A couple days ago I went to this site, as it is only a short walk from where I have been staying in Panajachel. The reserve is tucked into a little corner of a small valley, and you have the option of walking the trail, or paying more and walking to the top and Ziplining back and forth the whole way down.
Personally, I was there to see the wildlife and the jungle, so I walked. The reservation was created by a couple who originally set it up as a coffee plantation, and the coffee plants are still there - some of them well over 15 feet tall (really more like coffee trees at that point) and they are growing amongst a little jungle. The path consitsts of a series of very short walks connected by suspension bridges, which make our Vancouver suspension bridges seem like concrete walkways. The signs say only six people on at a time - I was glad to be alone, and wouldn't want to watch six average sized adults try to cross.
But the park itself (the bridges really are part of the experience) is beautiful - tall trees overhang the valley with vines falling down all around as you cross from side to side over a streem below, before coming to a little observation deck, where you can watch a family of resident monkeys hanging out (literally) as well as watching the zipliners criss crossing back and forth overhead.
A couple bridges later, you cross in front of a narrow waterfall falling about 60 feet from a cliff above, and then the trail loops back around.
The walk takes about 45 minutes if you walk slowly, and I was glad to be there midmorning on a weekday, therefor not having to deal with many groups of tourists from Pana or the other Lake towns.
Next is the little butterfly garden, which is just a piece of the jungle with a net over it and a small building where several glass cages contain caterpillars and coccoons of various types at various stages of - whatever that process is called.
The only real difference in the butterfly garden, aside from the butterflys (how do you make that plural?) is that it has many different flowers growing in it, for obvious reasons, so it is a little extra pretty. The butterflys aren't exactly swarming, but there are a few cool ones, and I have noticed that in general there's lots of butterflys in the wild here, so it was interesting to get a little closer.
The process is called metamorphosis. The plural of butterfly is butterflies. End of English lesson! Maybe you've been speaking so much Spanish, you're forgetting. :)
ReplyDeleteLooking forward to the rest of the photos.