The air was damp and hot as we meandered through the tropical rainforest in the Excaret park. Pools of sweat trickled down our backs as we made our way to first one adventure to the next. Inspite of the heat, it was all so much fun, we hardly even stopped to think about it how far we had walked by those first few days. Our feet and our calves were aching by the time we stopped, but the memories we were making were far more important to us than a few achy muscles or our sweaty clothes.
Since it was so hot it was so important to keep hydrated, which was actually kind of hard to do! We always took about 3 or 4 water bottles with us but it was definitely not enough for the whole day! We ended getting lots of icy, slushy cold drinks at all the random little shops along the way. The pina colada was definitely my favorite.
We spent two days exploring the butterfly house and the aviary, which were both two of my favorite things. It was so incredibly amazing, I told Jabel it was exactly how I would imagine heaven would be like. He agreed, except that we wouldn’t be sweating in heaven because it would be so perfect. 🙂
The butterfly house was like an enormous, larger than life greenhouse. There were plants and flowers of almost any kind growing in this lush environment. Winding trails and stairways took you up on top where you could walk through varieties of flowers and gardens and the butterflies were just everywhere!
I could’ve watched butterflies all afternoon! There were so many! I only always dreamed about encountering something like this, but now here I was actually experiencing it in real life! It was challenging to get good pictures of the butterflies because they moved so fast but I did get some good ones. One of the ones I wasn’t able to get was the Blue Morpho, a large butterfly with wings the color of a summer sky. It’s underside was completely brown with large eye spots and as soon as it landed anywhere, its wings would close up tightly so that only its underside was seen. It was my favorite butterfly and one that I’d only dreamed of seeing in heaven. To see it with my own eyes was mesmerizing!
I also enjoyed the monarchs and the random little green lizards that would pop out of the foliage and blink beady little eyes in my direction than hurry off to some random little nooks and crannies along the mossy stone walls.
After the first few days of walking and exploring in the hot sun, we decided to take the cave swim, Other than the enormous mosquitos, it was such a fun experience. I was actually surprised at myself because I am generally not a water person as I’m not a swimmer. However, this couldn’t be missed! Since it was a public area, you had to wear a life jacket so that was what did it for me. We floated through underground caves and tunnels and only once in awhile did we come out into daylight. We had gone early before the main crowd of tourists came in, so other than two other couples, we were the only ones swimming. It was so peaceful and truly memorable. Basically the only sounds we heard was either us talking or the monkeys and parrots chattering from somewhere in the jungle around us.
It was fun doing things that were normally outside of my comfort zone. I despise going into cold water and haven’t yet gone swimming here in Montana. But here, surrounded by rainforest and jungles in this exotic wonderland, with parrots and monkeys chattering overhead, it was too much excitement to not experience it! Jabel ended up doing the swim twice. I went back to explore more of the butterfly house and take more pictures and he did the swim again.
This concludes part two of our vacation. For more adventures, stay tuned for part 3 coming up soon! 🙂