La Copa del Sol

After polo we went to La Copa del Sol at Costa Careyes.  The founder of  Costa Careyes had a dream to create a man and women united by the cosmos while bathed in the sun.

The drive in was very interesting.

Saw these yurts on the way.  The  designs and colors were amazing.

This looked like the entrance to the yurt compound.  Have no idea what the yurts were being used for.

These huge statues looked like they were made out of straw.  Have no idea why they were there.

The beach side of the statues.

The first look at La Copa del Sol from the beach.

The lighthouse just before the parking lot where we walked into 

La Copa del Sol.

La Copa del Sol rises 35 feet from it's base and 88 feet in diameter.

Stairs going up.  Seemed a bit shaky near the top.

Some of the views walking in.

Some of the buildings in Costa Careyes.

The artist Kenny Scharf stayed in Costa Careyes in 2012 and as a project painted the building with the help of kids.  It has faded but still an interesting building.

POLO

We have the Costa Careyes Polo Club about 20 miles South of us.  People come from all over the World to play on the fields.  We attended for the first time and we had a wonderful announcer that explained the game as we watched.

You are so busy watching the riders and the ball you don't notice the horses and the work they do for the riders.  The horses have special bits in their mouths with a plastic piece on the outside of their mouths, so when they are reined in it won't hurt their mouths.  They have what amounts to an ace bandages on their lower legs to support it and some also have another piece of rubber on top, to protect them should they be hit with the ball or a mallet.  Not being a horse person, I don't know all the technical terms.  I think the announcer told us, but it didn't stick in my memory.

Some of the horse do not belong to the riders, they in essence rent them for the event.  Imagine the  challenge to ride a horse in a competition you have never ridden before.  During the game riders can change horses.  The mallets come in different lengths to suit the rider.

Enjoy the pictures.

Look how hard this horse was reined in.

The scoreboard, updated manually. 

A bunch up going for the ball.

Who can get it first?

Trip to La Huerta

We had to go to La Huerta to pay the house taxes and the car registration fee.  La Huerta is about an hour and a half drive.  These are some of the sights on the trip.  We passed fields of corn, sugar cane, bananas, and coco nuts.

The road seems narrow because of all the grass that grows along side of the road.

Some of the views

 A beautiful ranch wall.

We take the cobblestone bypass around the town of Villa Purification to avoid going thru the center of town.

  The town was built in 1533.                                

Workers following the dump truck, filled with sugar cane.

Sugar cane field.

  

 The main road into La Huerta.  Not sure if the flags were left from the holidays, or the town was celebrating a special day.

    La Huerta town square.

                          Pharmacy and magazine store.

Ice Cream Store.                                  

     Post Office.       

A few dresses for confirmation.

Bananas and Coco Nut trees.  Often grown together.

 A truck hauling cantaloupe.

The entrance to the town of Melaque.  Shoring up the river bank with rock to help with flooding.








 New taxis in Melaque.

                                                                     A  bird's nest you often find hanging over the roadway.

   

 A truck walking the ?donkey?.