Costa Rica cont.

So I left off with the touchie touchie bird. God he was cute! We then moved on into a butterfly room which was way cool. A particular butterfly featured was a gorgeous blue variety native to Costa Rica. They were quite friendly as you can see:

Now wait, didn't I say it was a blue butterfly? This is the cool part about these guys, they have this neutral (but still very pretty pattern) color on the outside of their wings, but on the inside its a lovely jewel blue. So when they're flying around its harder for predators to get a bead on them because all they see are flashes of color. This guy was too shy to open his wings for me ;) So I shot a picture of one of his buddies who had no problem showing off his blue.

Lovely little fellow isn't he? Imagine a room full of hundreds of these guys flapping away. Makes you giggle like a little girl, and yes I was one of those wierd people that would 'baby talk' to the butterflies to get them to land on me, hehe. Butterflies have feelings too you know ;)

Which brings me to this cute guy. For some reason I was more taken with this green butterfly than any of the others. I know, its green. No pop or pizzazz amongst the foliage like his wings 'aren't ripe yet'. But I loved them, and I'm not even a huge green person. And doesn't he look just lovely on this yellow flower? Too cute. Also cute, this little shit was a smart ass as well. As I'm cooing at him to be a good little butterfly and hold still so I can get his picture, his next move after I got this shot was to flit off the flower and come land on my thumb. That was attatched to the hand holding the camera. And the other hand still had the blue butterfly on it, so there I was with a butterfly in each hand and unable to get a picture of either. Oh how I wish one of my travel mates was nearby and could have got a shot of that, I'm sure the look on my face was something along the lines of, 'Well....shit!'

And heres my favorite waterfall shot, I know, you can't see the waterfall all that well but tough! Cause lookie! I caught a rainbow! Now it gets to live forever in my computer ;)

This plant is awesome!! Costa Rica just has the coolest plants, bromeliads mostly, but also orchids. This? I don't know what this is. But if you look, the yellow parts are actually *furry*, too cool!! And I loved that it looks like a bunch of flamingoes stacked on top of each other.

This is the lazy ocelot. I think if I was a cat in the jungle that would be my favorite position too.

Oh, bigger kitty. They called this a panther, cougar, mountain lion, puma, and a jaguar. I wasn't going to correct the guy. Cougar, mountain lion, and puma are interchangeable, but not jaguar or panther. Long list of names and penetrating gaze aside, check out her muscles!! The massage therapist in me is way impressed and I would love to get my hands on her with out being puma-slapped. After swimming with the dolphins in Florida where I ended up palpating it and trying to assess its musculature (fascinating!), I've accepted the fact that I have a muscle fetish. Ahem.

These flowers smelled like honey suckles back home. They look kind of like them too, but ours are less 'tropically'.Another cool plant! This is like the upside down less fuzzy version of the flamigo stack plant from earlier.

So that was our out day. I'm saving all the yoga, bellydance, and 'spa-ish' stuff for my final post as its more reflective. Be back soon.