Days 244 – 247: From the new to the old capital of Costa Rica

After the visit to the Starbucks farm, our following few days were uneventful and spent mostly working with a break to go see the new Tomb Raider movie at the cinema. We decided to pay a visit to the old capital of Costa Rica, Cartago, on Tuesday, March 27. The ride from the new capital to the old was short and simple at under an hour.

Our first stop in the city was at the ruins of the Santiago Apóstol Parish. Several churches had existed on this site since 1575; however, each kept getting destroyed by earthquakes. The final re-build attempt of the church at the site was started in 1870, but was halted for thirty years. It was re-started in the early 1900s before being completely cancelled in 1910 after the Santa Mónica earthquake. Talk about earthquake problems.

 

 

 

After a quick lunch, we took a walk through the relatively small, but somewhat charming city. Cartago had served as Costa Rica’s first capital from 1574. In 1823, the Republican leader Gregorio Jose Ramirez moved the capital to the larger San José due to Cartago’s desire to unite Costa Rica with the Iturbide’s Mexican Empire. The city had been severely damaged a few times from earthquakes and even sustained significant damage to surrounding agricultural areas in 1963 due to an eruption of Irazú Volcano.

 

We eventually made our way to the Basilica of Our Lady of the Angels. It is a Roman Catholic basilica that was built in 1639 and had also fallen victim to an earthquake; however, this is one of the structures that was restored and stayed standing. In August, it is visited by around 2.5 million believers from throughout the country, many of whom partake in the 22-kilometer walk to the basilica during the Romería (a short-distance Roman Catholic religious pilgrimage). Many pilgrims choose to crawl on their hands and knees throughout the entire 22-kilometer walk as a demonstration of their devotion.

 

 

Since we were done exploring the city quite early, we decided to visit the Irazú Volcano, the highest active volcano in Costa Rica that is under an hour’s ride from the old capital. The main crater is almost circular with inclined walls and measures 1,050 meters in diameter and 300 meters in depth. The day was sunny so the water in the crater appeared to be a vibrant turquoise in colour. Irazú is quite a feisty volcano that has erupted at least 23 times since its first historically-recorded eruption in 1723.

 

After a full day of sight-seeing, we made it back to San José without any earthquakes or volcanic eruptions and while it was still light outside. Thank you, forces of the universe!