Costa Rica is located in the Pacific Ring of Fire , a ring-shaped geological structure that contains most of the world’s volcanoes. In fact, this country has three hundred volcanic foci, of which about 5% remain active. One of them, located in the north, 27 km from Liberia, is known as Rincón de la Vieja and is the central element of an exciting legend.
In it, Curubandá, daughter of a tribal chief, falls in love with Mixcoac, the son of the rival caudillo. But their father does not bless their marriage; moreover, he murders the young man and throws his body into the volcano. Curubandá then decided to live in the forest and help the neighbors, because he knew the medicinal secrets of the plants. Over time, its fame increases and travelers begin to refer to the place as Rincón de la Vieja . Some believe that his spirit still haunts this 1916 m high volcano, which dominates a large national park.
Not far to the south is the Tenorio , a set of four volcanic peaks and two twin craters that also remains active. In the surrounding area, of great beauty, the Celeste river – named for the tonality of its waters – and its waterfall stand out. This is the setting for another of the local myths, starring Tenorí, a brave warrior who came to the defense of his beloved Eskameca and ended up with a monster that lived in a lake. Eskameca waited on the shore, but nothing else was heard from Tenorí, and the girl was consumed with grief. The memory of her loved one remained in the name of the Tenorio volcano. It is said that on certain afternoons you can see a pink heron and an unlucky heartthrob flying to the top. It is 168 km from San José, the Costa Rican capital, and is at an altitude of 1916 m, which makes it the second highest in the Guanacaste mountain range.
Poás, one of the most visited volcanoes in the country, also has its own fable. This assures that a maiden and a rualdo king bird lived on her skirts, who had become friends. One day, the Poas erupted. Unable to calm her fury, the inhabitants of the area decided to sacrifice the young woman, but then the bird flew in circles over the crater and offered her the harmony of her voice in exchange for the life of her friend. The volcano accepted, it was extinguished and from its emotional crying the lagoon that today crowns it was born. The Poás, which reaches an altitude of 2708 m, is located just 37 km from San José and is part of the impressive national park that bears its name. This covers an area of 5,600 hectares and is crossed by numerous trails that invite you to explore it.
The mystery of the stone spheres
The spectacular stone spheres of the Diquís Valley, in southwestern Costa Rica, are one of the most important pre-Columbian artistic manifestations that have survived to this day . They come in many sizes; some are around 20 centimeters in diameter and others exceed 2 meters, but all have an extraordinary invoice. We know that they were already carved around the year 400 BC. C. and that such a thing continued to be done until the Spanish colonized the area, so they must have been very important for the culture that erected them. However, its purpose is unknown , a mystery that brings archaeologists upside down.
Among the hypotheses that they consider, one maintains that they could have been used to mark a ceremonial enclave; another, that they were used as a sign of identity of a population or as a means of showing a certain social or political level. Sometimes they were arranged aligned, so some experts believe that they were related to the movements of the stars or agricultural cycles. Currently, most of it is in the Batambal, El Silencio, Finca 6 and Grijalba-2 deposits.
