Costa Rica: Tourist access to pre-Columbian city to be easier

Tourist access to pre-Columbian city to be easier

By the A.M. Costa Rica staff


Tourists visiting the Monumento Nacional Guayabo next year might find an elevated walkway covering nearly the entire length of the monument's protected area, some 700 meters long, about 2,300 feet.

This is one of the projects that the Ministerio de Cultura, Juventud y Deportes has in the works to increase tourist to the ancient city near Turrialba and to stabilize what exists there.

The monument has been in the news lately because it was named by the American Society of Civil Engineers an international historic civil engineering landmark. The monument, part of a city inhabited from about 1000 B.C. to about 1400 A.D., contains extensive water works and aqueducts. This is only the second pre-Columbian site in the Americas to receive such a designation. The first is Machu Picchu.

The site 11 kms (7 miles) north of Turrialba became a national monument in 1973. Although it is famous in archaeological circles, it ranks low on a must-see list of tourists. The protected area is 232 hectares or about 573 acres. The site is shaped like a guitar and runs along the Quebrada Cerdita. Much of the adjacent land is unprotected but certainly was part of the sprawling city.

Not until 1893 were archaeological artifacts systematically collected from the site, and the first major scientific excavations were not done until 1968. There is a lot of work to be done. During a session on the monument Wednesday night some connected with the site complained that the Universidad de Costa Rica has no plans to do a major study and that foreign universities might be solicited.

The walkway will be about two feet above the ground level, and it will provide wheelchair access to the bulk of the site, something that is not possible now with the rocky paths at the monument. Tourists will not have to circumvent the frequent mud.

Plans also call for putting in better restrooms. shaped like a pre-Columbian pyramid. Also in the words are better road signs to direct tourists to the monument.

Even with new construction, trying to keep


A.M. Costa Rica graphic

Arrow shows location of national monument



Guayabo intact is a chore. Experts Wednesday explained that leaf-cutter ants, lichen and water are the big enemies of the monument.

What is visible are petroglyphs, stone paths, walls and circular platforms where, it is presumed, structures stood. Heavy Costa Rican rains can erode the base of the strongest wall, despite the water channels constructed by the earlier Costa Ricans. But leafcutter ants, Atta cephalotes, also can do damage. They are fun to watch as the worker ants carry leaf cuttings to underground farms where fungus grows. But the experts Wednesday said that the ants can create giant chambers that undermine rock structures.

Lichen also seems harmless, but the tiny organisms create environments for other, most destructive growths, that can damage rock, said the experts.

Guayabo, located on the southern slope of Volcán Turrialba, was a population center of about 10,000 persons, archaeologists have estimated. Francisco Corrales, a former director of the Museo Nacional, said there was not a lot of contact between the Guayabo residents and the populations that fabricated the stone spheres in southwest Costa Rica. He is developing a museum of the spheres near Palmar Sur. However, he was one of the spectators Wednesday night at the presentation of the Guayabo plans. He said it was an important site.

A museum might be in the future for Guayabo. Museo Nacional staffers said that much of the artifacts excavated there is in storage. A museum at the site would be a way to display the objects