Climbing inside a ficus tree! Read Ryan's blog for more..... We left Rancho El Rio where it was very dry. Traveling on a curvy, bumpy, dusty gravel road to Monteverde took a long time even though it wasn't that far away.
When we first got out of the car we yelled, "Oh man it is cold! We need sweatshirts!" I thought Costa Rica was a place where you wore a swimsuit every day. Not in Monteverde! It was a nice surprise.
After we got settled into the house we decided we would grab some lunch, visit the Monteverde Butterfly Gardens, and go on a chocolate tour.
The butterfly gardens also had a creepy crawlers section. Inside there was a giant cockroach named Timmy. Our guide told us how they have a bad reputation for being dirty and gross. Actually they have a cute face if you turn them over to look and they are quite clean. She even put Timmy in her mouth to prove it! My favorite was the stick insect. They are so well camouflaged they look exactly like a stick. They asked me to release a newly formed blue morpho butterfly into the butterfly garden. I learned that you can touch a butterfly's wings as long as you do it carefully.
When we first got out of the car we yelled, "Oh man it is cold! We need sweatshirts!" I thought Costa Rica was a place where you wore a swimsuit every day. Not in Monteverde! It was a nice surprise.
After we got settled into the house we decided we would grab some lunch, visit the Monteverde Butterfly Gardens, and go on a chocolate tour.
The butterfly gardens also had a creepy crawlers section. Inside there was a giant cockroach named Timmy. Our guide told us how they have a bad reputation for being dirty and gross. Actually they have a cute face if you turn them over to look and they are quite clean. She even put Timmy in her mouth to prove it! My favorite was the stick insect. They are so well camouflaged they look exactly like a stick. They asked me to release a newly formed blue morpho butterfly into the butterfly garden. I learned that you can touch a butterfly's wings as long as you do it carefully.
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The chocolate "tour" was actually learning all about the history of cocoa beans and different ways to make chocolate. While roasting cocoa beans, he told us different facts such as how beans were used for money by the Mayans 3500 years ago. The aroma of the roasting beans smelled like brownies cooking! However, when they were finished they didn't taste like brownies. He put them through a homemade blower machine to knock the papery shells off. Next he ground them up and kept grinding until they became liquid. He mixed this with hot milk, sugar and vanilla. It was pretty good. Finally, he talked a bunch about tempering and crystallization. It was boring and I didn't understand most of it because I was busy thinking about eating the chocolate!
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On Wednesday Melvin, our guide, took us to his family's farm. It is called an Ecología Finca which means it is an ecological preserve. They work to keep the wildlife and their habitats happy and healthy. Melvin's sister has a pizza restaurant there and they have a place to feed the birds. So many birds came to eat off banana pieces. I now have my favorite bird of Costa Rica it is called the blue crowned mot mot. Zelmira is also a painter. She was working on handmade cards and books. I was touched when she gave me a toucan card she had painted. We went on a long hike. Along one section we saw puma tracks from the night before. Melvin was very excited about the prints, "¡Muy increíble!"
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Later that day we stopped by the Hummingbird Gallery. It is a store and cafe with many feeders outside. Hundreds of humming birds were zipping all around. It was a feeding frenzy! There were so many different colors and sizes of birds. It was a great experience!
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