Sarchi, February 25th.

Today, we decided to visit Sarchi, a town known for its furniture, ox carts and souvenirs. It was not too far from San Ramon and we did not have to drive on any dirt roads. We still had to avoid people walking on the road, dogs loose without a lead, potholes and parked cars in all the wrong places.
The town of Sarchi was not very large so it was not too difficult to find the right place despite there being no street signs. There does not appear to be a street sign or road number anywhere in the whole of Costa Rica.
We were greeted by a wonderfully painted ox cart similar to the ones used in the early 1900s to carry sugar cane.

Nowadays, they are used for decoration only. There were a couple of painters on duty whilst we were there. It was interesting to see them paint the wood.

The "factory" making the oxcarts dates back to 1923 and all the equipment is water driven including the lathe, band saw and sander.

Unfortunately for us, we visited on a Sunday and there were no workers present. However, this man spotted us looking at the equipment, came across to us and gave us a tour, explanation of the equipment and a demonstration of the water wheel and the belt driven lathe. He spoke excellent English which made the tour even more interesting.
After a visit to the "factory" it was time to visit the souvenir shop which was richly decorated on the outside.

A close up of the oval in the centre was really beautiful.

The wall to the side of the souvenir shop also had a lovely painting. Whoever had painted them was really talented.

So ended our visit to Sarchi. On the way home we passed a hill using tyres as a retaining wall.

When we looked closer at the hill to the side of our bungalow, we saw that it, too had a retaining wall made of tyres but they had become covered up with vegetation.
This is a short blog as we are preparing to go to Arenal Volcano tomorrow so I have to prepare for the trip. The volcano is still active having steam vents coming out of the side. I have seen several volcanoes - Teide in the Canary Islands, Vesuvius in Italy, Etna in Sicily, Mt St Helens in the States so I am looking forward to seeing Arenal. I have heard that Arenal is symmetrically shaped and that it is difficult to see the cone most days because of clouds. Here's hoping we get a clear day.