Our first day in Costa Rica! We woke up on our first day and like the rest of the world learned of the events in Venezuela. Since we are only about 500 or 600 miles from Venezuela, we had no idea what to expect for this historic day.
We decided to go for a tour of the area and our first stop is in the historic town of Cartago where the country of Costa Rica was actually founded.
The Costa Rican Statue of Liberty.
Christmas still lingers in this very Christian country.
Stonehenge of Costa Rica which is the remnants of an old church.
This is a very historic location as this is the spot where Costa Rica was founded.
Gardens in Stonehenge.
Apparently this fella is a regular and a bit of a celebrity here.
The Basílica, it is actually owned by the Vatican, notice the Vatican flag on the right side. Here we drank holly water and did not get struck by lightning and also touched the famous statue of Virgin Mary for future good fortune.
This was a stunning church on the level of those found in Europe.
Now we return to San Jose where we visited many important places. I should say at this point that many times during the day we saw people with Venezuelan flags and people celebrating and honking horns, etc. Turns out there are many Venezuelans in this country and the Costa Rican folks are very supportive of those people. I was working hard to try to document these celebrations but so far in every case I had been unsuccessful.
Costa Rican parliament building. Our guide was not a fan of the architecture.
The National Museum of Art.
National Hero.
National Monument.
House of the Parliament Leader, the “Blue House”
Oh yeah, we gotcha American chicken and coffee.
The central market.
The streets of San Jose were very vibrant and active.
Finally, we decided to visit the location of the Venezuelan Embassy. I wanted some shots of people’s reaction to the day. There was quite a celebration going!
They were literally dancing in the streets and lots of cars drove by with raised hands and lots of honks.
If you notice in the background , the folks are either wearing Venezuelan shirts or USA shirts of some sort.
The lady on the left is from Nicaragua and was celebrating with the Costa Rican woman. This lady found out we from the States and with tears in her eyes thanked us over and over and kept saying Viva USA and God Bless America. It was all surreal. I told her several times that I don’t speak Spanish but she didn’t care, she went on for 5 or 10 minutes and I could tell me she was telling me about her kids and parents and friends.
Apparently there was a celebration planned here this evening where they expected thousands of people. I’m not sure how this all will turn out, but I can report here that the Venezuela expats and the Costa Ricans are extremely supportive of the day’s events.
davefaitlemonde.com 