Oxcart Rounds in Sarchi for Ailsa’s Travel Theme

I see that Ailsa has also chosen ‘Round’ as her travel theme this week. I’ve already done Sue’s ‘Round’ Word a Week challenge, here, but have a few pics which I didn’t use yet.

Last year, we were in Sarchi, a charming artisan town in Costa Rica. It’s the country’s most well known art and craft centre, and is most famous for it’s colourfully painted ox carts and oxen yokes.

In one of the studios, and watched the artists at work. Those of you who saw my Silent Sunday ‘Colourful Eruption’, might guess that it was photographed in this studio.

This one was painting a lovely bird on an umbrella to be sold in the gift shop.

It must take a lot of concentration and precisions to paint something this beautiful and so very intricate.

The shop was full of beautiful souvenirs to purchase, but I decided that an oxcart was a bit big to fit into my suitcase.

Out in the garden, was an original oxcart, which would have been pulled by a pair of oxen, to transport coffee beans and sugar cane to market. In this mountainous country, these carts were the main mode of transportation. Each region of Costa Rica had its own particular oxcart design, and the driver’s origin could be identified by the patterns painted on his cart’s wheels.

Today, oxcarts play an important role in parades and religious celebrations. As were leaving the town, we passed by the ‘Worlds Largest Oxcart’, a huge brightly painted ‘Carreta’ that sits in the Parque Central in front of the church. This masterpiece was built in 2006 in order to get the town’s name into the Guinness Book of Records.

I hope you’ve enjoyed seeing these colourful wheels for Ailsa’s challenge. To see more entries for the challenge, just click on the link.

I see that this is my 100th post on this blog. How should I celebrate?

 

 

 

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