Mindo Part II - The Butterfly Farm

After our walk down the mountain from our first hike in Mindo (which turned out to be over two miles down - but the kiddos powered through), we headed to the Hosteria Mariposas de Mindo (http://www.mariposasdemindo.com/) aka the butterfly farm. This would have been amazing just based on the butterflies - but it also turned out to have a fantastic resturant and we were famished from our hike.

One of the first things that was brought to our table was a pitcher of water and glasses with ice in them. Of course we were all well trained by now to avoid all water that didn't come from a bottle and ice was definitely out. Our server could see that we weren't planning to drink the water, and so she sweetly informed us that all of their water (and ice!) was filtered - so it was fine to drink. We, particularly A and N, were ecstatic and slammed glass after glass of ice water.

After we ordered our food, the owner came over and asked if we wanted to go in to see the butterflies while our food was cooking, as it was sunny out and they were active. We jumped at the chance and into the butterfly area we went.

The first thing we saw was all of the cool chrysalides (I had to look up the plural). There were several that were so iridescent that they looked metallic. The owner explained that those are from butterflies that dwell near water, so the chrysalis can blend in with the reflections.

Then on to the coolest part - the owner showed us how to pick up some rotten banana on our fingers and then coax the butterflies (including the huge blue morphos) up onto our fingers to eat. It was so cool and N and A just bounced from butterfly to butterfly studying them as they went. We finally went back out and had some delicious food - but the highlight for me (other than the ice) was seeing the thrill and curiosity in my kids holding butterflies.

I even got to hold some

notice the tongue out in concentration :)