Day 8 Sarchi Culture

We visited the quaint town of Sarchi for shopping and lunch. The souvenir shop was much more than that. It was a working wood and metal shop, which was the original facility for making the wagon wheels for the country's iconic oxen carts.  Many of the souvenirs we have seen all over the country are made there and they still make wagon wheels.  Oxen carts are still used in rural areas. The workshop runs completely on a belt system turned by the waterwheel on their creek. An amazing system!  Items are hand painted by local artisans. We then took a tour of the Britt Coffee facility.  Everyone learned a great deal about the growing of the Arabica coffee plants and enjoyed tasting the various blends of coffee, as well as chocolates.  Dinner was in an amazing location. The Tiquicia Restaurant is high up on the side of a mountain.  The entire Central Valley in lights could be seen from this vantage.  A show of Costa Rican traditional dancing followed dinner.  Madi and Rick joined in the fun, as they were pulled from the crowd to dance.

Sarchi workshop for wagon wheels and souvenirs.

Hand painted souvenirs.  The artwork was beautiful!

Sarchi is home to the largest oxen cart in the world.  This is the BCC crew along with the Ohio State University group.  Margel, our tour director, is on the top left and Alex, our amazing bus driver, is on the bottom right.

This was our restaurant for dinner.  It had an incredible view of the entire Central Valley area in lights.

There was also a show at Tiquicia after dinner.  Rick and Madi were pulled into the dance.