Santa Cruz

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We arrived in Santa Cruz and immediately began to peel off our layers of clothes. It was almost as hot as it was in Virginia when we left (mid 80s). We stayed for a little less than a week at my cousin's house. He has two kids, his daughter is a few years older than Angelica and his son is 6 months older than Thomas. It was a perfect match and each of them had a play mate.
We spent a morning at the main Plaza and visited the San Lorenzo Cathedral there. The woodwork inside it was beautiful. There is a little museum inside it and off all the items it contained, the kids kept on talking about the world's smallest book of prayers that had the Lord's prayer in several different languages and was probably about 1/2 cm big. We also enjoyed the views from the belltower.
Brian had his first driving experience in Santa Cruz when my cousin lent us his Discovery to drive the kids to the Guembe Biocenter. We took our two kids, his two and another little niece of ours. Yes, Brian and I and FIVE kids! They were all great, maybe even a little scared that Brian was behind the wheel and stayed super quiet while he drove and I co-piloted.
The Center was huge. It has a butterfly farm, orchid exhibit and the most popular with the kids was the aviary center. We spent a long time there with the parrots and peacocks. We had lunch and ended the day with a horse drawn ride through the center and ice cream!

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