The Atenas Ox Cart Parade

Many years ago the President of Costa Rica ruled that to get with the times and to give Costa Rica a place in the world, Costa Rica needed to have some sort of cash crop. He decided that it was going to be Coffee. But not just any coffee, Arabica coffee was the only thing that Costa Rica could grow.

He gave land grants to people willing to grow coffee, tax breaks, etc. For a dictator, this was a pretty forward thinking thing to do.

If you do not know,Costa Rica is a mountainous country. and I means some pretty big mountains.  The only way for the farmers to get their coffee beans to the local markets was to go over these mountains and then down to the coast.

How did they do this? Yep, you probably guessed by the title of the blog, by oxcart.

The oxcart has a long history here in Costa Rica and has evolved into a  National Labor Symbol. In fact it became official when it was designated the National Labor Symbol on March 22, 1988.

Living in Atenas there are coffee growers all over.

My neighbor across the street last year alone harvested about 2500 lbs of coffee.

My friend Gabriel and his family is blazing the organic trail out at El Toledo Coffee plantation.

And everywhere you go, you see people growing coffee in their own yards. Talk about a prolific plant.

Ever year the people of Atenas holds their Ox Cart Parade. Some of these are sponsored, but a lot are truly working ox carts that still go up and down the mountains here to haul the coffee down the mountains.

So this is a tradition that is embedded in the culture. You see the pride in the ox cart drivers. They work hard at painting their carts, taking care of the oxen and proudly walk in the parade every year.

This is Costa Rica and it was so neat to be part of this event and see it first hand.