The Butterfly Farm

Located in La Guacima, close to San Jose, the Butterfly Farm raises and collects the pupae of the thousands of tropical butterflies of Costa Rica, for export to museums and natural habitats all over the world. 

Here, two males compete in the mounting and fertilization of a female.  The farm includes a large netted-in area where visitors can see hundreds of butterflies following their complex life cycle in their natural habitat.

Complex, but not confusing, thanks to our very excellent tour guide, Claudio Munoz.  On the left, Claudio is showing Gary the various pupae of tropical butterflies, before they are packed and shipped in the boxes below.

On the right, these boxes of pupae, in which caterpillars are being transformed into butterflies, are marked "Live Butterflies, Fragile, RUSH!"

The butterfly on the left, the Blue Morphus, is one that can often be spotted in the rainforests of Costa Rica.  As Claudio explained to us, the Blue Morphus does not get its blue color from pigmentation.  Rather, it's transparent wing structure is so complex that it refracts light, creating the same blue that is created in the sky, where moisture refracts light.  In a way, the Blue Morphus is a little flying piece of sky.

Among the interesting things that Claudio taught us is that the word "butterfly" originated in old England from children pointing at them and saying, "flutter by." 

Canopy Tour

On the right, Rick is flying between trees by wheel and cable in the Valle Escondido or "Hidden Valley," which is 250 acres in the northern mountains of Costa Rica, between San Ramón and the Arenal Volcano.

You land on platforms built a top really tall trees, like the one on which we are standing on the left. Unfortunately, the noise is made traveling from tree to tree scares off the wildlife, making this activity more like an amusement park ride than a nature-viewing opportunity.     

For pure adrenaline rush, this canopy tour has some unique aspects.  In the afternoon, the clouds and fog built up so much that you really didn't know where you were going to land as you flew really fast through the air. The person at the other end of the cable would hit it when you seemed to be getting close, allowing you to slow down a bit by squeezing the cable with a thick glove and getting your feet up for impact.  Gary demonstrates below.

Manuel Antonio

In Manuel Antonio, we stayed for a second year at the Villas Nicolas.  Because of an extremely temperate climate year round, the villas are half open air, half enclosed, as was our villas pictured on the right.

The open air portion contains couches, chairs and a great hammock, in which Rick often slept the entire night. Although it's hard to see in the photo on the right, the Pacific Ocean is directly beyond the trees.

On our second visit to Costa Rica, we made a lot of great friends, including Roger, Mark and Carlos, with Gary on the right.

Jaco