Cachi and Ujarras

02/06/09
Today was spent visiting Cachi and the ruins of Ujarras. A very kind man gave up his seat on the bus so that we would have a better view of the coffee plantations on the way. They also grow local vegetables in the area including chayote and ayote, which are similar to squash. I have already tried chayote; Vic of course has not :) About a twenty minute walk from the centre of Cachi, there is a huge dam, so we got off the bus early to have a proper look and enjoy the walk into town. On the way we visited the 'casa del soñador' (the dreamer´s house) which is a small shop filled with handcarved wooden sculptures. The place seems to be quite famous, as upstairs they have several newspaper cuttings plastered on the walls, but the sculptures themselves weren´t really our thing so we didn´t buy one. Cachi itself is a very small and quiet town, and we didn't spend much time there.

After some lunch, we got back on the bus to head to Ujarras. The one thing to see there are the ruins of an old church, which again lie about a twenty minute walk from the nearest bus stop. The ruins are situated in a small park and are not visible from the road we were on, so we almost walked right past them. Luckily, at that moment there was another group there and the driver kindly pointed us in the right direction. Later on our way back, that same driver, with a minibus full of students, slowed down next to us and offered us a lift. We think they were originally headed for Orosi, where we had been to the day before, but when we told them that we were going to Cartago, the driver offered to take us there instead. The students were from a school in San Ramon, and they were on day trip for their tourism studies. They were very a great group of people and were interested to know where we were from, and where we had been to in Costa Rica. Although they had already visited Cartago that day, they were going again for our benefit, and we are very grateful to all of them for the lift and the brilliant company. It was such a pleasure to meet them and they really made our day.