Butterfly

We stopped to take more photos of the birds at the feeding places then got on the bus for the drive up out of the narrow steep valley and into the Pan American Highway to San Jose. On the way we stopped to drop off some contributions to a rural primary school. Everybody gets free education till Grade 6. The children were off on a field trip as the schools close soon for the long holiday. Traditionally the dry season (!} was the time the children were needed to help with harvesting the crops. The school had a few old Compaq computers for the pupils, but the head had a modern one. Her office was also a classroom. The children got a free lunch.

Our next stop was at a small dairy farm which Aurora ran with her sister and a hired hand. They had Jersey cows and made kilos of cheese everyday. It went, one day old, to local shops and hotels. We were given a “snack” of cheese and home made tortillas, cheese biscuits, corn cakes and fresh blackberry juice. She explained the cheese-making process and showed us round her house and beautiful garden where we saw a lovely butterfly.

On the drive we encountered a few places were one half of the road had disappeared over the edge in a landslide caused by the rain. The traffic was very slow in the city but eventually we reached our hotel. Our room was on the busy bus route this time so I asked if it was possible to change to another. We are now in an enormous “suite” - one part of a huge room contains a sofa and TV plus a small table and 2 chairs. It’s bigger than our living room at home, though quite shabby. The other half has a giant bed with another TV. a desk, chairs, wardrobe and en suite bathroom.

We went out to have a look round the Jade Museum. It was vast, explaining how jade was used to make objects for use by the shamen with thousands of objects on display fashioned in varying shades of jade from almost creamy white to dark green. There were also hundreds of Pre-Colombian pots on show. It was raining by the time we got back.