Stone Spheres of the Diquís

This is a kind of WHS visit that I always especially look forward to: remnants of an ancient culture. The Stone Spheres of the Diquís are mysterious stone balls, created by a Precolumbian Costa Rican civilization. With the help of Esteban I tried to get access to a second location in addition to the main site (Finca 6), but although I applied a month before it was not granted (the other 3 locations are not equipped to handle visitors during Covid times was the explanation). So I just focused on Finca 6, which lies in an area dominated by banana and palm oil plantations. The road there is signposted by a simple “Museum” sign.

The pre-trip efforts at least resulted in giving me free access (not something that I was after) and a guided tour of the museum and the archaeological site. The museum is small but shows that in addition to stone spheres, the Diquís also left ceramics and stone figurines.

Then we walked onto the site of the excavations. A trail takes you past the main points of what was once a settlement of about 500 inhabitants. It only takes a few minutes for the first sphere to come into sight. Before we could get closer, something happened that is also typical for this place: a load of bananas passed by! The land in this area has been used by the United Fruit Company (now: Chiquita) as a banana plantation since the 1930s. They use a …

Site just visited (November 2017). Initially I tried to visit some more places but all in all I managed to see only Finca 6. Currently due to high level of rainfall the site is oficially closed for visiting but after some negotiations with site guards I was able to see the site (althouh the exhibition part / museum was closed).

Finca 6 is easily accessible by bus from Palmar Norte town (take a bus heading to Sierpe and take off near the museum, its some 9 km from Palmar), come back the same way via Palmar Sur. The bus circulates every 45 minutes during the day. Entrance to the archeological site is around 300 m from the bus stop.

As everything was perfectly described by Esteban (great job done) I will focus on trying to find other sites. So after visiting Finca 6 I intend to see the closest place - Grijalba 2. I take off the bus near the airport and staretd to explore the area. After some hours of exploring places north of airport, questioning several local people I found nothing. Believe me - I spend some hours and local people can confirm that - it is not the place. Later on I realised that the coordinates of this particular place were completely wrong. The real place is located on the opposite side of the river, close to Osa municipalidad.

Correct location of Grijalba 2 archeological site are as follows: 8.981078, -83.522018, you can check …

I visited this site back on February 1st, 2015, on a two-day-trip. This was my first new site in 14 years and I am glad that I have managed to make the first review of it. I visited it as a part of an organized tour through cultural sites and traditions of the south east of Costa Rica, that was organized by Culturacr.com.

As part of the tour, me, my partner and a group of other 20 Costa Ricans and some resident Argentineans, traveled some 300 km to the cultural festival known as La Fiesta de los Diablitos (or the Party of the Little Devils), a tradition from the Boruca indian community which exists since colonial times, and takes place on the first weekend of January in Boruca Territory, and the first weekend of February in Rey Curré Territory, where we went. I thought it was the most interesting part of our journey, and is totally deserving of being in the Intangible Heritage List, in case it is ever nominated. I bought a mask, there is plenty of handicrafts at reasonable prices, made by the borucas themselves, who, after losing most of their own culture, are in the process of recovering it. The museum in site is in the shape of a U-suré, a traditional house representing their cosmology, and has a much better museology than I could imagine. Everything was a magical experience, the contact with another cultural tradition.

We were going to also visit the Terraba or Terbi …