Sun, Snow and Serpents

Wow! Finally! It only took 7 days, but the sun in shining, the sky is blue and it is CALIENTE! (Hot, gringos!) This morning, we took a little walk up the hill to see the 3 snow capped mountains. But we weren’t fast enough and by the time we got to a viewing place, the clouds were rolling in. I did manage a couple of pictures where you can see some snow on the mountains. Que lastíma! Hopefully we’ll get another opportunity before we leave. Snow capped mountains are called los nevados in español.

We stopped at a playground on the walk back home and the kids got to play. It was very wet and after a big chocolate lab started peeing on everything we left. Gross me out. His, and yes I know for a fact it was a he, owner was right there, just smoking a cigarette. I mean honestly, it’s one thing if a stray dog pees at the kids’ playground, but when an idiot owner deliberately brings her mongrel to a KIDS PLAYGROUND with CHILRDEN PLAYING and lets him run wild… C’MON PEOPLE!

When we came home the Little Dude and I took a shower. I wanted to take one last night but was just too tired. And the Little Dude had been stripped down to his diaper, at the playground, b/c he had mud all over his clothes. We dried and dressed and loaded into the car for a little surprise. CC drove us to a Museum and Protected Park at the top of a hill next to Manizales. Our tour guide was named, get this, Fabio. He was cute. Not like Fabio the model, but normal cute. And he gave us our tour in English. From the main building you could see all of Manizales. I took some panoramic pics. I can’t wait to be able to play with my photos!

The museum is the oldest in Manizales, 80+ years. It is very small and contains taxidermy animals and insects. 80% of the species are native to Manizales, 15% are native to Colombia and 5% are from other parts of the world.

We saw the most beautiful butterflies. Some bigger than your hand, down to itty bitty teeny weensy ones, the size of your pinky nail. And the spiders were totally freaky. I’ll probably have nightmares. We also saw a huge anaconda skin; it looked about 15 ft long. Yeah, it was a BABY! Cha! The idea is that you walk through the museum then tour the forest and see how many different species of insects and birds you recognize. But, since we’ve had rain EVERY SINGLE DAY there is the threat of landslides, so the forest is closed.

They have a little enclosed play area for los niños. They had a ball pool – The Little Dude was in HEAVEN. And an enclosed trampoline, and 35m slides. The kiddies had a blast. We took lots of pics and videos. We started to get hungry so we came home. Just as we pulled out of the Park the clouds rolled in and it started to sprinkle. Perfect timing!

So now I’m upstairs with the Little Dude while he sleeps. The Dude and CC went to her cobbler to tighten a brad on his new sandals and the Little Mermaid is playing in the other room. We had white fish (probably Tilapia) with rice and potatoes in a saffron coloured sauce. It’s called Widower Fish. Not sure why, but I love fish, so I was happy. The Little Mermaid even got second helpings on fish!

Soon, Dude and CC will come back and then CC and I will run some errands.

More later Amigos!