"El Boyero" – Liberia, Guanacaste Province, Costa Rica

A "Boyero" is the Spanish term describing the teamster who drives an ox cart. Before motorized trucks, ox carts were the primary means of transporting goods for Costa Rican farmers. These carts were large and made almost entirely of wood.

The cart and oxen were extremely important for the development of the coffee plantations, which came about in the 1820`s. They transported the coffee beans to the port of Puntarenas, from where they were shipped to Europe. The ox cart drivers required little training and typically traveled barefoot at night with a lamp. They used a staff made from citrus wood measuring 6 and a half feet long and almost one inch thick in order to guide the harness of the oxen. They frequently also used a type of whip with three braids that was flexible and serve to prompt the oxen.

In the year 2000, a sculpture was raised in homage to an ox cart driver from Guanacaste named Heriberto Rodríguez Chinchilla. It was created by the artist Johnny García Clachar. The sculpture shows the ox cart driver leading the cart and was constructed from cement, marble, and porcelain. It measures some 4 feet in height and 25 feet in length.