turrialba . It's the site of an indigenous settlement that was occupied between 1000 BC and 1400 AD after which it was mysteriously abandoned. There are huge round stone bases left that had conical structures (that were communal homes) on them. We had an awesome tour guide that taught us so much! (school field trip again!) Original aqueducts still bring water from high in the mountains to the settlement and beautiful stone carvings are still studied by archeologists to determine their significance.

This picture was taken on our way to Guayabo. We were high
above the clouds! It was beautiful!

An up high view of the round stone bases that the communal
houses were built on. The largest circle was for the
most important person in the community. About 10,000
people lived here.

Our tour guide taught us so much!

Checking out the aqueduct...

Ethan says: I loved learning that the people who lived here 3000 years ago were good engineers and that the size and height of their house showed how important they were. I really liked the petroglyph (I learned that is a prehistoric rock carving) stone that had a jaguar carved on one side and an alligator on the other. (In the picture below) We learned that it symbolized unity (land animals and water animals living together.)

This is a picture of what a smaller house would have looked like. The
way they know this is that there are some indigenous tribes still today
who use similar structures and who have explained a lot of what has been
found at Guayabo.

Mom says: I love learning about all of the different flora. This plant pictured below is solid green on the top but has what looks like drops of red blood under the leaves. The locals call it the "Blood of Jesus Christ" plant. They say it grew near His cross and His blood dropped unto the leaves and all leaves have grown with this ever since. We know that God created this amazing leaf to attract pollinators with the red color.

One of Amelia's favorite things at Guayabo was this glass winged butterfly. Can you see that the wings are transparent? It was beautiful! And she loved the flowers and BIG leaves!