Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Information
There's no official tourist office, but most hotels and rafting outfits can organize tours, ac-
commodations and transportation throughout the region.
9am-4pm Mon-Fri)
One of
two banks on this corner with 24-hour ATMs.
2556-4575; cnr Av 2 & Calle 4; per hr US$0.80;
8am-9pm
Mon-Sat, to noon Sun)
Getting There & Away
A modern bus terminal is located on the western edge of town off Hwy 10.
San José via Paraíso and Cartago
US$2.80, 1¾ hours, departs hourly from 5am to
6:30pm.
Siquirres, for transfer to Puerto Limón
US$2.30, 1½ hours, departs every 60 to 90
minutes from 6am to 6pm.
Monumento Nacional Arqueológico Guayabo
Nestled into a patch of stunning hillside forest 19km northeast of Turrialba is the largest
and most important archaeological site in the country.
Guayabo
( 2559-1220; adult/child
6-12yr US$6/1; 8am-3:30pm)
is composed of the remains of a pre-Columbian city that was
thought to have peaked at some point in AD 800, when it was inhabited by as many as
20,000 people. Today visitors can examine the remains of petroglyphs, residential mounds,
an old roadway and an impressive aqueduct system - built with rocks that were hauled in
from the Río Reventazón along a cobbled, 8km road. Amazingly, the cisterns still work,
and (theoretically) potable water remains available onsite.
The settlement, which may have been occupied as early as 1000 BC, was mysteriously
abandoned by AD 1400 and Spanish explorers left no record of ever having found the ru-
ins. For centuries, the city lay largely untouched under the cover of the area's thick high-
land forest. But in 1968, archaeologist Carlos Aguilar Piedra of the University of Costa
Rica began systematic excavations of Guayabo, finding polychromatic pottery and gold ar-
tifacts that are now exhibited at San José's Museo Nacional.
