On our way to a Butterfly Farm

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Geo: 9.81165, -85.3099

So it's 8:31 am on Wednesday (I think!) and we will be leaving for a Butterfly Farm that is supposed to be 10-15 minute drive away. I put on long pants, socks, and shoes, it's hooootttttttt here already. I also want to drop by a market and hopefully get some pineapple jelly, as I've never seen it in the states and it was really good at Locanda. There you have it the agenda for the day.

Not really sure what to expect except butterflies, so will update when I get back and after a dip in the ocean probably!
Pura Vida!
Wendy

Update: 5:34 pm

Well, it was an amazing tour with a guide, "Mike", who is passionate about etymology and his business that it made me interested! We started off under a shaded area with a small "store" attached. He had several display cases with butterfly's of all kinds in one, in another 2 large blue morpho's (we didn't see any live ones), rare and then in the third a HUGE grasshopper!
After an introductory talk we went on a hike through the jungle, saw many different kinds of butterfly's as well as termite nests that were HUGE, helicopter damselfly (saw 5 of those, rather rare to see), a couple of spiders, a HUGE tree root system that houses bats, and again some howler monkeys. Mike surprised me when he poked a stick into one of the termite nests and ATE a few!!!!! Dan and Jim quickly followed suit, I have the photos to prove it! My camera battery died so I took a photo of Jim eating termites but it didn't take....

When we got back to his place, we sat down and tasted probably 4 - 5 different kinds of raw honey, none of them tasted even remotely like the honey in the bear we buy at the store. One kind tasted kind of like molasses, one had a tart taste to it, they were all good and I do not like honey but I could eat these. When I get home I may try to buy some raw local honey. He has his own bee hives and will even use the Africanized bees introduced to the area, he will get rid of their queen and substitute a gentler breed of queen to them. There is much more to that story but I can't tell it, Google The Butterfly Farm in Guanacaste, Costa Rica. Mike is from the Bronx, was in the Air Force as an etymologist, and decided to move here permanently 11 years ago, he now has a "Tico" wife and 9-year-old daughter. Loves his life here! He is quite the entrepreneur with his honey, coconut oil, cough syrup/dressing, soaps, lip balm, mead.... I bought a bar of his homemade soap made out of coconut oil, honey, and coconut milk (I think). His lip balm is the original Burts Bees recipe, that they don't use now! It is coconut oil, beeswax, honey.

We asked him where he'd go to dinner and got two recommendations, one was a mom and pop restaurant just down the road, with the "best guacamole". We then drove over there as we were starving after our 3.5-hour tour that flew by it was so interesting. We ate a very authentic Costa Rican meal, I had the chicken fajitas and even had the guacamole for the first time (totally jumping over my comfort zone ;-). ) and I really enjoyed it, everyone said it was exceptional guacamole. The restaurant was decorated with a Christmas tree, a few Santa posters, and all the tables had new red cloths with ornaments, trees, etc...on them.

After this, we stopped by a teeny tiny market and I bought the only container of pineapple marmalade they had so am looking forward to eating that in the morning. Jim bought some bread with a little Nutella inside, very enjoyable.

We were all soaking wet from sweating here.... So when we got back to the house, got the swimsuits on and went down to the beach and enjoyed the water. Came back for a little pinochle then blog updating (now) while waiting for our dinner that Dan and Kathy are making for us tonight.

Hope everyone is doing well up in the cold north! It's very weird to see Christmas stuff down here in the sun and heat... Just doesn't seem to go together!

P.s. Our resident Cayman is still here, today was very still in the same spot for hours with just his snout sticking out of the water.

P.p.s Jim took a great photo of him yesterday and I just posted it on yesterday's entry. I'll be calling him "Hungry", actually we don't know if he's a Cayman or a saltwater croc if someone knows feel free to comment and enlighten us.

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Comments

[rachel.lenore]

Can't wait to hear about how this trip went!