South America, in paticular Lifuchi puts focus on Costa Rica this month on culture buzz. Explore a part of Costa Rica where a very interesting cultural festival takes place every once a year. This cultural festival involves crocodiles, big scary crocodiles. That’s right, a little reptile adventure! Crocodiles are a very common river feature in Costa Rica.
Easter in this part of the world is celebrated with well, a slight twist from the traditional easter eggs shared at this time. The people of Ortega de Santa Cruz which is just north of San Jose celebrate what is called the ‘crocodile festival’.
The festival is for visitors like Lifuchi, quite an adrenaline rush, but for the people of Ortega de Santa Cruz, it is a part of their culture and heritage. In this town, the locals have celebrated this tradition for two hundred years. In olden days, part of the ritual of catching the crocodile would be to sacrifice it (kill it) as the people believed that the corocodile has healing powers.
Nowadays, however, due to strict conservation policies by local government and environmentalists, the crocodiles are no longer slain but rather captured for the period of the festival and then returned to their natural habitat after a few days.
The crocodile festival begins on Good Friday, when the locals get up early in the morning to go to the banks of the river. This is the adrenaline filled part. Mostly the men drive down to the river in pick-up trucks with huge nets. Upon arrival at the river, the nets are carefully loaded off the trucks and are then taken to the river banks.
By this time, the banks of the river are filled with locals mainly the women and children as most of the men are preparing to put the nets in the river. Lots of tourists also line the banks of the river to witness this unique cultural event.
The men then identify their catch, and when they are ready they jump into the river and spread the nets across from end to end. They also carry sticks with them and once the nets are in place, they hit the water and make noise to attract their crocodile.
This is a very scary process as they are in chest high water infested with crocodiles and all they have with them are sticks and a net that will hopefully capture the beast. On this day, as the crocodile approached it would come close, get to the net and wildly swirl around and swim away.
This process continued for half an hour until finally, it was exhausted and the men closed in on it with their nets. The crocodile was carried out of the river very carefully and about a dozen men loaded the creature into a truck and drove down town.
The crocodile is put on display in a secure shade where it is to spend the rest of the weekend. Locals and visitors alike can admire the croc here and can even touch it. A great catch, a great start to a weekend and in true tico style, its time to go and party!
On Easter Sunday, once the celebrations have calmed down, the men return to the shade where the crocodile was kept through the weekend. The croc is carefully lifted back into the truck and driven down to the river where it was captured.
It is then loaded off the truck and carefully, a half a dozen men remove the nets and ropes from the croc’s legs and mouth. They then move away from the reptile to allow a safe distance. This particular croc was not very aggressive and found its way down the river banks and slid into the water and calmly subsided. The ritual is meant to remind the people of Ortega that the crocodile is the main symbol of their culture.
A unique experience are the words to use to describe the crocodile festival and this interesting culture of the people of Ortega de Santa Cruz. That’s all from culture buzz this month. Till next month.
